When he spoke, his voice was a caress upon her skin.

Who was going to save her from herself?

God help the person who tried. Let whatever was to happen happen. All she wanted was to fall. If she found herself at the bottom of an abyss, stranded and alone, she’d have no regrets—the certainty of it resonated through to the very center of her bones.

“Come.”

It was all Abigail needed to hear—all he needed to say. This was her one chance to grasp for a dream, even if it could only be for a single night.

She took his arm and skittered to match the length of his steps as they disappeared into the still silence of the gardens. Her skirts fluttered about the hem, clinging to her legs. By the nymph fountain, they veered in a new direction, turning off the main footpath to take another, narrower course.

Where they were going—well, it didn’t matter. So long as they were together.

The eastern sky bore no hint of what was to come. Impending doom. The end of their time.

But it would. As surely as she drew her next breath, so too would a new day.

Abigail pushed her gaze forward. She wouldn’t think about that. Not now. Not when they had their few precious hours all ahead of them.

The farther they went, the darker the gardens became. The setting moon’s light caught on the white stones covering the way. It crunched below the twin footfalls. The marquess didn’t hesitate or stumble.

The land behind the Mayfair house was unusually extensive. Most of her employer’s property on the outskirts of a little village in Sussex would be contained within the walls of what was only a London garden to the marquess.

A breeze came up, rustling the growth surrounding them, replete with the scents of a fine section of town about to turn over to winter’s embrace. It was a world sheltered from rot and stink, the odors of the river, and the people who lived far too close together, one atop the other.

They might still exist. Somewhere. But not here. Not tonight.

This was an enchanted land far away from those things.

“Where are we?” They’d stopped before a small structure, indistinct in the night but for the waxy surface of rustling ivy leaves shaking off the glint of moonlight. Over the building stood a willow, the tree sashaying gently as the gracefully sweeping bare branches caught the breeze.

“I want to show you something.”

There was the sound of a key in a lock, then a latch lifting, and the door opened.

Abigail drew back. “I’m about to go into a strange place with a man I don’t know. Am I the most foolish creature in the whole world?”

Yet if he and Edward stood together, she’d be hard pressed to choose which of them she knew better.

It wasn’t as if Edward had died. She heard reports of him from time to time through a well-meaning mutual acquaintance who knew nothing of what they’d secretly carried on between them. Edward was a man of the past. The one whose clandestine correspondence had gradually subsided.

By contrast, the marquess’ recent kind attentions lingered fresh. The way he’d brought lemonade, realizing before she did that she was overheated and quite parched. The way he’d waited with her while she watched the crowd. An accord had grown between them, a harmonious resonance that even in her hesitation rang no less consonantly.

“I’ll take you back if you’ve changed your mind.”

Abigail stared hard into the night, trying to pierce the shadows to see his half-covered face. She reached out and somehow, despite the cover of darkness, their hands met. He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back.

“No. Not at all.”

And she stepped to follow him.

“Careful.” He reached out just as she was about to cross the threshold, guiding her to duck under the stone frame.

Within the room’s interior, the pressure of the mask still upon her face intensified, almost as if it were stifling something. Which was absurd. Nothing had changed except that she was indoors.

The air smelled of him. Leather and dry stone. Maybe a hint of autumnal smoke.

A spark flashed and a lamp flared to life. The space was small, humble, but perfectly appointed as something between a cottage and an attic. Old furniture, worn and well out of date, was arranged about the room, not a single piece excessive. Each item worked together to create a whole. A miniature whole, with no consideration for more than two people, but a whole. Books lined the wall opposite the fireplace, old volumes with worn spines, as if each had seen several generations of hard use.

The marquess crouched at the hearth and soon a small wood fire burned, the dry logs crackling and popping.

Abigail stood watching. “You’re quite self-sufficient, in your way, aren’t you?”

“I can’t abide a man who can’t take care of his own basic needs. Even if he doesn’t choose to do so all of the time, which I make no claim to doing, he ought to have the capacity for simple tasks.”

“What is this place?” She walked around a tall-backed red morocco chair, running her hands over goatskin worn soft.

“Used to be the head gardener’s cottage.”

It was a testament to the size of Mandeville House that they housed a gardener—a head gardener, no less—on the grounds. And not for the kitchen gardens, either.

“Poor man. You turned him out?”

“Hardly. Though if you’ve guessed that these are my things you see, you’d be right.”

“What happened to him? Pensioned him off with an annuity?” Of course a man of standing like the marquess would care for the servants who’d lived past the age of work.

“Old Mr. Foster died while I was away at school—a good number of years ago, as you can see.” Harland smiled. “I wasn’t brought to London much as a child. My parents didn’t think the air in town healthy for my constitution, so when I was allowed to come, it was a great treat, but I was left largely to my own devices. Mr. Foster was the head gardener here for—Lord, what had to have been forty years. He knew every inch of the place. He showed me every plant, every bird, every tree, every insect, every stone.”

“He took rather an enthusiastic interest in you, I daresay.” What must this great man have been as a child? Keen and bright and brimming with a hungry curiosity to devour every last drop of knowledge about his world, no doubt. And what information wasn’t available, he probably studied until he could form his own understanding.

“Had the patience of a saint, the man did, I’ll tell you that.”

“I’d wager a goodly sum he enjoyed the company of the young master. If you didn’t give him as much or more than he gave you, I’d be surprised—very surprised, indeed.”

At that Harland didn’t answer—only turned to look into the fire, smile gone wistful.

A moment later, he stood and faced her. “Your turn.”

“For what?”

“I told you something about myself, now you tell me something of yourself.”

Abigail hesitated. Her first two fingers trailed back and forth over her lips again. She’d said she hadn’t wanted him to take her to his bed. She didn’t usually say things she didn’t mean. In this instance, the insincerity was required. Oh, who was she fooling? It had been more than insincerity. It’d been a rank lie.

But acting on the brazen impulses born of a single night’s acquaintance…well, it wasn’t done. Removed from her life she might have been—that life still existed somewhere out there, even without her, and it wasn’t something she could turn her back upon.

“How about we make it a game?” There. She’d said it. The words were out. Couldn’t take them back now.

“A game of questions?”

Abigail’s heart thudded a pounding warning in her ears. She might as well have been knocking flint together over a dry pile of leaves. When the spark caught, consuming flames were soon to follow.

The room was so small. So intimate. And they were so terribly, wonderfully, and wholly alone.

This was the chance. Should she take it?

If she didn’t make a play, would she spend eternity suffering the regret?

Yes. Yes, she would.

She smiled, charged with her own sense of daring. “A game of demands.”