There weren't altogether that many situations where Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward found herself at a complete loss. Not only for how she'd gotten into a situation, but for how she was going to get out of said situation.

That was why this particular moment in her life was one that she knew she'd chastise herself for, for years to come. How in the world had a former astronaut from Kansas, a former wheat farmer turned billionaire businessman, figured out her game?

How?

She'd been a spy for years. She was the best England had to offer – had she not been such a modest lady she would've said the best the world had to offer – and yet this Midwestern American man had not only uncovered her secret, but had asked her to work for him.

For him!

Penny was mostly an independent contractor, true enough, but she represented His Majesty's name in all she did. She prided herself in her nationality, in serving her country and in making the world a better place under the flag of her homeland.

To think that Jeff Tracy would believe she'd leave that behind to work for him was not only laughable, it was a ludicrous suggestion at best.

And yet…

He was a most charming man. Why, when he spoke of the grand things that filled his head, those eyes were enough to make even the most suspicious spy believe these were things that would come to pass.

He'd trusted her – not with all his secrets, to be sure, but with more than she suspected he'd ever shared with another outside of close family. So she had to give him points for that.

But the problem was that he knew. He knew. She wasn't just an aristocrat from England, made of old money and a posh mansion. She wasn't just a lady with a butler and more jewels than quite a few of the Royals. She didn't just sit around drinking tea all day and chatting with the other ladies about this, that or the other Lord.

How had he figured it out?

That question plagued Penelope the day Jeff revealed he knew her secret.

It plagued her after she'd finally given in to what appeared to be gentle prodding but which she recognized for what it was: persuasion from a man who didn't take 'no' for an answer.

It plagued her through the ensuing years when she went from being an agent of International Rescue to Mrs. Jeff Tracy.

But she never asked him how he'd known, because she wasn't entirely certain he'd give her a straight answer even if she did. And there was really no point, because when she'd decided to say 'yes' to him, first to working for International Rescue and then later, to giving him her hand in marriage, she knew she'd done the right thing.

All these years later – forty years to be precise, as of two o'clock tomorrow afternoon Tracy Island time – as she lounged on the balcony of their bedroom in the fading light of yet another brilliant sunset, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward Tracy still wondered.

She watched as her aged but still-handsome husband moved out to join her. As he carefully lowered himself onto the chaise lounge next to hers. As he looked at her and smiled, then winked, that ever-present twinkle in his eyes no less bright than it had been the day they'd first met.

"How did you know?" she asked, soft voice and lilted accent also no different than it had been back then.

She watched him look at her…study her. She could almost see the wheels in his mind turning, as she always had been able to do when he was thinking hard about something. She noted the additional lines around his eyes, the wrinkles in his skin. How his hair was now snow-white, and how aware she was of that fact that had it not been for surgeries and hair color and the most expensive skin care crème known to man, she would look every one of her sixty-eight years, as he looked every one of his ninety.

"You've never asked me until now," he replied, smiling, lacing his fingers behind his head and settling back against the lounge.

"I never thought to get a proper answer from you, Jeff Tracy. You are mysterious, you know."

"No more than you," he quipped with a cheeky grin. He winked at her again, then closed his eyes with a sigh. "I had the advantage of being in a business where secrets and covert activities were what I was all about."

"Starting International Rescue," she confirmed, a slight tonal change indicating only a bit of question to it.

He nodded. "I knew from my contact at MI-6 that the best of the best had been assigned to root out how our newest hypersonic aircraft design was being leaked from Tracy Aerospace's plant in England and showing up on Eastern-European military airfields."

"But I have no tells," Penny protested, sitting up a bit and frowning in consternation. "That you met me one time face-to-face outside the home of a friend in a social setting, and one month later asked me to join your organization, has me stymied, Jeff."

"This really has been bugging you all this time, hasn't it?"

She nodded, blushing a little because she was, after all, still a lady, and while she may have been tough as nails, she also was still so in love with the man next to her that he made her cheeks turn pink on a daily basis.

Jeff chuckled, sat up, reached across the foot of space between them and took both her hands in his. When their eyes met, her heart still did flips in her chest. She felt her face grow hot as he squeezed her hands. "You have a tell, milady."

A small gasp escaped her lips. Parker had died nearly five years ago now, from a simple heart attack, of all things. There hadn't been a day when she hadn't missed him terribly, no matter what wonderful adventures she'd had with Jeff.

Jeff grinned. "I had Parker checked out. The way he talked told me he wasn't bred to be a Lady's butler, not like most of those who worked with the aristocracy. Don't forget, I knew several prominent British families before I met you, and their butlers spoke as well as the families themselves did."

She shook her head, unable to believe that all these years she'd thought it was something about her that'd given her away to her husband. All along it'd been "Parker? You're saying Parker was my tell?"

"Yep," he replied with a nod, then a chuckle as he squeezed her hands one more time. He let go and made himself comfortable on the lounge again. "Once I found out he'd been in and out of prison pretty much his entire life, and then suddenly he was someone you trusted enough to live in your place with all that money and all those valuables around? Raised my eyebrows a little."

"Well, I'll be," she breathed, looking through the thin poles of the balcony railing as the setting sun cast brilliant shades of pinks, purples and reds across the sky. "Parker."

And in his best imitation of the accent that had given it away all those years ago, Jeff replied, "Yes, milady."

It made Penelope smile.