Excerpt: 'Rogue Spy' by Joanna Bourne

Many a historical romance fan is waiting eagerly to get their hands on Rogue Spy, book five in Joanna Bourne's Spymaster series. Rogue Spy features the much-anticipated story of Pax and Camille. And HEA gets to share an excerpt with you!

First, here's the blurb (courtesy of Berkley):

For years he'd lived a lie. It was time to tell the truth . . . even if it cost him the woman he loved.

Ten years ago he was a boy, given the name Thomas Paxton and sent by Revolutionary France to infiltrate the British Intelligence Service. Now his sense of honor brings him back to London, alone and unarmed, to confess. But instead of facing the gallows, he's given one last impossible assignment to prove his loyalty.

Lovely, lying, former French spy Camille Leyland is dragged from her safe rural obscurity by threats and blackmail. Dusting off her spy skills, she sets out to track down a ruthless French fanatic and rescue the innocent victim he's holding—only to find an old colleague already on the case. Pax.

Old friendship turns to new love, and as Pax and Camille's dark secrets loom up from the past, Pax is left with a choice—go rogue from the Service or lose Camille forever…

Excerpt from Rogue Spy:

She slept dark and dreamlessly. Someone touched her face.

She came up clawing. Hitting out with the heel of her hand. Then he had her wrists trapped, caught, pushed to the straw she slept upon. A ton of solid muscle held her down. Her legs tangled in the wool of her cloak, kicking uselessly.

Shadows resolved into a face leaning over her. He said, "Don't fight me."

Devoir. It was Devoir.

She froze.

His fingers settled to a better grip on her wrists. He said, "Hello again, Vérité."

She could curl upward, ram her head into his face, break his nose ...

And that was an exercise in the futile. Even if he didn't know exactly what she was planning, and she was quick enough to batter him raw, he wouldn't let go. You could grind Devoir neatly into sausage and he wouldn't let go.

His body pressed like rocks. His breath blew hot on her face. Strands of his colorless hair hung between them. Her gun, loaded and ready, hidden under the rolled-up dress she was using as a pillow, could have been in Northumberland for all the good it did her.

She considered this abrupt reversal of fortune from every possible angle and didn't like it. "I wasn't expecting you."

"You should have." For a minute, his eyes glittered, fierce and unreadable. Abruptly, his weight was gone from her. He curled to his feet and stood looking down. "We didn't finish talking."

The British Service had found her. Her long deception was finished. Time to pay the piper. Icicles of panic shivered in her muscles.

Slowly, she pushed herself up to sitting. Her fingers brushed the pistol grip.

"Don't," he advised.

There are opportune moments for violent ambush. This did not seem to be one of them. She stretched her arms out, resting them on her raised knees, on the cloak she'd used as her blanket that was still wound around her. She intertwined her fingers, looking harmless.

He said, "Get over by the wall. Leave that cloak where it is. I want to see your hands the whole time."

"I'm in my shift."

"I've seen you naked."

They'd all seen each other naked in the Spartan dormitory at the Coach House. When they were Cachés. When they were children, spies in training, miserable and deadly. When they'd been friends. "I was twelve. Nobody was interested."

"I'm not interested now. Get up." The words scraped out of his throat one by one. If he still hurt, so many hours after she'd thrown the mélange de tabac at him, he wasn't going to be in a forgiving mood.

She drew herself together against the cold, feeling hollow and weak. Once, she'd been questioned by men from the British Service. They'd been gentle with her because she looked like a child and they believed her well-practiced lies. The men who came for her this time would not be gentle. They wouldn't believe her and they wouldn't forgive her for deceiving them.

If they were in this house, they were quieter than smoke.

Devoir said, "Stand up. Get back against the wall."

Not Devoir. Paxton. She would think of him as Pax and remove the last familiarity from her mind. Pax, the stranger. Pax, the unknown and unknowable. Dangerous Pax.

She kneed out from under her cloak, stood, and backed away till her spine encountered bookshelves. She was a model of docility.

"Very wise," he said.

Thin red firelight leaked through the open door from the front of the shop, the half-banked fires that kept the damp out of the books. He crossed the room like a tall shadow, uncannily silent, and knelt on the pile of packing straw she'd slept in. He kept a prudent eye in her direction.

She said, "You're safe from attack. You're four stone heavier than I am and expecting it."

"I'm glad we both realize that." He pulled the pistol from under her makeshift pillow. Fluid, shifting gleams ran up and down the barrel as he inspected it. "It's light."

"I hollowed out the stock." The first shock was ebbing away. She tucked her hands under her armpits to keep them warm. It hid her breasts. She was shaking. In the most dire of her nightmares, she'd never imagined facing Devoir as an enemy, having given him so much cause to be furious with her. "I wasn't going to shoot you."

At least, she didn't think so. She hadn't considered the matter in depth. "I don't shoot old friends."

Find out more about Joanna and her books at www.joannabourne.com.