Sarah ran. Hot tears trailed down her cheeks and blurred her vision, but she pushed herself faster. She didn’t know where she was going or how she would live once she got there; she simply ran as hard as she could.

Branches thrashed her face and torso as she raced through them. Even as they stung, leaving welts on her skin, she wished the forest would go on forever. She needed the cover. True, he might not be chasing her, but she couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t take that chance.

The hour was well past midnight when she reached the tree line, the last vestiges of sunlight having been long extinguished from the sky. She stumbled to a halt, and stared at the Yorkshire moorland in front of her, the landscape illuminated by moonlight. The rolling hills were eerily quiet, studded with outcroppings of rock and heather.

Nowhere to hide.

“No, no, no, no!” She spun around, frantically searching for any trace of light blinking through the trees. Surely, if he were following, she would see lanterns; she would hear dogs. There was nothing, but it would be foolish to assume no one was coming for her.

She dashed the tears away with the heel of her hands. Her feet were throbbing, her fingers were numb from the cold, and her chest felt as though it were in a vice. Each ragged breath ripped through her parched throat. Still, she had to keep going.

She turned back and began running along the tree line.

She knew the moors were dangerous. Frank had warned her about them, which was quite possibly the only kind thing he had ever done for her. He had gone on and on about the little knobs and rivets where one could break an ankle or split open a skull. That was why, when she tripped over an outcrop of heather, she cursed herself up one side and down the other.

She ought to be grateful, she supposed. She could have fallen into the frigid pond just beyond the heather and caught her death of cold. The calm ripples glistened a mere two feet away.

Her palms stung. Though she couldn’t see them, she knew they must be filthy and bleeding from the fall. A perfect physical representation of how she felt: filthy and bleeding. Not that she hadn’t taken a proverbial tumble before, but this time, she wasn’t so sure she could pick herself back up.

She wiped her hands off on her dress before tucking away the loose tendrils falling over her face and tickling her nose.

She should never have left Ohio. She most certainly should never have left Ohio with Frank. “See the world,” he had said. “Once in England, you can take half your dowry and travel anywhere you wish.” No man had ever tempted her with such an offer—a convenient marriage. She should have known it was too good to be true.

She had been naive, and perhaps too bullheaded to listen to any doubts that might have been lingering in the back of her mind. She wanted so badly to travel that she had convinced herself he would be considerate enough to hold up his side of the bargain. Instead, he had gambled away every penny she’d had and then gotten himself killed.

Tears burned the back of her eyes. She should have tried to help him. She should have tried to disentangle him from the brigands he had been consorting with. She knew nothing good would come of it, that he had become too volcanic, too unpredictable in their company. It had only been a matter of time before he fell victim to their violence.

Yet, she had done nothing to stop it. All because she had been angry with him for gambling away her dowry.

She clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached. It was too late for regrets, and she didn’t have the time for self-pity. She had to keep running.

She tried to stand, but a sharp pain had her grasping at a large rock to keep herself steady. Her ankle hurt like Hades. Shards of pain lanced up her leg, radiating from her swelling ankle. She needed to stick to the trees and find shelter soon. It was March, and in Yorkshire, that meant nights were below freezing and laced with arctic winds. She was already beginning to feel that cold seep through her several layers of clothing and settle into her bones. She was lucky not to be stuck in a downpour.

As if on cue, thunder rumbled in the distance and a shadowy haze began darkening the stars. Soon it would reach the moon, and then she would lose all light. What rotten luck.

Then again, whoever might be following her would be in darkness, too.

Perhaps not so rotten. All she needed was some shelter before the rain started.

She moved back into the trees where she could lean against the trunks for support and hopefully find something to keep the rain off her. She had no desire to get soaked in this cold and greet the morning as an icicle.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to limp on much farther before finding shelter.

About fifty yards ahead was an old stone cottage surrounded by large oaks and silver birch trees. She was sure the place would be enchanting during the daylight. However, at night, to a wounded and lost female who might very well be wanted for her husband’s murder, it was frightening as hell.

Foliage that was once most likely a lovely garden was overgrown, and the shadows played gruesome images on the boarded windows; shadows that were quickly dissolving as the moon disappeared behind the heavy clouds.

Sarah gathered all the strength she had and forced herself to try the front door. After a bit of coaxing and shoving, the door finally creaked open to complete darkness. She limped inside and managed to close the door behind her. If she were lucky, there would be some dry firewood handy so she wouldn’t freeze to death trying to get some sleep. After that, everything was up to fate.

She hoped more than anything fate would decide no one would find her.

* * *

Drake Ramsey walked briskly through the halls toward his office at Whitehall, all because of another case where paperwork had slipped through careless hands. He hoped he still had the report he had received several months back. Otherwise, another criminal would be set free to skulk about London’s dark alleys.

Which would somehow be his fault, he had no doubt.

He opened the door with slightly more force than necessary, stalking directly to his cabinet, which spanned the far side of the room. He pulled out one drawer and rifled through the files. A moment later he snapped it shut and started on the next one. He was searching through the fourth drawer when he began to wonder if he had accidentally filed the report under the wrong year.

“Where are you, you infinitesimal rot of stationery?” he muttered through clenched teeth as he pulled open the fifth drawer, the last drawer marked 1825. “Ah-ha!”

With a victorious flourish, he pulled out a half-sized sheet of paper with scribbling on one side. Then he moved to his desk and immediately stuck the paper into an envelope, scrawled a name on the front, and sealed it.

Instead of using the seal of his title, the Earl of Saint Brides, he used that of his office, The Home Secretary and Official Chief Operating Officer, Home Office. Some things were best left separate, he always thought.

It wasn’t as though he were a duke or some such nonsense. Thank God. It was bad enough they had made him Home Secretary last year.

“Freddie!” Drake called out, and a wiry lad of no more than twenty years flew in through the open door.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Take this to Mr. Chase. Tell him it’s for the arson charge,” Drake instructed as he handed over the envelope. “And tell him to make sure he doesn’t lose this one!” he added as Freddie rushed out.

Since the war with Napoleon ended eleven years ago, Drake had worked at the Home Office in some capacity or another, yet he had been the Chief Operating Officer for only the last seven. Before that, he had handled the paperwork for operatives like Grenville, Ainsley, and Pembridge—some of England’s silent heroes.

Amazing how all these heroes can’t find the time to file paperwork, and when they do, it’s shite.

How anyone ever got convicted in England before he first stepped foot in Whitehall was beyond him. When he had arrived, the filing system was more of a concept than a practice, and reports were kept in one’s head—which were too often shot off. That was one of the occupational hazards of being a hero, it seemed, and still the men of the Office found nothing wrong with their nonexistent filing habits.

Drake blinked hard. He hoped one of these days he would be successful in blinking the memory right out of his head.

It was a daily fight to keep order in this place, to continually remind his men to file their bloody reports. When he was not seeing to that, he was hovering over heaps of documents, negotiating with crooked diplomats, or convincing Parliament to do their blessed job. He was beginning to forget what his own library looked like. Gad, it had been ages since he so much as walked past it.

Working day in and day out was beginning to catch up with him. He had just turned thirty-one, yet he felt twice that. Perhaps after too many years with nary a day to himself, it was time for a holiday.

He closed his eyes, considering the benefits of a deservedly calm holiday. He could visit the estate in Yorkshire, with its vast hills of tall green grass and heather. He could take out that hunter he had bought last winter and run it along the moors until one of them collapsed. He could swim in the pond he had practically lived in as a child.

But first, he would pack everything and visit that old hunting cabin, which he hadn’t used since his father had passed. It was located perfectly, embedded in a forest of oaks and silver birch trees near that same pond with the heather.

Paradise.

“My lord!” Freddie called as he rushed in, holding out a missive. “This just in for you.”

If he ever got the bloody chance, that was. Which he wouldn’t. Not without making up his mind and making arrangements, at any rate.

With that firmly planted in his brain, it was midafternoon by the time he had done just that.

He stood at the door to his office, looking over everything with a sharp eye. Not one thing out of place, not one important paper left out. Everything was filed and tucked away properly. From a glance, the office might look unused completely, it was so neatly done.

He nodded once and stepped out, turning back only to slide the key into the lock to secure his space.

It wouldn’t do any good to leave it unlocked. Someone might want something. They might go through like a whirlwind, leaving important documents strewn haphazardly across the entire space, or leaving ink splattered atop his desk. A spill like that soaking into his mahogany desk for weeks would never come out.

Perhaps he ought to have someone board it up just in case.

He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Knowing the sort of chaos that went on here, even with his direction over everything, the place would probably be burned down within a day of his absence, anyway.

Perhaps he ought to take some things with him.

“My lord!”

Drake closed his eyes as footsteps sounded from behind him. “Yes, Freddie?”

“I have a new notice for you regarding a murder.” Freddie smiled as he stood there with a folded handbill, blissfully unaware of the war now raging in Drake’s mind.

Drake glanced at the locked door to his office, then at the handbill. His jaw tensed.

“Can Mr. Chase not handle this?”

Freddie’s brow drew tightly together. “I suppose he could, my lord.”

“Then let him,” Drake said, stepping around Freddie and continuing down the hall.

“But, my lord….” Freddie rushed to catch up, falling in beside him. “He will lose it.”

“That is a handbill, is it not?” he asked. “Those things that get printed up by the thousands and forced onto every unsuspecting passerby?”

“Yes, my lord, and it’s an interesting one.” Freddie smiled wolfishly. “Quite fetching, actually. I thought you might like to take a look.”

“No, no, no. No, thank you,” Drake said with a humorless smile. “If I’m fortunate for once in my life, Mr. Chase may manage to lose every single copy before I return.”

Freddie laughed as he rushed ahead to prop open the door. “Have a wonderful holiday, my lord.”

“Thank you, Freddie,” Drake returned as he stepped out into the street. At long last he would have his quiet holiday at a home he had sorely missed.

After a quick stop at his London townhouse, he and his luggage will be on their way north.