A Dangerous Deceit (Thief-Takers) by Alissa Johnson (3)

“I don’t like the cold,” she said suddenly. “That’s what the dream was about. It was raining and I was cold.”

Gabriel gently tightened his hold but said nothing as he urged the horse forward.

There was an art to passing off a half-truth. The key was to resist the urge to over-emphasize one’s conviction to obscure the underlying guilt. 

There was far too much conviction in Jane’s voice. It was true she didn’t like the cold. But that wasn’t all she’d been dreaming about.

Taken on its own, however, the comment was intriguing. “You don’t like the cold?”

“No.”

“You live in the north of England.”

She leaned a little to look back and offer a small smile. “Fortunately, God created coal and the hot toddy. So it all works out in the end.”

“So it does,” he agreed.

When she looked away again, he grinned over her head. No amount of coin could tempt Jane Ballenger to take permanent leave of Twillins Cottage. That’s what she’d said. But the marvelous and terrible thing about temptation was that there were as many varieties available in the world as there were people available to succumb to them.

For reasons Gabriel chose not to ponder too closely at present, he liked knowing that there were aspects of Jane’s life at Twillins that she found less than ideal. He very much liked the idea that there might be at least one variety of temptation in existence capable of persuading Jane Ballenger to walk away from her little cottage. Permanently.

He ruminated on the possibilities as the drizzle slowed, turned to mist, then disappeared altogether—much to his frustration. In his opinion, if it was going to rain, it might as well rain properly. He wanted a nice, long soaking that washed away the grime that came with travel. Instead, he’d gone from feeling dirty, to feeling dirty and slightly damp.

When the sun came out again an hour later, he was back to just being dirty.

Jane’s cheerful mood of earlier dried up even faster and more thoroughly than the rain. Initially, he assumed she was dwelling on the dream. But she kept tipping her head back to look at his lip, a frown marring her pretty face.

It wasn’t the dream that bothered her, he realized, and the next time she glanced at him, he gave her a smile. “Have I told you about the time Samuel broke Renderwell’s nose?”

“What?” She blinked, and leaned back awkwardly for a better look at him. “No. He didn’t do it on purpose, I’m sure.”

“Yes and no. He’d been shot. He’s been shot an absurd number of times, actually—”

“Yes, I remember. The papers called him something… I can’t recall…”

“Thief Taker Almighty.”

She shifted and fidgeted, clearly seeking a more comfortable position from which to face him. Her bottom brushed against his groin and every muscle in his body tensed. “Yes, that’s it. I remember—”

He caught her hip and tried to still her. “Don’t wiggle, Jane.”

“But I can’t”—she scooted, squirmed, and nudged—“see you.”

He swallowed a pained laugh as every erotic daydream he’d indulged in earlier sprang to the forefront of his mind, all of them demanding his immediate attention. “Jane. Sweetheart. Be still.”

“But—”

“Here.” He hooked a hand under her thigh and urged her to move her leg over the horse, seating her side-saddle. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He wasn’t quite so certain. For all intents and purposes, she was sitting on his lap. But at least she was sittingstill.

“Tell me what happened,” she prompted. “With Samuel.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and did his best to ignore the soft, tempting weight of her. “He took the shot in the middle of the thigh. It missed the bone, but failed to pass through.”

“Oh, dear.”

He nodded in agreement. “Nasty business, digging out a bullet. Most men need to be held down for the procedure, but Samuel tolerated it remarkably well. Nevertheless, Renderwell and I sat by him in case restraint became necessary. At one point, the physician dug a little too hard, or in just the wrong spot. In either event, it was more than Samuel could stomach. He swung out instinctively. As Renderwell happened to be sitting closest to him at the time, he received the full impact of Samuel’s displeasure. Samuel caught him right on the nose.” He smiled a little at the memory. “God, what a mess.”

“He must have been very angry.”

“I think it was more that he was in an ungodly amount of pain.”

“No, I meant Lord Renderwell. He must have been furious with Sir Samuel.”

“I know what you meant. Of course he wasn’t angry.”

“But how could he not be?”

“Because Samuel is his friend, and he was in pain.” He couldn’t stop the grin that came as he recalled the details of that moment. “And then they both were.”

“That amuses you?”

“Immensely,” he said with feeling. “It was a toss-up who shed more blood that day. Taking a hit from Samuel is akin to sticking one’s face in front of a moving locomotive.”

“Has he hityou?”

“Not since we were lads.” He thought about that. “Well, not in the face. And not as hard as he could have—”

“Good Lord, what sort of friends do you have?”

“The sort who make allowances for extenuating circumstances, then forgive and forget. The good sort.”

“What were the extenuating circumstances when Sir Samuel hit you?” she asked, her voice rife with skepticism.

“The idiocy of youth, and too much drink.”

She made a face at that. “Drunkenness is no excuse for losing control of oneself.”

“You’re forgetting the youth part. That’s a reasonable excuse for damn near everything.”

“Is it? Everything?”

No, not everything. “Damn near,” he repeated. “It certainly excuses the drunkenness which led to the idiocy of two youths taking swings at each other over a particular young lady who, as it turned out, didn’t fancy either of them.”

She winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. Were you very heartbroken?”

“Inconsolable for a day or two,” he assured her and laughed at her disgusted expression. “We’re off point. As long as there is no lasting harm done, why shouldn’t friends overlook some transgressions?”

“Because behavior has consequences,” she explained patiently. “Or it should. If you allow your friends to strike you without—”

“It’s not about allowing, Jane. I’m not their father. I’m their friend. It’s about understanding and forgiveness.”

She was quiet a long moment. And then, without warning, she reached up and gently touched the tip of one small finger to his sore lip. “Are you trying to make me feel better about this?”

His mouth tingled at the spot. “Yes. Is it working?”

“Perhaps a little. Are we friends, Gabriel?”

She looked somber again. That wouldn’t do. Hoping to tease her back into smiling, he asked, “Would you forgive me if, while having a bullet dug out of my leg, I accidentally swung at you?”

“I… Well…” She lowered her hand. “How hard?”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “I wasn’t in earnest—”

“You could hit me hard enough to do lasting harm, I should think. What if I lost teeth?”

“Good God.” What had been a ridiculous question only a moment ago was now a perfectly disturbing image in his head. “I would never hit you, Jane, not under those or any other circumstances.”

“Do you have better self-control than Samuel?”

“Samuel would have found the control he needed if Renderwell had been a woman. The question was meant to make you laugh. I didn’t think you’d take it seriously.”

“But I asked you if we were friends, and that was your response.” She tipped her head at him, a furrow across her brow. “Did you think my question was meant to be funny?”

“No, I just…” He’d just wanted to make her smile. He stifled a sigh. “Very well. No, you would not lose teeth.”

“Then, yes, I would forgive you.”

“Excellent. I’d forgive you for it as well. So there you are.”

“That makes us friends?”

“It’s as good a yardstick as any. Unless you’d care to get drunk and fight over a woman?”

“No, thank you. Do you know,” she began thoughtfully, “I believe I would forgive you even if you did knock out a tooth.”

“Well, it’s nice to know one of us would.”

“You are helping me, after all.”

“The cost of that help is not one or more of your molars. Besides, I told you, it’s not help exactly. It’s—”

“Responsibility, yes,” she said dismissively and then grew quiet again for a long time.

“What are you thinking, Jane?”

“What you said about youth being an excuse for everything.” Her amber eyes settled on his, searching. “Are you really not ashamed of anything you did as a child?”

“I…” He hadn’t said that. He would never say that. He’d said only that a good friend would forgive a mistake that caused no lasting harm. “On the contrary, I am soundly embarrassed by any number of things I did in my childhood.”

She nodded slowly, as if they had both agreed on something very important. Only he wasn’t entirely sure what that might be.

“So am I,” she whispered.

There was a wealth of sadness and regret in those three words. He wondered if she realized it, if she knew how much of herself she’d given away.

And he wondered what a young Jane could possibly have done to earn the censure of her adult self.

If he pressed, he could have the answers. He had years of experience interrogating people. He knew how to draw information out of uncooperative suspects and unwilling witnesses alike.

Instead, and to his own surprise, he brushed a kiss over her hair and said nothing.

She would tell him when she was ready.

 

***

Jane wished there were something she could say to Gabriel besides, “Sorry.” It seemed completely insufficient for what she had done.

She didn’t want to look at him. And yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself, and every time she saw his reddened lip, she felt utterly ashamed.

Not that he seemed to mind the injury. She supposed it was a relatively minor wound for him. But it was significant to her.

She hadn’t hit a person in years. She hadn’t lost control of herself since she’d been a child, when the frustration of always being wrong, constantly being misunderstood, would build and build until it finally tripped over the line into anger. The smallest thing would set her off—a single insult, a challenging lesson, a snappish tone. There was a reason she’d had so many governesses over the years, and why many of them had been perfectly happy to lock her in the nursery after dinner and leave her alone. No one liked to care for a child who not only failed at her lessons but also routinely left bruises.

It could be argued that some of them had more than deserved her temper. A few of them had been nothing short of completely vile human beings. But the shameful behavior of others did not excuse her own. She was better than that. She had been better for a long time. She never wanted to go back to the frightened, furious little girl she’d been.

Not even in her dreams.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

As the day wore on, they stopped to rest periodically, but only once did Gabriel leave to visit a small farm, and that was for a fresh horse, not to leave a trail for Kray’s men.

“We’re too far from our original starting point to leave any sort of trail for those men,” he explained as they made their way back into the woods. “We need to be seen in a town. And soon.”

“Well, there must be one nearby. What did the people at the farm tell you?”

“That the nearest village by road is six miles in the wrong direction.” He shrugged at her grimace. “We’ll find something.”

Two hours later, Gabriel was rethinking his decision not to head in the wrong direction. They were finding nothing.

The forest had grown steadily denser, until it became nearly impossible to see past the next stand of trees, let alone rooftops or even chimney smoke in the distance.

Behind him, Jane shifted for a better look over his shoulder. “We could be quite near a town and never know it.”

He brought the horse to a stop, dismounted, and helped Jane do the same. “We need higher ground or an open view. Wait here a moment.”

“But—”

“I won’t be gone long. Walk about. Stretch your legs. But don’t go far,” he tossed over his shoulder as he strode away. “Stay where I can find you.”

He pushed a little farther into the woods, where the trees looked to be thinning out a bit. As he’d hoped, they soon opened into a small clearing. Unfortunately, it offered no better view of the horizon. But it did have something Gabriel had been dreaming about for the past twelve hours—water. Fresh water in the form of a small, clean pond that looked deep and felt invitingly cool to the touch.

He ached to strip down on the spot, dive in, and soak himself until every last speck of dust and grime floated away. He needed to be clean again, so much so that it was starting to become a distraction. Old memories were popping into his mind unannounced and with increasing frequency. For now, he could still push them away or ignore them, but the dirtier he became, the harder that was going to be. The memories would stay, and nag, and remind him of that day he’d stood in his grandparents’ parlor, covered in filth from head to toe, and told Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright one dirty lie right after another.

Just to save his own skin.

“We were traveling. Mother wanted to travel while the captain was at sea, and then—”

“For three years? Without telling anyone? And all alone?! Your mother ran off with you…all by herself?”

No, there had been a man. A big man with a grand smile, booming laugh, and eyes the exact same shape and shade as Gabriel’s.

That man had taught him how to dance, how to shoot a rifle, how to play with other children. He’d shown Gabriel the value of kindness, affection, and courage. He’d shown him how to carve out a bit of joy from every day, and how to fit love into every second of it.

“Gabriel?”

That man had been the most admirable human being Gabriel had ever known. He’d been the greatest father a boy could have possibly hoped for. And he had loved his son unconditionally, without a moment’s restraint or reserve.

But that incredible man had not been his mother’s husband, the illustrious Captain Arkwright. 

And that man was dead. He couldn’t help his son now.

“Gabriel, you must answer your grandmother—”

“Yes. By herself. We were alone.”

Suddenly, the dirt and grime accumulated over months of living in the cheapest boarding houses, as well as weeks spent on the road, seemed to seep into his skin and sink down into his blood. He imagined his insides turning dark and thick as mud.

He was a filthy liar. A black-hearted coward. He’d never deserved his father. Nor the Arkwrights. Not even the captain. He wasn’t fit to…

“Stop it.” Next to the pond, Gabriel said the words aloud.

He wasn’t in the habit of talking to himself, but he didn’t want to remember that day. Reliving it served no purpose. The chance for him to do the right thing had come and gone, and he had squandered it. There was no getting that opportunity back again, no way for him to undo the damage his lies had caused. So what was the point of dwelling on it? It was far better forgotten, or at least tucked far, far away in the back of his mind where he didn’t have to think about it, or the guilt, or the perpetual fear that someday, somehow, someone was going to discover the truth.

Shaking off both memory and fear, he indulged himself with a quick wash of his face, neck, and arms.

Then he pulled out the folded sheets of paper in his pocket and stared at the contents.

With Jane at his side, he’d had little chance to study Edgar Ballenger’s list of informants. But the few times he’d managed to sneak away and look it over, he’d been struck by the feeling that there was something off about it. Something that niggled at him, but which he couldn’t quite place.

That particular puzzle, however, would have to wait until Jane and the Harmons were out of danger.

He refolded the papers, tucked them back in his pocket, and headed back to Jane.

“You see?” He called out as he neared the spot where he’d left her. “Wasn’t gone but a—” He came to an abrupt stop. She wasn’t there. “ Jane?”

Slowly, he turned in a circle, eyes scanning the woods. “Jane?” She couldn’t be far. He’d told her to stay close. “Jane!”

“Up here!”

Gabriel’s gaze shot up at the sound of Jane’s disembodied voice, coming from far over his head. When he found her, he took two full steps back. “Good God.” She was halfway up an enormous tree. “What the devil are you doing?”

“What? Oh! Isn’t it obvious?” She glanced up at the higher branches, then back down at him again. “I’m climbing a tree.”

“Yes, very helpful, thank you. Come down. You’ll break your neck.”

“I told you…” She swung a leg over the next branch and hauled herself up. “I’m not clumsy.”

She was agile as a cat from the looks of it. He watched her as she clambered from one branch to the next with the speed and skill of an acrobat. “That’s high enough. There’s no need—”

“What?”

“I said that’s high enough!”

She shook her head at him and reached for the next branch. “Stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Jane—”

“Hush!”

Hush?Surprise warred with amusement. He was a Thief Taker. A national hero. A knight. One did nothush a Thief Taker.

Only one could, evidently, because Gabriel kept his mouth firmly shut for the next ten minutes while Jane made her way up the tree. Oddly enough, the higher she climbed, the more his concern for her abated. She was uncommonly skilled. She reached for branch after branch, never faltering, never hesitating. Until, at last, the tree began to significantly narrow, and she halted her progress.

“There!” She called out and pointed northeast. “Rooftops. A village. I think. Could be a large estate.”

“Good. Excellent. Come down now, please.”

She didn’t respond, but she did begin the laborious journey back down.

At last, she reached the bottommost branch which, for the life of him, Gabriel couldn’t imagine how she’d manage to climb atop in the first place. It was a good six feet off the ground.

“Did you pull yourself up there?” he asked once she’d safely settled herself on the branch. Her feet dangled in front of him. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and catching one small boot.

“Yes, a bit.”

“A bit?”

“I pulled up with my arms and climbed the trunk with my feet. Haven’t you ever climbed a tree?”

“Well, yes.” Not that long ago, in fact, but for very different reasons. He’d needed to shoot a man through a set of balcony doors. “But I’m a head taller than you, and quite a bit stronger.”

“Then I suppose we climb trees differently. It’s easier to jump down this last part rather than climb,” she added, motioning him aside. “If you would, please?”

Relinquishing her foot, he backed up a few feet, then immediately stepped forward again when she dropped from the branch. He hadn’t meant to do it. There was no good reason he should have reached for her. She was perfectly capable of managing the short jump on her own. But he’d caught her around the waist anyway, simply out of reflex.

And when she gripped his shoulders and leaned back to look up at him, he decided he wasn’t the least bit sorry he’d done it.

She looked positively exhilarated. She’d lost her hat, and her hair had gone quite fuzzy again. There were two leaves and a twig stuck to the left side of her head. Dirt and bark clung to her ill-fitting clothing. Her amber eyes were bright with laughter. Her cheeks were flushed from the exercise, and her full mouth was spread wide in a joyful smile.

She was a terrific mess. And absolutely, stunningly beautiful.

“Enjoyed that, did you?” he murmured.

“Very,very much. I’ve not done that in weeks.”

“Wouldn’t know it to watch…Weeks?”

“It can’t be done in skirts. Not safely. And I can’t go about climbing trees every day. Mrs. Harmon would be appalled.”

“You make a regular habit of climbing trees?” he asked, undecided if he was more charmed or unnerved by the idea.

“I try to. But again…skirts and Mrs. Harmon.” She tilted her head at him. “Have I shocked you?”

“In the best possible way.”

She smiled that wide, joyful grin again. And he decided he was charmed. Most definitely charmed.

At present, he was also decidedly self-conscious, all too aware of where his arms were, of her form pressing against his own. He was holding very, very still, unwilling to break the spell. Also, he had the vague and admittedly suspect notion that if he didn’t move, if he didn’tdo anything, then it didn’t count as seduction, which, by its very nature, took some effort.

Jane stiffened a little, and her gaze jumped to where her hands were gripping the lapels of his coat. Her smile faltered, turning uncertain. Slowly, and to his considerable regret, she released her hold on him and stepped out of his arms. “You… Um… You saw where I pointed, did you? To the village?”

“I did. How far, do you think?”

“Oh,  perhaps a mile or two?” She sounded more hopeful than certain. “I’m not a good judge of distance, I’m afraid.”

“Did it occur to you that I might have already seen the village?”

“Did it occur to you to tell me you were going to look for one?” she returned. “I assumed you did, but these woods are so thick. I figured there was a fair chance you wouldn’t succeed. Was I right?”

“Yes.”

“Am I to wait behind again?” she inquired, glancing in the general direction of the town.

He shook his head. “We need to be seen together again. Which means…” He fetched the satchel from the saddle and handed it to her. “You need to change back into your gown.”

She smiled as she pulled out her own clothes. “Did you fold these?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s a fair amount of brush over there.” He pointed to a spot behind her. “Off with you.”

She gave him a skeptical look before turning away. She’d taken no more than a handful of steps before she turned round again. “Gabriel? When I made you promise not to use seduction…”

His heart skipped a beat. “Yes?”

A thoughtful furrow appeared across her brow. “There can be romance without seduction. Don’t you think?”

“Yes.” There certainly could be, and had he been standing alone with another woman at another time, he might have thought,but why bother?—all the while quietly planning his retreat. But not with Jane. For quite possibly the first time in his life, Gabriel found the idea of romancing a woman simply for the sake of romance enormously appealing.

“Well,” Jane said, then cleared her throat nervously. “I’m glad we agree.”

And with that, she promptly turned on her heel and hurried off to disappear behind the brush.

***

Jane managed to put her corset back on without assistance, but she had no choice but to ask Gabriel for help with the buttons on her gown.

He made very quick work of it. She barely had time to register the sensation of his fingers moving against her back before he’d finished and stepped away.

Pity, that. He had lovely hands. She’d not really paid much attention to them before. When he’d kissed her, she’d been overwhelmed by the feel of his arms, the sensation of his mouth moving over hers. When he’d helped with her buttons before, she’d been overwhelmed by just the nearness of him, and the mere idea that a gentleman was helping her dress. Seated in the saddle with him, she’d been keenly aware of his muscled physique.

But when she’d jumped from the tree and he’d reached for her…

She’d taken proper notice of his hands then. The gentle strength of them as he’d pulled her close. Their warmth pressing against her back. He’d brushed his thumb against her hip. Twice. She was certain he’d not been aware of it at the time. Every other part of him had been still and—

“Here,” Gabriel said suddenly, pulling her from her musings. “I have something for you.”

He reached into a saddle bag and, to her shock, pulled out a small, slightly squashed straw bonnet trimmed with green ribbons.

She took it from him with a baffled laugh. “Where on earth did you acquire a bonnet?”

“From that last farm I visited.”

“But how?”

“The usual way. I bought it.”

“They didn’t think it odd, your asking to buy a bonnet?”

“I imagine they did. But for the price I was offering, they were willing to suffer the pain of unsatisfied curiosity. Here…” He took the bonnet back and set it on her head. Then he tugged it forward over her brow.

“It’s not supposed to sit like that.”

“It is if you’re trying to hide your face,” he replied and adjusted the bonnet to his liking.

“I thought we were trying to be seen.”

“Yes, but not seem as if we’retrying to be seen.”

“You had me try at the station. Waving at poor George. Obliterating my good name.”

“I said I’d fix that. As for why you’re not trying today… Naturally, after your spot of foolery at the station, we had a discussion,” he explained. “It was very heated. I was quite stern.” He gave the bonnet ribbon a gentle tug. “Now you know better.”

“Are such details really necessary?”

“They are. If you continue to act recklessly, Kray will wonder why I choose to travel with you. He’ll grow suspicious.”

“You put quite a lot of thought into this sort of thing, don’t you?”

“No point in doing something half measure.”

“Even lying?”

“Especially lying.” He finished tying the ribbons at her chin, then stepped back to study his work. “There now, you look a very suspicious character.”

“Ifeel suspicious. Conspicuously so.”

He gave her an odd look. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said…” Oh, dear. Whathad she said? Had she jumbled something? Suspicious? Conspicuously? It had to be conspicuously. There were too many damned syllables. And now that she thought about it, it was possible she’d actually said consistently. “I just meant that I feel silly.”

He nodded in understanding, but said, “It’s better than afraid.”

She was more than a little of that as well. And her uneasiness only grew as they neared the village. It was, Jane discovered as they reached the edge of town, somewhat larger than it had appeared from her distant treetop. But it was still smaller than Ardbaile, with only a few short rows of shops and a small rail station. One could stand on the edge of town, look down the street, and see the other edge.

Their presence drew very little attention. Jane assumed that was the result of the railway. Even small towns had grown accustomed to visiting strangers.

Gabriel, however, seemed determined not to go unnoticed. Jane accompanied him into several shops where he spoke just a hair too loudly and engaged in odd, uncomfortable exchanges with the shopkeepers—including one in which he offered to trade his watch for goods, only to change his mind at the last second and walk out of the store empty-handed.

“Did you show him the watch because Mr. Kray has seen it?” Jane asked as they strolled down the street.

“I did. It’s a detail the shopkeeper will remember and pass along if anyone should ask.”

“Half the shopkeepers here will remember you, and not all of them fondly. You’re not really thinking of selling your father’s watch, are you?”

“It’s not the Captain’s watch. He gave his favorite watch to a cousin. This one was a gift from one of my first clients.”

“Why did Mr. Kray assume it belonged to your father?”

“No idea. Old gossip, maybe. There used to be all sorts of rubbish printed in the papers about the Thief Takers. Any enterprising soul with a gift for storytelling could sell a bit of fiction to some of the less discerning papers. I can’t tell you how many times it was reported that I’d secretly wed someone. Three times in one week alone. I stopped paying attention after that.” He gave a careless shrug. “However Kray came by the misinformation, I saw no reason not to use it to my advantage.” They reached the telegraph office, and he glanced inside. “I need you to wait out here.”

“I’d rather go with you.”

His brows winged up. “And have you overhear the message I send to my man in London?”

“You don’t trust me?” she asked with a combination of disappointment and bemusement. Who on earth was she going to tell?

“I was jesting, Jane. It’s not something Kray would expect me to do, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Because she was the chastised fool to his brilliant strategist, she remembered glumly. “Right.”

“Aunt May will arrive in York on Tuesday.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“That’s the message I’ll be sending to Renderwell’s townhouse—Aunt May will arrive in York on Tuesday. If the men searching by train haven’t already bribed someone in the office to keep an eye out for us, the men tracking us by horse certainly will.”

“What if the men in the office can’t be bribed?”

“The message will still almost certainly be intercepted in London. Whatever the case, Kray will learn we’ve been here.”

“And assume we’re traveling to York?” Uncertain she’d heard any part of his comment completely, she was relieved when he nodded in response. Still, she decided not to venture a guess about Aunt May. “Won’t Lord Renderwell be confused to receive such a telegram?”

“No. It’s a coded message. He’ll know what it means.” He stepped away to leave, then abruptly turned back again. “It means I want a rendezvous with him. I thought you might want to know.”

“I did. Thank you.” She’d been on the verge of asking him to explain the details of his plans yet again. But he’d beaten her to it. It might have taken him a moment, but he remembered. He was trying, she thought. Because she’d asked it of him. That counted for something.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, his lips curving slightly at the corners. He scanned the nearest alleyway, then nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Kray’s men are well ahead of us and far behind us. You’ll be safe enough waiting here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Jane watched him leave, then sidled down the sidewalk to make room for a small group of chattering young women.

The villagers who strolled past ignored her, by and large. A few cast curious glances in her direction, but Jane could only assume it was because she was a woman in an odd hat standing alone outside the telegraph office, and looking distinctly uncomfortable about it.

It was a foreign experience, being amongst people who were completely indifferent to her presence.

She was nobody here. Absolutely nobody. She had no history with this town or its people. As far as those who walked by were concerned, she didn’t have so much as a name. It was strange to think about, but also rather liberating. She felt neither the need to hide away, nor the pressure to greet and speak with anyone. She could just stand there and watch, an anonymous observer.

A young lady strolled by with a small child in hand. Jane couldn’t stop herself from smiling at the little girl dressed in pale blue ruffles and matching hair ribbons.

The little girl caught her eye, slowed her steps, and smiled back, showcasing a wide smile with several missing teeth. Her mother followed her gaze, and Jane tensed, anticipating a look of censure or mistrust, but the lady merely smiled in a vague but polite sort of way and gave the little girl’s hand a gentle tug to get her moving again.

“Stay where you are, Miss Ballenger.” The gravelly, unfamiliar voice was loud in her ear, every word clear as day. “Don’t make a sound.”

Jane went absolutely still as she felt the unmistakable prick of a knife in her back.

Her heart jumped in her chest, and for a moment her thoughts scattered. Where had he come from? Out of a shop? She’d not seen him approaching. Was he alone? Were there others?

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the child and mother moving out of sight.

She opened her mouth to call for help, then sucked in an involuntary breath when the knife dug a little deeper.

“If you scream, I’ll plant my blade in your back. Quick and silent. Then I’ll introduce myself to that little girl and her pretty mother. Understood?”

Jane snapped her mouth shut as her stomach rolled. She managed one shaky nod.

“Good. Now, you and me, we’re going to take a little walk. Go to your left.”

He nudged her shoulder with his free hand, but Jane resisted.

“Move,” he hissed. “And smile. Smile like you know me.Now, Miss Ballenger, or I’ll gut you here on the street and… That’s better. Keep smiling. We’re not going far.”

Jane’s legs felt leaden as she shuffled away from the telegraph office. Her lips trembled as she forced an unnatural smile directed at absolutely no one. The street was empty for the moment. But there were people in the shops and rooms above. Someone might be watching. If she could just signal to someone without giving herself away, without endangering the little girl. How long would it take for child and mother to move entirely out of harm’s way? How far away did they have to be?

Without warning, the man grabbed her arm and yanked her into a nearby alleyway. He dragged her the short distance to another path that ran behind the backs of the buildings, then promptly spun her about and shoved her hard against the wall.

Instinctively, she threw her hands up in defense, and immediately regretted the decision when she felt a solid thump against her hip.

The gun. She had a gun in her pocket.

She nearly reached for it, only stopping herself at the last second. She couldn’t try for it now when he was looming over her, pressing the tip of his knife to the center of her chest. He was inches from her face, his long, crooked nose level with hers. If she so much as let her hands dip lower, he’d know. He’d stop her, search her, and take the weapon. Then she’d have nothing.

“They say you’re mad,” the man mused aloud. When she didn’t reply, he hooked up one wide, bony shoulder. “Then again, they also said you were pretty, and if they were wrong about one…” He trailed off and sneered at her.

Jane gave a minute shake of her head. Did he expect a retort from her while he pressed a knife to her chest? “What do you want from me?”

“You know what I want.”

“I don’t have it. Sir Gabriel took it.”

“And where might he be?”

“He left. He left me here.”

“To go where?”

“I don’t know. Idon’t,” she insisted when he pressed the knife a little harder.

“Liar. Where is he?”

“Idon’t know. He said he was going for supplies for the trip to the coast, but he didn’t come back.” The lie came blessedly quick. She could only hope her inexpert delivery of it was masked by her fear.

“How do you know he’s not coming back? You’ve not been here more than an hour. I would’ve known.”

“He said twenty minutes. He said he’d be back in twenty minutes, but he didn’t—”

“Doesn’t mean he’s left for good.” The man glanced over his shoulder then, and for the first time, Jane realized he was sweating profusely. His breath was short and choppy, and his eyes were darting about in the frantic manner of a trapped animal.

He was afraid.

“Let’s go,” he said suddenly. He pushed away from her and used his knife to gesture down the alleyway. “Walk.”

She remained where she was. “Walk where?”

“To the station. We’re going to see Mr. Kray.”

“But I don’t have it. The list. It’s with—”

“I don’t give a frigging damn about some list,” he snarled. “And I’m sure as hell not about to tangle with a Thief Taker over it. Kray wants Arkwright, but I suspect you’ll do well enough.”

“Well enough for what?”

“Bail. Nowmove.”

Jane flattened herself against the wall. Under no circumstances was she going anywhere else with the man. Their current spot was hidden from view but not from sound. If she screamed, someone would hear her. If she could get free, it was only a short, hard dash to the main street. If she could just get her hand to her pocket…

Without warning, the man yanked her away from the wall and gave her a hard shove.

It seemed to Jane in that moment as if the world both slowed down and sped up in equal measure. She exaggerated her forward stumble, gaining as much distance from him as she could, and used the distraction to reach for her gun. But the weapon had shifted in her pocket. When she reached inside, her fingers closed around the barrel.

It felt as if an eternity passed before she found the handle, pulled the gun free, and spun around to face her attacker. Mere seconds had elapsed, but that was all the man had needed to close the distance between them.

He was right in front of her, leaving her no room to maneuver or hide what she was trying to do. She managed to lift the gun up only so far as her hip before he swung out and caught her on the wrist, knocking the weapon from her hand.

Without thought, she spun round again, intent on bolting for the main street. The mother and child had to be long gone by now.

But the man caught her by the waist and dragged her backward.

Jane had never considered herself a fighter, not in a literal sense. But if there was one thing she’d learned in the two years she’d spent at the asylum, it was how toresist. She had resisted every day for months. When they’d come for her, she’d fought back. She had lost every time, but she’d learned from those failures. She’d discovered what worked and what didn’t. Which movements and positions were the most likely to gain her freedom, and which were certain to give her opponent an advantage.

It had been years since she’d had reason to employ those lessons, but they all came flooding back to her now. Before the man could get his arm around her throat and threaten her breathing, she dropped her chin down to her chest. It was an awkward position, and counter-intuitive to hunch over and expose the back of her neck, but it worked. The man’s forearm pressed against her mouth instead of her vulnerable throat.

She screamed and bit down on his arm at the same time, ignoring the repugnant taste of dirt and old wool.

Dimly, she was aware of his cursing in her ear.

She saw the glint of the knife in the corner of her eye, and she reached out to catch his forearm and shove it away. With her free hand, she lifted her skirts and delivered a hard, scraping kick to the side of his leg. Twice.

And then she was free of him, tripping forward out of his grasp and turning around to face him at the same time.

His face was red with fury. He pulled the knife back with the obvious intention of delivering a slashing blow.

She threw her hands up to shield her face and stumbled back. Her muscles tightened, anticipating the first awful sting of the blade.

But it never came. Nothing happened.

Cautiously, Jane lowered her arms to peek out through squinted eyes. What she saw astounded her. He was running away, bolting down the long alleyway behind the main street as if his life depended on it, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

Caught between terrified and dumbstruck, she stared after him.

“Get behind me.”

If she’d had the air, she would have yelped at Gabriel’s sudden, sharp command. But her breath was coming too fast, catching loud in her throat. She didn’t manage much more than a startled jerk.

Gabriel shoved her back and lifted his gun to take aim at the retreating man.

“You can’t.” Her voice sounded thready to her own ears. “He’s too far away now.”

One would need a rifle to make a shot at such a distance.

Gabriel didn’t seem to hear her, and didn’t seem to be in any sort of hurry to pull the trigger. He just stood there, staring down the barrel as if he had all the time in the world.

“You’ll miss,” she breathed.

His eyes narrowed slightly. He took a breath in, then slowly let it out.

“I don’t miss.”

Jane jumped at the sharp crack that echoed through the alley.

The man crumpled to the ground with a howl.

Good God, he’d hit him. In the leg, from the looks of it.

She could just make out her own babbling over the ringing in her ears. “Yes, that’s right. You’re the marksman, aren’t you? You’re the marksman in your group. The Thief Takers. I’d forgotten.”

Gabriel’s gaze raked over her in a quick but thorough inspection. Apparently satisfied, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the alley toward her attacker. “Take deep breaths, Jane.”

“I’m all right,” she said. But she did take those deep breaths, and they did help. The ringing quieted to a muted whine, and the trembling began to subside.

“Stay behind me,” Gabriel ordered as they reached the prone man.

Jane could see he was still conscious. He was gripping his leg and rolling back and forth on the ground as a string of hissing noises and filth poured out of his mouth. “You rutting bastard. Son of awhore.”

Gabriel didn’t react other than to bend down and press the muzzle of the gun against the man’s forehead. Cold as you please. “Where’s Kray gone?”

“You shot me in the back, you—”

“Skimmed the side of your calf, actually. My conscience will survive. Tell me where Kray is.”

The man only groaned and hissed and swore some more.

“If you won’t talk,” Gabriel said. “Then you’re of no use to me.”

He cocked the weapon.

“I tell you…” the man managed through gritted teeth. “You let me go.”

“You tell me. You live.”

“I’ll die before I go back. We all would.”

“Go back where?”

“What is the meaning of this?!”

Jane started at the intrusion of a new voice. She whirled about and instinctively pressed herself up against the nearest brick wall. The new arrival was a middle-aged man with a rotund belly, balding pate, and a large gun in his hand.

“Here now,” the newcomer huffed at Gabriel’s back. “Turn about, you.”

Jane looked to Gabriel and saw him give his captive a private, perfectly terrifying smile. “Lucky man,” he whispered.

A second later, he was facing the newcomer with the same solicitous and slightly rakish grin he’d offered her on her doorstep the first day they’d met.

Chameleon, she thought. Always changing. Always someone new.

“My apologies for the disturbance.”

The newcomer took in Gabriel’s fine clothes and accent, along with the gun he was holding. “I have to ask you to put that down, sir,” he said in a notably modified tone. “Put it on the ground where I can see it, if you please.”

“Certainly.” Gabriel crouched and placed the gun by his feet. “I’m going to push it away, out of the reach of my friend, here.”

“Quite right.”

Gabriel sent the weapon skittering across the dirt alleyway, and rose just in time to plant a boot on the wounded man’s chest when he tried to roll away. “Don’t make the good man shoot you,” he chided.

The injured man’s struggles subsided with a pained grunt, and Gabriel returned his attention to the villager. “Again, I apologize for the commotion. I imagine that shot was heard in all four corners of town.” He pointed to his coat pocket. “If I might retrieve my card?”

A single nod. “Slowly now.”

“Here you are.” Gabriel retrieved a card and extended it in offering.

The gunman inched forward, slipped it from Gabriel’s fingers, and jumped back.

“Sir Gabriel…” The man trailed off, looked up from the card and blinked at Gabriel. “Arkwright,” he finished in a stunned voice. “By God, itis you.” He lowered his weapon and gaped in astonishment. “Sir Gabriel Arkwright.”

“You have the advantage, I’m afraid.”

“Ah. Yes. Yes. My apologies. Mr. Wallace, sir.” He offered a quick but low bow. “At your service.”

“Pleasure. Mr. Wallace, would you mind very much if I…?” He jerked his chin toward his gun.

“Not a bit, sir. Not a bit.”

“Most kind. Jane, if you would, please?” He nodded toward the gun and tapped his foot against the prone man. “I hate to leave him unattended.”

Reluctantly, Jane pried herself away from the wall and retrieved the weapon. It felt uncomfortably warm and heavy in her hand. She passed it to Gabriel just as a new voice intruded on the scene.

“Mr. Wallace?”

Mr. Wallace glanced behind him as two men came hurrying toward them, brandishing clubs. “It’s all right, Mr. Pentworth. All right, Jim. It’s Sir Gabriel Arkwright.”

Both men came to a stop and looked at Gabriel. Their jaws dropped in unison.

“My God.”

“As I live and breathe.”

“Is it safe?” Yet another voice called out.

Jane craned her neck for a look around Mr. Wallace. A least a dozen people stood at the end of the alleyway, gathered at the very edge of the building.

Well, they’d certainly been seen, hadn’t they?

“It’s Sir Gabriel Arkwright,” one of the new men called back.

A collective gasp followed, and the whole group surged forward, talking at once.

“The Sir Gabriel Arkwright?”

“Is it really?”

“It is, look at him.”

“Eliza, come and see! Sir Gabriel Arkwright!”

“I can scarce believe it.”

A young boy poked his head around someone’s waist. “Who’s Sir Gabriel Arkite?”

Jane had the most absurd urge to give the child a kiss on the cheek, and possibly a large bag of sweets.

He was promptly shoved to the back of the group.

“What’s a Thief Taker doing here?” someone asked.

“Never mind that, who’s he standing on?”

Mr. Wallace pointed at Kray’s man. “Who’s that you’ve got, sir?”

“Just a ruffian attempting to relieve a lady of her jewelry.” Gabriel explained with a nod in Jane’s direction.

She wasn’t wearing jewelry. Not so much as a paste brooch, but no one seemed to notice or care. They were all eyes for Gabriel. All tongues as well. The group chattered away like magpies. It was difficult for Jane to discern individual comments amongst the noise. When Mr. Wallace moved closer to Gabriel to speak over the din, however, she could make out snippets about ladies and sensibilities and discretion.

Mr. Wallace threw a glance in her direction and bobbed his head. “Quite right, sir. Quite right.”

She decided she was better off not guessing what sort of fantastic story Gabriel was concocting on her behalf.

“We’ll take care of him,” she heard Mr. Wallace say. He motioned for one of the other men to take Gabriel’s place. “Keep an eye on this one, Mr. Pentworth.”

As soon as Kray’s man was secured, Gabriel was at her side.

Mr. Wallace cleared his throat and made an impatient gesture at Kray’s man. “I hope this unfortunate incident won’t dissuade you from visiting our little village in the future. He’s not one of ours.”

Gabriel shook his head. “The railway brings in all sorts, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

“Quite dreadful,” someone else commented.

“Ghastly things,” an elderly man said.

“I like trains,” the young boy chimed in, and was once again roundly ignored by everyone but Jane, who managed a smile for him before Gabriel ushered her away.

“My gun,” she said as they made their way back up the alley. “He knocked it out my hand. It’s…”

“I see it.” Gabriel stooped and snagged the gun without breaking his stride.

“Where are we going?” Jane asked.

“Might as well take the train now.”

“What about that man? And our horse?”

“Mr. Wallace will see to both.”

As they neared the main street, he shifted closer to her, putting his arm around her waist. It wasn’t an embrace, but it was close. His fingers were firmly anchored above her hip.

There was no one about to see. Everyone within a two-block radius appeared to have abandoned their activities for the scene in the alleyway. Nevertheless…

“I don’t think it’s seemly for as to walk in this manner.”

“I don’t care.” His tone was low and hard, and when she studied his profile, she discovered that the bright, easy smile he’d shared with the villagers was gone.

“Are you angry?” she asked carefully.

“Not with you.”

She glanced back the way they’d come. “With the man you shot, then?”

“Yes.” He swore softly. “To start. He was hurting you.”

“A little.” And she was plenty furious about that herself. “But you shot him, so I suspect he’s angrier.”

His only response was to grip her a little tighter.

It was more than unseemly, really. It was out-and-out scandalous. And she didn’t care. She wanted him right where he was.

No, that wasn’t quite right…

She shifted closer, then closer still, until she could feel his hard form along the length of her side. And why not? If they were going to be scandalous, they might as well do the thing right—she might as well let the heat of him warm away the chill from the alley.

He kept her at his side as he purchased their tickets, but they didn’t speak again until it was time to board. Like the last train, this one had old-fashioned first-class carriages that were isolated from the rest of the train.

As Jane took her seat, Gabriel shut the door behind him, pulled the curtains shut, then pulled back just the corner to peer out the window.

“You’re certain they won’t be waiting for us at the next stop?” she asked nervously.

“Yes. We’re ahead of all of them. Evidently.”

“How did they find us so quickly?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well.” She searched for something reassuring to say. “At least we’ve been lucky with the timing of the trains. Two in a row.”

He nodded and let the curtain fall away as the train started out of the station. She expected him to relax then, to sit back against the cushions and let his guard down. Instead, he reached over and hauled her out of her seat and onto his lap.

Keeping one arm around her waist, he began running his free hand all over her. The touch was efficient, even impersonal, but it still lit a thousand little flames of excitement beneath her skin.

Jane gasped and reared back. “What are you doing?”

“Checking for engines.”

Engines?No,injuries. “I’m not injured. I think I would know.”

“He had a knife.”

“It barely pricked.”

At the wordpricked, his arm tightened around her with near bruising force. “Where?” He demanded. “Where did it prick you?”

“My back, but—”

“God damn it, you said you weren’t hurt.” He twisted her away from him and ran his hands from shoulder to waist before she could finish. “There’s no blood.”

“I told you. It barely pricked.”

His fingers found the spot where the blade had cut the fabric of her gown, and he swore ripely. “I should have gutted him when I had the chance.”

“With a gun? That seems an unlikely proposition.”

“I can be creative.”

She twisted back around to look at him. “I’m all right,” she promised, warmed by the obvious concern she saw on his face. She was no stranger to being fussed over. Mrs. Harmon was a champion fusser. But it was different with Gabriel. For some reason, it felt sweeter. “May I get up now?”

His only response was to settle her firmly against him, and tuck her head under his chin. He wrapped his arms around her like chains and simply held on.

Jane offered no resistance. She hadn’t really wanted to move. It just seemed the proper thing to do.

But this was so much better. He was warm and solid. And safe. She’d never felt so safe, so well protected as she sheltered in his embrace. Not even at Twillins. The little cottage was her sanctuary, a place for her to hide from the world. But Gabriel… Gabriel was afortress. She didn’t feel hidden away. She felt guarded, and that made her feel bold. Untouchable. As if she could thumb her nose at the world without a care, or stroll into battle without fear. She could do whatever she liked, go anywhere she pleased, so long as he was there.

They sat there for a long time, until she felt the tension ease from his frame, until her own muscles grew lax and her lids became heavy.

“They should have been at least a half day ahead of us,” Gabriel said at length, and Jane was relieved to find that she could hear him clearly, much as she had when they’d shared the horse. “They couldn’t have gone ahead and come back already. It’s too soon. There’s no tactical sense in… What did he say to you?”

“Well…” She thought back over the scene in the alleyway. “He wanted to know where the list was and where you’d gone. I claimed ignorance on both. I said you’d left me behind, but I don’t think he believed it. Then he wanted me to go with him so he could give me to Mr. Kray. He said I was enough for…bail?” She cleared her throat uneasily. “I may have misheard that. I’m sorry. I was quite nervous.”

“It’s all right. Don’t apologize.”

“He was quite keen on leaving. He didn’t want to meet with you. At all.”

“Because he’d rather die than go back,” he murmured thoughtfully. “They all would.” Then said something unintelligible under his breath, something foul by the sound of it. “They’re convicts. Maybe all of them. Fulberg recognized one of the men at Twillins as someone he’d seen in gaol, but I assumed he was a man Kray already knew, that he’d pulled some strings to release him for this job. But he bloody well pulled strings for all of them.”

“What does it matter if they’ve spent time in gaol?” They were clearly criminally minded individuals. It wasn’t exactly surprising.

“It matters if they’re men facing long sentences unless they do Kray’s bidding.”

“But…” Jane tried not think about what manner of crimes warranted long sentences. “That seems awfully shortsighted. Aside from the general havoc that might be caused by the sudden release of a small army of criminals on an unsuspicious pop…I mean unsuspecting population, what’s to stop the men from simply running off?”              

“Fear, mostly. They’re afraid of being caught, of Kray, of losing what might be their only chance at freedom for God knows how long. If Kray was smart, he offered rewards as well. A financial boon, or the opportunity to be free of both prison and his employment. Bail, as you said. This complicates things.”

“In what manner?”

“Any or all of those men might decide to run at any time,” he explained. “Eventually, they’ll realize they can’t trust Kray, or conclude that I’m the greater threat, or convince themselves that no one will bother hunting down one or two deserters. They’ll hide, slip away, or stay behind in a small village along the way—where the two of us have a fair chance of running into them by accident.” He swore again. “I can’t predict the behavior of men whose goals and motivation might change at any given moment. There’s no way of knowing when or where any of them will decide to take their chances on the run, or where we might be in relation to them at the time. And now… Now I bloody well can’t be absolutely certain any of them are behind us.”

She sat up and pulled away a little to look at him. “Will we be all right at the next stop?”

“We should be. The train is full, we’ll slip away with the crowd. But how the devil did Kray get them all out? It couldn’t have been bribery alone. The amount of money it would take to secure the release of so many people…” He shook his head. “You could hire well-trained, experienced men for less. Then again, experienced, well-trained men are harder to find, and possibly less likely to do as they’re told without asking questions.” He paused briefly and looked at her with a curious expression she couldn’t quite read. “It’s been two days, now. We’ve given Fulberg and the Harmons a good head start.”

“Do you think they’re in safe in Edinburgh?”

“No, not yet. But as I said, they had a good head start.”

She gaped at him as realization dawned. “You want to stop the chase. You want to stop baiting Mr. Kray.”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely not.” She’d not come so far only to give up now.

“Jane—”

“It is not up for discussion.”

“On that point we agree. My decision will be final.”

She leveraged herself off his lap and resumed her seat across from him. “This can’t be the first time the plan of a Thief Taker hit a little snag. Surely things go awry from time to time.”

“They do. And from time to time we decide those snags warrant a change of course.”

“This is not one of those times.” When he didn’t respond to that, she swallowed down a rising flood of fear and tipped her chin up. “You may abandon the Harmons and Mr. Fulberg if you like. I intend to go on as I have been.”

When that produced no reaction, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him defiantly.

Come hell, high water, or Sir Gabriel Arkwright’s final decision, she was going to keep the Harmons safe.

***

Gabriel had no reservations about working with women. He’d had countless female clients, and when Samuel had suggested that his wife, Esther, train and begin working as one of the Thief Takers, Gabriel had agreed without hesitation. He had done so knowing full well that, yes, from time to time, things went awry.

In the past, however, he’d dealt with dangerous complications in a calm, rational manner.

At present, he felt a little unhinged.

It wasn’t merely anger he was experiencing. He knew anger. It burned bright and hot. A man could use it, bend it to his will like a carefully tended fire.

This was something different. This was new. It wasn’t red hot. It was black, thick, and sticky as tar. It clung to every inch of him, inside and out. He could feel the weight of it pressing down on his lungs, and a nauseating, slick coat of it in his stomach.

He didn’t know what to do with it, how to use it, or—currently more pressing—how to be bloody rid of it.

It had just sprung up. The second he’d turned the corner and spied Jane struggling with the man in the alleyway everything had gone…a bit dark. It had taken an enormous effort not to aim for the man’s head. Too much effort. He’d never experienced bloodlust of that magnitude before.

And that was nothing compared to the anger he felt toward himself. He shouldn’t have left Jane alone. He’d taken too long inside. He should have bribed the people ahead of him instead of waiting. He shouldn’t have made assumptions about where Kray’s men were to be found.

He should have aimed for the bastard’s head.

Gabriel rolled the tension out of his shoulders. It was reasonable to assume that the feeling would soon ease. It was equally reasonable to believe that he could avoid experiencing it in the future by tucking Jane away someplace safe.

It was utterly asinine to believe she would ever agree to that.

Which left him with one of two options. He could force her to give up the game, earning her wrath and rebellion, and possibly endangering her loved ones in the process. Or he could find a way to keep this new, unwelcome, and volatile emotion under control.

“We go on as we were,” he agreed. “For now.”

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

Jane and Gabriel disembarked at the next stop, in a town which turned out to be significantly larger than the last. Jane couldn’t decide if that was to their benefit or not. One could blend and disappear into a crowd, as they did leaving the station. That was certainly helpful.

On the other hand,anyone could blend into a crowd. As they worked their way toward the center of town amongst a throng of people, Jane searched one face after another, wondering if any of them meant her and Gabriel harm. She had no way of knowing for sure because, with the exception of Mr. Kray, she didn’t know what any of the men chasing them looked like. She’d only seen them through the window of her parlor, and it had been a brief and distant view.

And then there was the noise. So many voices all talking at once. She couldn’t hope to make out what anyone was saying—not even Gabriel. Her gaze jumped to him repeatedly, but he remained stone-faced and tight-lipped until they broke away from the larger group and made their way toward the town’s inn.

Jane relaxed at the relatively peaceful environment, but she nearly groaned aloud when Gabriel immediately procured an enormous roan gelding for them. Sitting two to a saddle had seemed so romantic at first, but now the thought of it just made her legs ache. Assuming he had good reason for the arrangement, however, she kept quiet until they’d led the horse away to the privacy of a side street.

“Are we safe here?”

“It appears so, for the moment.” He turned away and bent down to adjust a strap just as a small group of boisterous young men leaving the inn briefly caught her attention. “If Kray’s men beard thespian what forest at the station.”

Her gaze shot back to Gabriel.Kray’s men…something…at the station.What something?Beard thespian what forest. That could be anything. Anything at all.

But it hadn’t been a question, had it? It hadn’t sounded like one, and he wasn’t looking at her.

“Well, all right,” she ventured in what she hoped was a natural tone of voice. When he didn’t look at her as if she’d lost her mind, she casually maneuvered around to the other side of him, where she could see his face. Then she promptly changed the subject. “Why can’t we take two?”

Gabriel paused in his work and glanced up at her. “Beg your pardon?”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we rode separately? We’d be more comfortable, I’m sure. And we’d be able to move quickly if need be.”

“You can’t ride.”

“Of course I can,” she replied, a little insulted that he’d simply assumed she wasn’t able to seat a horse. “Maybe not with any great skill, but I manage.”

She knew something was wrong almost immediately, because for several seconds he did nothing but stay exactly as he was, crouched over with the strap in his hand, and stare at her very much as if shehad lost her mind.

There had been no assumption, she realized. There had been a miscommunication.

Before she could think of a way to back out of her suggestion or minimize the damage, however, he pulled the strap tight, and straightened to look down at her with an awful, narrow-eyed suspicion.

“Jane, we discussed this.”

“Did we? I don’t recall.” She had no difficulty affecting an air of confusion. She really didn’t remember it. Over the last few days, there had been a number of comments and conversations she’d bluffed her way through. The subject of riding could have come up during any one of them. “Are you quite certain I—”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well…”Damn it. She had a terrible urge to swallow nervously and look away. The first she suppressed, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from dropping from his mouth to his collar. “Obviously there was some sort of misunderstanding. Was it first thing in the morning? I’m not always at my best straight upon waking.”

“You were fully awake. Look at me.” He caught her chin and held it steady. “Why are you lying to me about this?”

“I’m not, and I didn’t. Not intentionally. I don’t recall telling you I couldn’t ride. I suppose you must have asked me while I was woolgathering and I answered without thinking.”

“You weren’t woolgathering. This isn’t like when you were listening to the wind in the pines. We were in the middle of a conversation.”

“Obviously it didn’t have my full attention.”

“You were a full participant. You were looking right at me.”

Trying to decipher what he’d said, no doubt. “But evidently thinking of something else,” she replied and tried to add a hint of impatience to her voice. “I’m sorry for the offense, but honestly, it has been a trying few days. Anyone might find the current circumstances a trifle distracting. And it’s no good looking at me as if I contracted some great deceit on purpose. If I’d meant for you to believe I couldn’t ride, I’d not have just asked you why we have only one horse.”

“Concocted, I think,” he said quietly, and a little thoughtfully, as if puzzling something through.

“What?”

“I think you meant concocted, not contracted.”

Had she saidcontracted?Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

“I suppose I did,” she said coolly, and pushed his hand away. She desperately wanted to say more, to somehow turn things about so she was back on the offensive, but she couldn’t trust herself to speak without compounding the problem. She was often at her worst when her temper was high. The best she could do was pretend an air of slight annoyance. “May we leave now?”

He stared at her a moment longer, his expression unreadable, then finally nodded. “We’ll take two horses. You ride sidesaddle, I assume?”

“I can ride astride just as well. Mr. Harmon taught me.”

There was another extended silence as he studied her with unnerving intensity. “Two it is.”

A half hour later, Jane had changed back into trousers and was comfortably astride her own dapple-gray mare. Comfortable was a relative term, however. She was no longer traveling with a saddle digging into her middle and thighs, but the trail Gabriel chose through the woods was thick with brush and thorns that continuously caught at her clothes and skin. And the unintended consequence of being separated from Gabriel was silence.

She kept waiting for him to attempt conversation, but he was abnormally quiet. Under other circumstances, his reticence might have been welcomed, but Jane couldn’t help but worry over the direction of his thoughts.

Did he still believe she had purposely lied to him? Or was he thinking now of all the other past misunderstandings and awkward moments between them, and wondering if it all added up to more than a woman with a preference for solitude and a funny little quirk?

He’d looked at her so intently earlier. Was he coming close to guessing her secret?  The very idea made her palms itch to tug at the reins. She wanted to turn her mount round and head off in the direction of Ardbaile.

But retreat and isolation were no longer options. And neither was lying her way through the rest of their journey. It was time she accepted that.

Her affliction simply wasn’t something that could be kept hidden indefinitely. At some point, there would be too many jumbled words, too many misunderstandings, too many times she responded inappropriately, or not at all, or got tangled in the increasingly absurd lies she told to cover her mistakes.

Eventually, she thought with a heavy sense of dread and resignation, Gabriel was going to discover the truth. The only question now was whether he heard it from her, or figured it out for himself. The latter allowed for a bit of stalling. If she was very careful, and if he continued to eschew conversation, she might have another day, even two, before things came to a head. On the other hand, waiting would mean answering an accusation rather than explaining the situation on her own terms.

Also, it was quite cowardly.

It would be better, she decided,much better, if she told him herself.

Notnow, of course. Not while they were two yards apart on separate horses. She would tell him once they’d stopped for the day…or possibly first thing in the morning. That would leave her plenty of time to figure out exactly what she wanted to say. And howmuch she wanted to say. And how, exactly, she wanted to say it. And…

Oh, she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to risk seeing his eyes fill with disgust or fear or pity.

She didn’t know if shecould do it. She’d never had to explain herself to anyone, not even the Harmons. They’d known before she’d arrived at the cottage.

For as long as Jane had been aware there was something wrong with her, secrecy had been her one and only consideration. The need to be honest had never presented itself. She didn’t know how to go about it. Where did she even begin? Where did she stop? How honest, exactly, did she have to be?

Perhaps not too honest. She had a right to her privacy, after all. She had a responsibility to the Harmons as well. If the unthinkable occurred and she was sent away, what would happen to them?

There were so many things to consider, and Jane spent the next few hours lost in the seemingly impossible task of accounting for every conceivable risk and complication. She also spent considerable time convincing herself that simply building a new set of lies to cover the old ones was not a viable option.

It wasn’t until a cold wind blew in that she pulled herself from her thoughts, and finally noticed the thick bank of hulking clouds moving toward them at an unnerving speed. She watched the sky darken with growing trepidation. A night spent under the stars was one thing. A night spent under freezing rain was quite another.

She steered her mount around a group of weathered tree trunks to get closer to Gabriel. “I don’t suppose you have a tent in that bag of yours?”

“No.” He looked over his shoulder at the brewing storm. “We’ll need to shelter indoors.”

They would need to do it soon, Jane thought. The wind was picking up steadily and brought with it the scent of rain.

They made their way through a particularly thick section of woods and came out on a small road. A short time later, Gabriel led them off onto a narrow, rutted drive that brought them to a small stone cottage and matching stable. Jane was apprehensive about being a guest in a stranger’s home, but it quickly became apparent that the house was unoccupied. There was no movement on the grounds or in the windows, the small flower beds flanking the front doors looked overrun with weeds, and they soon discovered the stable empty of life.

They took care of their mounts quickly, then dashed to the house.

Jane was envisioning a warm fire and soft bed as Gabriel knocked on the front door. He didn’t wait long for an answer before he pulled something out of his bag and crouched down in front of the door handle.

Jane peered over his shoulder and watched him fit a small tool into the lock. “Are you trying to pick the lock?”

“No, I’ve succeeded in picking the lock,” he corrected, and demonstrated by straightening and opening the door with a flourish.

Gabriel stepped inside, but she hesitated at the threshold. This was someone’s home, she thought, and she didn’t have permission to be there. The moment she stepped inside, she became an intruder, a trespasser.

“Jane?”

“This is illegal.”

“A bit, yes. But—”

“We’ve broken into someone’shome.”

“It doesn’t appear to be anyone’s home at present. And, strictly speaking, nothing’s been broken, but—”

“We don’t have permission to be here. Maybe we should look elsewhere for shelter.”

As if in response, or possibly in mockery of her hesitation, the storm chose that moment to let loose a great rumble of thunder and a heavy sheet of rain. The latter would have soaked her to the skin, but she was over the threshold and closing the door behind her in less than a second.

And then she just stood there in the modest front hall that reminded her a little of Twillins, and marveled at the fact that she was now, officially, a mad, idiot trollop,and a criminal.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “You can leave a note of apology if you like.”

If she hadn’t been staring right at him, she’d not have known he was grinning. “Don’t make fun. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“I’m not in the habit of picking front doors belonging to innocent people myself,” he replied and waited for another long crack of thunder to pass before adding, “but I find my conscience completely untroubled at the moment.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Would you begrudge a traveler taking shelter from the storm in Twillins tonight?”

“No, I suppose not,” she conceded. “Provided they were respectful about it.”

“Why assume the owners of this house are less generous and compassionate than yourself? You’re insulting them, really.” He tsked and shook his head. “And in their own home.”

“Stop it,” she chided, but couldn’t hold back a small laugh. “I think Iwill apologize to them, and I don’t…” She paused as a new idea occurred to her. “Would you write the note? They might find it more reassuring coming from a famous former police officer.”

He tipped his head at her, his grin turning thoughtful. “Is it that important to you, leaving a note?”

“Yes. I know you think it’s silly, but a person’s home is…” She trailed off, unable to find the right word to describe what a home meant. “Well, it’shome.” She gave a small shrug. “A home should always feel safe, and it’s frightening to think of people having been in one’s house while one is away. But if they left a note…”

“They’d seem a bit less like strangers and a little more like unexpected guests,” he finished for her, and she smiled, delighted that he should understand so perfectly. “I’ll write it,” he continued, “but you should know you’re wrong—”

“I’m not—”

He cut her off by stepping close and pressing a single, chaste kiss to her cheek. “I don’t think it’s silly,” he said simply. “Come on, let’s see what our hosts have left for us.”

As the storm blustered outside, Jane and Gabriel made their way through the cottage. Had it not been for the sheets that covered most of the furnishings, and the dust that covered everything else, one might have assumed that the residents were expected home at any minute. Every room in the house was fully furnished. There were paintings on the walls, lamps and candles waiting to be lighted in every room, a stack of books sitting atop a desk in the largest bedroom, and just a general sense of life in the cottage having stopped rather suddenly.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Jane commented as they walked down the upstairs hall. “It’s as if they just threw sheets over everything and walked away. I wonder where they went. And why they left so much behind. Anyone might pick that front lock and make off with their things. Though I suppose the house is rather isolated, and perhaps there is someone nearby who keeps an eye on it.”

“Not this evening, he won’t,” Gabriel commented with a jerk of his chin toward the window at the end of the hall. Rain and wind lashed against the glass, rattling the panes.

“Maybe whoever lived here died,” Jane mused aloud. “And there is no one to claim the estate.” Her gaze landed on a small portrait of a pretty, young woman with a coy smile. “Or maybe someone set up house for his mistress and the affair ended badly. Maybe she broke his heart when she ran off with another man, and he can’t bring himself to come here again, nor to be rid of her things.” She made a face at the idea. “That’s all a bit tragic, isn’t it? Perhaps the owner just fancied a spot of travel and it’s lasted longer than he intended. Maybe he went to Rome and met the love of his life.”

“Well, let us hope. He deserves a nice girl after that unfortunate business with the mistress.” Gabriel opened a door and led them into a generously proportioned bedroom. “Any particular reason it has to be Rome?”

“Er… No, it just seems more romantic. I suppose they might have fallen in love in Manchester just as well.”

“You’re right, Rome sounds better.” He stepped over to the giant four-poster bed in the center of the room and carefully rolled down the top sheet. “You’d make a fair detective, you know.”

She stared at him, mouth agape. “Are you making fun of me?” He didn’t look as if he was poking fun. He looked quite sincere, but the idea was laughable. “I’d be dreadful.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re clever, inquisitive, compassionate, and courageous. Most of the essential requirements are there; the rest could be learned.”

She’d been warming to the list of compliments, until he’d reached the last.

“I’d not left Twillins Cottage in six years,” she reminded him quietly. She wasn’t courageous, and they both knew it.

“And I would very much like to know more about that,” he returned in an equally soft voice. “But setting that aside for the moment…” He straightened from the bed. “One is rarely as brave as one might hope. Most of us allow fear to guide our choices more often than we should. But whether or not one is brave when one wants to be is of less significance, I think, than whether or not one is courageous when one needs to be. You left Twillins when it became necessary, when your friends were counting on you. That’s what matters.”

She wasn’t entirely convinced of his logic, but it was such a lovely thing for him to say, she hadn’t the heart to argue. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said simply, and went back to rolling down the blanket.

Jane eyed the bed with longing. A soft mattress and warm blankets sounded simply divine. But the thought of being found in it by their pursuers turned her stomach.

“Perhaps we should sleep in the stable,” she suggested, and shrugged at Gabriel’s questioning glance. “I know it’s unlikely Kray’s men will come looking for us in the storm, but if they did… They would expect to find us sleeping inside, wouldn’t they? They might peek in the stable and see our mounts, but I suspect they’d search the house for us straightaway. After all, why would we choose a mound of scratchy old hay on a stormy night when there are warm, soft beds to be had? Perhaps, with some luck, we’d be able to sneak away while they searched the house.”

Gabriel’s mouth curved in an appreciative smile. “You see? You’re a clever woman, Jane.”

She felt a smug little glow, until… “Oh. That’s why you’re taking the blankets, isn’t it?” That was disappointing.

“Great minds think alike.” He tipped his head once to the side. “Or fools seldom differ. You can let me know which it is when you’re picking straw out of your ear at two o’clock in the morning. In the meantime, see if you can’t ferret out some clean clothes for us.”

While Gabriel continued to gather the necessary supplies for their night in the stable, Jane found a change of clothes for both of them, then took advantage of the tub they’d found in the washroom at the back of the house. It took some time and effort to fill it, but at least it provided warm water once the small, attached furnace was lighted.

She scrubbed herself clean and donned her new trousers and shirt. They were even larger than the ones Gabriel had provided, and hung on her frame like shapeless sacks of flour. Gazing into a vanity mirror she’d uncovered, she made a face at the unattractive picture she made. Pity she’d not been able to unearth any gowns, but at least the new clothes were warm, clean, and dry.

Which was more than could be said for Gabriel.

She found him in the parlor downstairs, dripping puddles on the rug.

“Ah,” he said, glancing at her when she came in. “I thought I’d have another minute or two. Nearly done.”

“Good heavens, you’re sopping wet. Did you go back outside?”

“I needed something.”

“What could possibly be so important that you’d risk drowning or a lightning strike…” She trailed off as her eyes landed on the small table behind him. He’d pulled it in front of the fireplace and set it with what looked to be very fine china, silver flatware, and elegant crystal goblets. In the center of the table, a small vase that had been wiped clean of dust held a meager bouquet of sodden, yellow blooms.

She walked slowly to the table, the only sound in the room the cheerful crackle and snap of the logs in the fire.

“What is this?”

“This, Miss Ballenger, is romance.”

Her eyes lingered on the flowers. “Rather soggy.”

There was a short pause. “It’s raining.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, it is.”

“If you don’t like them, I’ll remove them.” He reached around her and plucked the vase off the table.

“Do what?Remove them?” She snatched the vase out of his hand. “Don’t you dare.”

“I thought you didn’t like them.”

“Of course I like them.”

“They’re wet.”

“Iknow,” she said, and couldn’t suppress a happy sigh. They were drenched and drooping pitifully. The saddest little blooms she’d ever seen. And he’d stood out in the rain and picked them. Just for her. “They’re perfect.”

Gabriel looked down at his wet shirt, then tugged uncomfortably at his collar. “I need a minute.”

He strode out of the room, but was back in short order in clean, dry clothes much like her own. Only his fit a good deal better. He’d only rolled the cuffs once by the look of it, while hers looked as fat as sausages.

He seated her at the table before reaching around her to take the lid off a large covered platter. There, sitting rather meekly atop the ornate silver, was a single block of cheese, one sliced apple, and half a loaf of bread.

She laughed at the sight of it.

“Peasant’s fare, I’m afraid,” Gabriel said.

She met his gaze and beamed at him. “But served at a table fit for a queen.”

***

Gabriel couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this nervous sitting across the table from a woman. He was, in fact, quite certain he’d never been this nervous.

He was usually good at this sort of thing. Then again, he’d always had nearly limitless resources at his disposal. He could offer his guest the richest dishes, the finest meats, the most decadent of desserts. He wore impeccably tailored suits of equally impeccable style and never was there a cuff or hem out of place. He set a pretty picture designed to please, impress, and, above all, distract the lady from looking too far beneath the surface.

Tonight, he had cheese and bread and wilted flowers. Worse, he was wearing another man’s clothes. Another man’s outdated, ill-fitting, wrinkled clothes.

He felt unkempt. Slovenly. Exposed.

While Jane looked…

Well, she looked a bit wild, actually. Her hair was drying into an outlandish mass of curls and frizz. The collar of her oversized shirt had slipped to the side, exposing a white shoulder that he was doing his best not to stare at too often. And she’d spilled a little something on the front of the linen. A drop or two of wine from the looks of it. Her cheeks were wind chapped from riding out of doors, and showing the beginnings of freckles from the sun.

God’s truth, she looked half-feral. Just as she had after climbing the tree. And now, as then, he thought her beautiful. Wild and messy suited her. There was no need for Jane to armor herself in starched gowns and sparkling jewels, or tame her hair with pins and ribbons and pomade. She was perfect just as she was.

Whereashe…

His gaze landed on the small vase.

He was a bastard.

He may not have picked the flowers and set the table with manipulation in mind. He’d just thought she might like them. He’d wanted to see her smile, maybe even laugh the way she had when he’d caught her from the tree.

But that wasn’t going to stop him from using her obvious pleasure with them to his advantage.

Regardless of his initial intentions, hewas going to manipulate Jane into exposing her secrets. He didn’t have much choice. Neither of them did.

“What would I have to learn to become a detective?” Jane asked him, drawing his attention. “You said I had the essentials, but some things I would need to learn. What things?”

“Interested in applying for a position as a thief taker?”

“Not remotely.” She wrinkled her nose at the idea. “I’m certain I wouldn’t care for the position at all. But I am curious what sort of skills I’m lacking.”

“Well, you’ve quite a lot of natural talent as a fighter, as I’ve mentioned, but those skills would need to be honed. More important, you would need to learn how to lie properly.”

“Police officers are trained to lie?”

“No, though the ability to deceive can be useful in certain situations. But I was thinking of private work, as you’re a woman.” The police would never allow a female in their ranks.

“Oh, right. Would you work with a female investigator?”

He did work with one, but that wasn’t his secret to give away. “I would have nothing against it,” he replied instead. “If she had all the requisite skills.”

“Like the ability to lie.” She lifted a careless shoulder. “Perhaps I’m better at deception than you realize. How would you know?”

And here it was. The moment he ruined everything.

Can’t be helped. He caught and held her gaze. “Because I know you’re keeping secrets now.”

***

It took a substantial amount of willpower for Jane keep her hand steady as she reached for her wine. “Everyone has secrets.”

“Not the sort you’re hiding,” Gabriel said softly. “You didn’t avoid your village for six years because of awkward conversation, Jane, nor because you weren’t receiving the right invitations.”

“That’s not—”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “There’s something else. Something you don’t want the villagers to know, and something you very much don’t want me to learn. You’re hiding the truth and it clearly bothers you. You’re distracted and it shows. You’re not always paying attention when we’re talking, and it’s resulted in misunderstandings that could have endangered us. You’ve let your mind wander to the point that you’ve failed to hear me when I’ve called your name. My guess is that it’s wandering to that secret and your fear that it will be discovered. I don’t want to press you for an explanation, but under the circumstances…” He shook his head again, slowly. “It’s dangerous, Jane. I need you focused. I need you concentrating on the task at hand.”

She felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment, the sort that made her feel small and foolish. She’d been doing her best, her absolutebest, to stay focused and to listen, understand, and remember.

And, naturally, she had failed. She always did.

Concentrate, you stupid girl.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” Gabriel said in an odd tone. “Are you married?”

“What? No!” The notion was so absurd, so unexpected, it succeeded in pulling a breathless laugh out of her. “Good Lord. Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Because there are a limited number of reasons a woman will hide herself away from the world. An unwelcome spouse, a criminal past, an untimely pregnancy, and a catching or disfiguring illness generally top that list. You’re clearly not ill, and you’ve certainly not been with child for six years.”

“When on earth would I have gotten married?”

“You’ve not been entirely isolated at Twillins,” he pointed out. “You’ve visited Ardbaile in the past, and you’ve allowed visitors in the cottage. There are all sorts of ways people meet, fall in love, and carry out secret elopements they later regret.”

“I’ve no marriages to regret, thank you.”

“I find it hard to imagine you’re wanted for a crime,” he said thoughtfully. “But if that’s the case, you’ve nothing to fear from me. I’m not a police officer anymore.”

She lifted her brows at that. “Really? You’d not turn me in if I confessed to… I don’t know… having murdered a man and buried him in my turnip patch?”

“Oddly enough, I’d not considered that exact possibility.”

She was ninety…no,eighty percent certain that was sarcasm. “I’m in earnest. What would you do?”

“I would ask you why you’d done it, and then listen attentively as you explained what I have no doubt would be very good reasons.”

“But what if I didn’t have a good reason? What if I’d killed him accidentally and then panicked and—”

“Jane,” he cut in patiently. “Is there a man buried beneath your turnips?”

“No, of course not—”

“Of course not,” he echoed before she could continue. “Because regardless of whatever secret you’re hiding, you are not the sort of person who could kill a man, accidentally or otherwise, and use his corpse to fertilize your vegetable patch. Your conscience would never allow it. Neither would your stomach, for that matter,” he added, rather as an afterthought. “It’s fairly revolting.”

“Well, yes it is. And of course I’d not do it, but…” But theawfulness of it was the point. She didn’t want to know what Gabriel would think if he learned she’d once nicked a sweet as a child. What did that matter? She needed to know how he might react to something significant, something he was sure to find shocking, something he might even find revolting.

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t unless she explained—

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “You’re attempting to gauge my reaction to a confession you imagine is equally appalling as the secret you’re keeping.”

Very well, he did understand. Perhaps, she thought with increasing alarm, he understood too well. She’d planned on telling him something in the morning, but not everything. She’d decided to appease his curiosity and any budding suspicion with a few vague admissions—from time to time, she had a spot of trouble with her hearing. It was nothing serious, just a mite embarrassing. And there was the business of jumbling her words. She was quite sensitive about it. Those confessions would suffice. He was already aware of the latter, and well on his way to guessing the former.

If she affected the proper attitude and chose her words with care, she could appease his curiosity while minimizing the risk to herself. But that plan would never work if their current conversation carried on in the same serious vein.

“It’s nothing so dreadful as murder,” she said, trying for a slightly amused tone. “I was merely curious as to how much a former police officer was willing to overlook. And you’re wrong, besides. I’ve not been distracted because of some terrible secret. My friends are in danger, you’ll recall. My mind does wander in their direction on occasion.”

“Jane—”

“But you’re right. There are reasons I avoid the village that I’ve not seen fit to share with you. Primarily,” she said carefully, “because they are embarrassing.” She poked absently at her cheese. “I had thought perhaps we could discuss them tomorrow morning.”

He looked genuinely surprised. “Had you?”

“Yes. I’m not hiding a body or shameful love affair. There’s no need to fear the worst, I assure you.” Her gaze traveled over the table and landed on the flowers once more. “This is all so nice. Couldn’t we just…talk about embarrassing things later? Can’t it wait a few hours?”

Just a little while more, she thought. She just wanted a bit more time before she…gave up. And that was exactly how it felt to her—like a surrender.

Jane had long ago accepted that secrecy was her best hope for leading a free and normal life. Letting go of the pretense of normalcy felt like letting go of that hope. Once she told Gabriel the truth, even the measured portion of it she planned, there was no hiding it again. Her time of beingjust Jane would be gone, and she was afraid, very much afraid, that Gabriel would soon be gone as well.

Was it wrong to want a few extra hours? Would it be immoral to tailor her confession a little so that maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t too put off by what he heard, Gabriel might stay one or two more days?

She sincerely hoped not, because she fully intended to follow that path.

Provided, of course, she could gain Gabriel’s cooperation. He didn’t look happy about it. He turned to frown at the closed drapes for a moment, and tapped his fork lightly against the table.

At length, he looked at her again, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “I’m sorry this frightens you. I know I’ve not earned your trust, but I can promise you…your secrets are safe with me.”

She wanted to believe him. There were so many reasonsto believe him. But there was no guarantee. There was always risk, and while her secrets might very well be safe with him, they were, without question, safer with her.

Besides, he could keep her confidence and still be put off by the truth. “Thank you, but I’d still rather wait until tomorrow.”

He glanced back at the windows once more, frowned again, then gave a single, grudging nod. “All right. We’ll wait until morning.”

***

The trip to the stable was a mad dash through sheets of rain that left the blanket Gabriel held over their heads sopping wet, and their boots splattered with mud.

Jane was laughing as they climbed the ladder to the hayloft. She felt like a child who’d been caught playing in the rain.

Gabriel secured the lantern he’d brought along to a hook on the wall, then began to prepare a bed with the blankets and pillows they’d filched from the house.

Jane watched him as she unlaced her boots and set them aside. He’d thought of everything. The bedding, the light, food, drink. He’d even taken a book from the library for her.

And he’d written the note to the homeowners before they’d left.

Gabriel glanced over at her and smiled. It was brief, but it was that wonderful, slightly wicked, and inviting smile that made her feel singled out. It warmed her right down to her toes. She adored that smile, but she couldn’t help but wonder: Would he offer it tomorrow after they talked? Or would he forever look at her differently? If he looked at her at all.

She couldn’t bear the thought of it. Couldn’t stand the idea of losing him not because of something she’d done, but simply because of whom she was.

She didn’t want to risk it yet. She wanted to drag the night out as long as possible, put the inevitable off for as long as she could. But the lamp would need to be extinguished soon, and then there would be no more smiles, no more talking or laughter. There would be only the familiar sound of silence and a long night of fearing what was to come.

Not yet, she thought as Gabriel straightened from laying the last blanket and turned toward the lamp.

She wasn’t ready yet.

“Wait.”

He looked at her, a question on his face.

And she took a risk. A risk that would make even Mrs. Harmon blush. She closed the distance between them, stood on tiptoe, rested her hands against his chest, and pressed her mouth to his.

It was a kiss to remember later. A moment she’d stolen from fear and uncertainty to keep for herself, and she held on to it for as long as she could. Every second she pilfered was a second she could relive later, long after his smile was gone.

She stayed on tiptoe, her eyes shut and her lips laid lightly against his as she soaked in each and every detail. The taste of him. The scent of his skin. The soft brush of his breath. The feel of linen beneath her palms, and the hard muscle beneath.

The very hard, very tight muscle she realized. Gabriel had gone perfectly, eerily still.

And it occurred to her suddenly that perhaps gentlemen did not appreciate having uninvited attentions thrust upon them for selfish reasons any more than ladies did.

Mortified, she drew away, her cheeks burning. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have—”

He seemed to snap then, like a cord that had been pulled too tight. Before she’d taken a single step backward, his arms wrapped around her and yanked her against him, and his mouth descended on hers in ardent demand.

It was nothing at all like the kiss on the train. That had been practiced and smooth, rendering her breathless.

This was… Oh, it was so much better. It was wild and frantic and glorious. It didn’t leave her breathless; it left her mindless. It eclipsed everything else. The fear, the storm, the secrets and lies. There was only Gabriel, his mouth moving over hers roughly, his hands roving possessively over her back, her hips, her waist. As if he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop.

His tongue delved into her mouth, a long, wicked glide that made her gasp.

He pulled away with a shudder to rasp something against her mouth she couldn’t properly hear. She wanted to ask him what he’d said. Now more than ever, she wanted to understand the words he offered. But she couldn’t focus long enough to form the question. His lips were traveling along her jaw, sending her thoughts scattering before they’d completely formed.

She shivered as he reached her ear, and couldn’t suppress a helpless moan when he found a spot on her throat just above her shoulder. An ache of pleasure shot through every nerve in her body. Her fingers dove into the thick, silken hair at the back of his head. And then his mouth was on hers again, exploring, devouring…

He wrenched away suddenly, leaving her off balance and disoriented. It took several seconds to orient herself, to force her mind clear of the drugging effects of the kiss.

She found Gabriel standing several feet away, his breath coming fast and hard, and his frosty blue eyes staring at her with such intensity that she felt rather like prey caught in the sights of a wolf.

“Gabriel?” she whispered, and was surprised by how pleasantly tender and swollen her mouth felt forming his name. She licked her bottom lip, fascinated by the curious sensation.

His eyed darted to the movement. His hands curled and uncurled into fists at his side. “God, you tempt me, Jane.”

That was good, wasn’t it? It felt good hearing it, but he didn’t seem at all pleased to be saying it, which left her in something of a quandary. She struggled to find an appropriate response before finally landing on the truth.

She lifted her hands in defeat. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“No,” he said flatly, then exhaled a long, ragged breath and briefly scrubbed his hands over his face. “No. How could you? Bloody hell, that should not have been your second kiss.”

“What?”

“That shouldn’t have been in the first two dozen. I apologize.”

“You’resorry?” She had some idea what to say tothat.

“That I kissed you, no. That I was careless with you, yes.”

“Oh.” Of its own volition, her hand came back up to touch her swollen lips. “It didn’t feel careless.”

“It was, love. Believe me.” His mouth curved in a rueful smile. “A man can do better.”

“Did you do better on the train?”

The question seemed to surprise him. “I was careful.”

Yes, that’s what she’d thought. “If that’s the case, I prefer careless. I liked this kiss. Very much.”

His eyes narrowed on her mouth again. “It’s unfair, Jane, to demand a promise of a man, and then tempt him to break it.”

“I…” She floundered a moment. He was right. Absolutely right. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I said it was unfair. I didn’t say you had to stop.”

Before she could respond to that peculiar statement, he jerked his chin toward the bed. “Go to sleep. It’s late, and we’ll need to leave before dawn tomorrow.”

“But where are you going?” she asked as he headed for the ladder.

He muttered something she didn’t understand. Something about a cough, cool weather, and a bet, or possibly a rock, cold otters, and his head. It scarcely mattered which. He was already gone.

With a sigh, she settled down into the bedding, pulling the woolen blanket up to her ears. A minute later, she heard the distinctive sound of water splashing in the center-aisle trough.

The trough. Water.

A trough, cold water, and his head. That was it.

She grinned against her pillow.

It was hardly a well-crafted compliment. It wasn’t a sonnet of pretty verse written and recited in her honor. It was just a man soaking his head.

Nevertheless, Jane had never felt so flattered in her life.

She fell asleep smiling, and dreamed of Gabriel’s voice and deliciously careless kisses.

She woke with a hand over her mouth and a heavy weight pressing on her chest.

Shock came first, chased closely by a rush of terror, but before she could do more than blink, Gabriel’s voice sounded in her ear, a low, urgent whisper.

“Stay still.”

It took a moment for her to shake off the dregs of sleep and orient herself to her surroundings. She was in the stable loft. It was Gabriel half-lying on top of her, pressing down.

Her eyes flicked toward the edge of the loft. She couldn’t see beyond the pile of hay that blocked them from view, but there was a golden light emanating from below. It danced about, casting long, eerie shadows far up the walls and onto the ceiling.

They weren’t alone.

Her gaze tracked back to Gabriel and she gave a subtle nod. She heard the voices then, too muted for her to understand, but there were at least two men, maybe more. They moved toward the stable door, then disappeared into the night. But the glow of the lamp remained, moving along the wall in the opposite direction. There’d been at leastthree men, she realized. And they’d separated.

Gabriel breathed into her ear. “Wait until I call for you. Don’t. Move.”

She nodded again and he eased away. Raising himself up into a crouching position, he edged slowly toward the side of the loft.

She held her breath, waiting to hear the crunch of stale hay beneath his boots, but if he made any sound at all, it was lost in the mix of shuffling horses and the creaks and groans of old wood buffeted by the wind.

He peered over the edge of the loft, and shifted slightly as if lining himself up for something. Then he quite suddenly dropped over the edge. There was a startled grunt below that ended abruptly with the sickening sound of bone connecting with flesh.

“Jane.” Gabriel’s voice rose clear and calm from below. “Quickly.”

Throwing off the blanket, she scrambled to the edge of the loft, then all but slid down the ladder. The second her feet touched the ground, she spun about and caught sight of a man lying still as death on the ground, his body bent awkwardly against the far stall wall.

“Is he… He’s not…?”

“Just unconscious,” Gabriel replied. He pulled a large blade out from somewhere beneath his coat, handed it to her, and pointed at the three new mounts in the stable. “Cut the reins. I’ll get the girths.”

“Right. Yes.” She dashed to the first horse and set to work. There was just enough light to allow her to use the knife without injuring herself or the animal. But her hands shook terribly, slowing her down, and she couldn’t stop looking toward the stable door, certain that the rest of Kray’s men would come rushing back inside at any second.

She wanted to run. Making sure Kray’s men couldn’t follow made sense, but the short-term danger of being caught standing about in the stable felt far more pressing at the moment than the long-term risk of being chased. She wanted to runnow.

Jane sliced through the final rein at last, turned around, and discovered Gabriel waiting for her in the center aisle, her own horse in hand.

“Keep low in the saddle,” he said as they mounted and headed out the far end of the stable. He led them away from the drive, across the small lawn toward the woods.

The storm had died down during the night, but a steady drizzle and cold wind persisted. Jane was obliged to repeatedly wipe water and windswept strands of hair out of her eyes.

When they reached the edge of the forest, she pulled up on the reins. She could make out only the front line of trees; everything beyond was a black void. “We can’t,” she whispered. “It’s too dark. We’ll not be able to see what’s in front of us.”

“We’ll follow the edge, then keep to the road hunting dog.”

“I…”Hunting dog had to be wrong, but following the line of woods instead of the drive made sense, as did keeping to the road in the dark. That much had to be correct. “The road. Right.”

Gabriel took up position beside her, placing himself between her and the house.

Their progress felt unbearably sluggish to Jane. They kept to a walk over the uneven ground, and it seemed to her as if they were traveling by mere inches. She still wanted to run. The urge to dart to the road or even into the trees despite the danger was nearly overwhelming. Even after they moved out of sight of the house, the fear of sudden discovery didn’t abate.

She spoke without thinking, desperate to take her mind off the terrible tension. “Are you sure they’re after us?” she asked in as loud a whisper as she dared. “Maybe they’re running away, like the man in town.”

“The man who held a knife to you,” he reminded her. “And no, they’re not running. We were tracked.”

“But how?”

At least part of his answer was lost in a particularly strong gust of wind, but Jane thought she heard the wordsinn,bribery,road, andbad luck.

Even if she’d had the courage to ask him to explain, she wasn’t given the chance. A shout rose from the direction of the stable, and then another.

She threw a terrified look over her shoulder but saw nothing but darkness. “Gabriel—”

“Nearly there.”

He sounded exceedingly calm. Jane wished she felt just as composed, but her heart raced until they finally reached the smooth ground of the road.

“Jane, go.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Jane urged her horse into a gallop, and Gabriel followed close behind. They rode without speaking; the only sound was the pounding of hooves against wet earth. A minute passed, then five, ten. And with every second that ticked by, every inch of ground they put between themselves and Kray’s men, Jane felt a little of the gnawing fear slip away. Until, at last, she knew they had gone far enough that Kray’s men couldn’t hope to reach them.

***

Gabriel kept them to the road until the first rays of dawn appeared. The moment the light arrived, he led Jane off into the woods and allowed himself to relax, just a little.

He was exhausted. Right down to the bone. He’d had little sleep the previous two nights, and none the night before.

Rest had not been an option. He’d known there was a chance Kray’s men, who had the advantage of being able to travel on the nearby road when it was dark, might find them during the night. Between the scene in the village, taking the train, and purchasing the horses, they’d left a trail a child could follow. He’d hoped to push on farther from the town with the inn before they stopped, or at least have the chance to alter direction to throw off their pursuers. But the storm had come on fast, and with no idea when the next shelter might present itself, he’d thought it best to stay at the abandoned cottage.

The worst of the weather had blown itself out halfway through the night. He’d considered waking Jane then so that they could take to the road, but ultimately decided that riding in the open while Kray’s men still had mounts was a greater risk than staying put.

He’d been wrong.

Mistakes were hardly an anomaly in his work. Much of what the Thief Takers did was guesswork, taking risks, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

That had never bothered him before. In fact, he quite liked it. He was good at quickly amending his plans as needed, at making things up as he went along. He enjoyed the danger of his work, the unpredictability of it, the mad chases and last-second escapes. If it had been Samuel or Renderwell in the stable with him, they would be laughing about their run-in with Kray’s men as they rode through the woods.

No, actually, they would have stormed the house after subduing the first man, and be laughing about it in the relative comfort of the parlor. But, either way, it would have been fun.

He damn well wasn’t enjoying this. He wanted Jane safe. Not running and hiding, not afraid, and sure as hell not fighting off armed men in an alleyway.

He was frustrated at himself and the circumstances, angry that he’d not foreseen the possible complications, furious that he’d not kept her out of harm’s way as he’d planned.

And he was… He glanced over at Jane, watched the early morning sun bring out strands of dark gold in her hair… God help him, he was afraid. Absolutely, bloody terrified that he would fail her completely.

“This ends today, Jane.” Devil take the list, the Foreign Office and, God forgive him, but even the Harmons. He was getting her to safety.

Jane looked over at him and blinked twice. “I’m sorry, I was woolgathering—”

“I said this is over. We’re done baiting Kray’s men.”

“But you said we’d go on as we have been.”

“And we did, for nearly another twelve hours. We don’t need to do it anymore.” He hoped that was true. “The plan was for Fulberg and the Harmons to reach their destination this morning. Even with delays, they’ll arrive no later than tomorrow morning. We won’t be far behind them.”

“You’re certain they’ll be safe?”

“Yes.” No, but he was certain Jane would be safer if she believed it. And at the moment, nothing was more important.

“All right,” she agreed with a nod. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

For the first time since the chase had begun, Gabriel turned them due south. He would avoid houses and towns until they were far away from their eastbound path. He would leave no trail for Kray’s men to follow.

The game of cat and mouse was over.

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Gabriel hadn’t mentioned the conversation.

As Jane steered her mount through an open meadow, her gaze routinely sought out Gabriel’s silent form. He’d not said a word about her promise to tell him her secret. Not a sound. Not a hint.

She kept expecting him to bring it up. In fact, she almost wished he would. She still didn’t want to tell him, but she’d resigned herself to the inevitability of it, and now she found herself eager to simply get it over and done with so she could stop dreading the consequences. Instead she was caught on a terrible seesaw of waiting for him to say something, and fearing that he would.

Eager to take her mind off her worries, Jane turned her attention to a battered stone turret in the distance. She noticed as they drew closer that it was the highest of two towers connected by a crumbling wall. All that remained of what had once been a mighty medieval fortress.

It looked…strangely familiar to her. The tallest tower in particular. The way the sun glinted off the white stone. The uneven weathering and wear. Had she seen a picture of it? Was its history chronicled in a book she’d long ago read and forgotten? Had that history been particularly dark? It must have been, because she felt an awful sense of foreboding at the very sight of it. And the closer they got, the stronger the sensation became.

Where had she seen it?

On the far side of the old fortress, the unmistakable clatter and roar of a train filtered through the woods. Jane dragged her eyes away from the ruins to stare at a plume of smoke that rose above the treetops.

And that was when she remembered. She’d not read about the ruins in a history book. She’d seen them with her own eyes. Only last time, her view had been from the other side. She’d caught glimpses through the trees as she’d stared out the window of her train.

The memory of that day turned her stomach.

The sea air will be good for you. It will make you better.

That’s what her father had told her.

What an adventure it will be, he’d said.There’s nothing to fear.

Jane hadn’t been afraid. She’d been excited, overflowing with anticipation of her first glimpse of the ocean. She’d been thrilled at the prospect of spending a summer at the shore. She’d been hopeful, albeit still doubtful, that her newest governess would prove kinder than the last.

She’d been lied to.

They’d never reached the ocean. Her governess had taken her off the train at the next stop, bundled her into a carriage, and dropped her off a half mile outside of town at Brackmer’s Asylum for the Imbecile, Feeble-minded, and Morally Defective Child.

Where she had remained for two nightmarish years.

Suddenly, the sound of the train seemed enormously loud in Jane’s ears. The rhythmicchug-chug-chug of the engine became an echo of her own painfully pounding heart.

Chug-chug-chug.

She could imagine the feel and sound of the wheels beneath her feet, grinding against the rails, taking her ever closer to the asylum. To the dark and loneliness. To the muted sobs that filtered through the walls of her room.

To the ever-present fear of the water cure. Her skin grew cold at the memory of that first sharp sting of ice water, the painful clatter of teeth, the bite of hands holding her down, the burning that started at her toes and spread up her skin like wildfire.

Don’t fight, girl. It’s for your own good.

Chug-chug-chug.

They were so close, only a few more miles to town, and the asylum was but a short walk beyond. She would be there in a matter of minutes.

And then what? Could she simply ride through the village, act as if she’d never been there before? Never seen it?

She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t go there at all.

What if people recognized her? What if they said something to Gabriel?  She hadn’t told him anything yet. She’dnever planned to tell him about this.

The villagers might leave her no choice. What if they took her away? Took her back?

She squeezed her eyes shut and shoved down the panic that threatened to wash away all common sense. No one was going to drag her back—certainly not to Brackmer’s. It was closed. It had shut down years ago.

Shecould go into town. She had to. They had a plan.

Besides, there was no reason to assume she’d be recognized there. There had been very little interaction between the inmates at the asylum and the villagers. Nearly all the staff had lived on-site.

Nearly, she thought, but not all.

Chug-chug-Jane-chug.

There had been a few day laborers, and men and women who brought in supplies. And what had happened to all the staff at the asylum after it had closed its doors? They may have taken positions in town. Was it possible she might encounter Mr. Clemens? Or worse, Mrs. Fitz? She’d had nails that dug into the skin.

Chug-Jane-chug-chug.

Would they recognize the woman she was now as the child they had tormented all those years ago?

Something bumped her leg. “Jane!”

She whipped her gaze away from the ruins and billowing smoke of the railway to discover Gabriel riding right alongside her. His face was a mask of confusion and no small amount of worry.

“What?” She asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I should like to know. I called your name three times just now.”

“Did you?” She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. “I… I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m riding three feet from you.”

“I was preoccupied.”

“You were breathing hard enough to wake the dead. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She felt frozen solid. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You are the worst liar I have ever met,” he muttered, then snagged the reins from her hands and brought them both to a quick halt. “What is wrong?”

She wracked her brain for an excuse, preferably one that would also save her from going into the town ahead, but nothing came to her. “I don’t want to go this way,” she finally admitted. “I don’t want to go into Lansville.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I’ve been there before.”

“Yes, I gathered, as you already know the name of it.”

“I didn’t like it.”

“I reasoned that out as well.” He glanced in the direction of town and back again, then studied her for a long, quiet moment. “Why don’t you want to go, Jane?” he asked gently. “What happened in Lansville?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it.”

It wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. She had little faith in her ability to detect subtle changes of mood, but she’d noticed over the last few days that Gabriel had a tendency to tense his jaw and tighten his mouth a little when he was annoyed or frustrated. He looked especially frustrated at the moment.

“Will you tell me how long it’s been?”

“I was a child. My governess brought me. We were on our way to the coast.” It was always easier to handpick truths than craft a clever lie.

“All right.” He shifted in his saddle, looked behind him, then toward the woods. “We’ll head farther southwest and go around to the next town.”

The sudden announcement surprised her. She’d been waiting for him to question her further, demand more information before agreeing to alter his plans. “I… Are you certain?”

“Yes,” he replied. Justyes.

Ordinarily, Jane found Gabriel’s distaste for explanations distinctly aggravating. But just now… She felt a peculiar warmth steal over her, a blend of gratitude and tenderness that soothed away the sharpest edges of her fear. Right now she found his reticence quite the sweetest thing. He would change their plans because she had asked it of him. No further discussion was required.

“Thank you, Gabriel.”

“You’re welcome,” he returned with a small, albeit slightly lopsided, smile. “This way, then.”

“Wait.” She held up a hand. “This new plan. Tell me the truth. Is it as good as the original plan?”

“The truth?” he repeated, his lips curving down thoughtfully. “No. The sooner we get to a train station, the better, and this will delay us. But it will do well enough for—”

“Well enough is not sufficient.” She swallowed back the ball of fear in her throat and nodded toward the chimney smoke she could see in the distance. “We’ll go into Lansville. We’ll go on as we were.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.” Not at all. What she wanted was to go southwest to another town. Had she been traveling alone, she would have diverted her course by miles and miles to avoid Lansville. But she wasn’t alone. Her decision affected not only her, but Gabriel as well. She’d not let the shame of the past endanger him.

To press her point, she urged her mount forward toward town.

He didn’t say anything else, but he brought his horse up next to hers, and stayed close.

A half hour later, Jane was back in her gown and staring at the buildings of Lansville with confusion. She’d had little chance to study the town on her first visit—her governess had been quick to sweep her off to the asylum—but she could have sworn it looked completely different. The buildings closest to the station had been made of timber, not the brick she saw now. They’d been worn and decrepit for the most part, but there had been one little shop with bright blue shutters that seemed almost cheerful.

That shop was nowhere to be seen. None of the buildings looked remotely like what she remembered. They were new, their brick and mortar still bright, as if the entire street had been built in one go sometime in the last few years.

Maybe it was a different town. Maybe she’d only imagined that the ruins looked the same as the ones in her childhood memory.

It had all been so long ago. She’d only caught glimpses of the tower before. She could have been mistaken.

Slowly, as they made their way toward a nearby inn at the edge of town, her nerves began to dissipate.

“It’s different,” she murmured to herself as they dismounted in front of the inn. “It’s not the same. I might have been mistaken about…”

She trailed off as she glanced up at the sign over the door.

The Silver Mare.

And her mouth went dry as dust. It wasn’t different. The buildings might be new, but the town was not. She stared at the sign, barely noticing when a young boy took the reins out of her hand.

Without a doubt, she was standing in Lansville.

“I remember this inn.” At least, she remembered the sign, but that was close enough.

Gabriel looked down at her, a line of concern across his brow. “You’re certain?”

“Yes,” she replied, and pointed at the sign. “It’s the same.” The same name, the same broad, silver lettering and painted image of a rearing horse with a flowing mane and short, cropped tail. “I wasn’t mistaken.”

“All right.” His hand came up to settle lightly on her back. “We won’t be here long. I promise.”

But they were herenow, she thought. And all the fear came rushing back, worse this time because she’d been feeling so much better, almost giddy with relief. It was further to fall, and there was no easing into it like she had on the way in. There was no talking herself into coming; she’d already arrived. She was surrounded by the past. It was all around her. There was no escaping it.

Jane followed Gabriel into the inn as if she were walking through a terrible dream. They found the innkeeper inside the tavern—a loud, busy room on the ground floor. Jane barely followed the ensuing conversation, but she heard Gabriel ask after the history of the town, and the innkeeper mentioned something about a fire. Which certainly explained the new construction, she thought. The timber buildings had burned away and been replaced by brick.

But the old sign must have survived.

“It did, missus,” the innkeeper said suddenly, and Jane realized with a start that she’d spoken aloud.

The elderly man turned clouded blue eyes toward her and displayed an obvious set of false teeth. “Found it near untouched amongst the rubble. Damnedest thing. Begging your pardon.”

“Quite all right.” She wished it had burned with the rest. She wished the entire town had gone to ash and blown away in the wind, never to be seen again. “I’m sure you were pleased with the discovery.”

She was also sure that the man was old enough to have been running the inn all those years ago when she’d passed through town. Hoping he would take her quietness for shyness, she dipped her chin nearly to her chest, took a small step back behind Gabriel, and let him finish the transaction without further input from her.

She kept her face hidden as they passed through the tavern, only looking up once they reached the bottom of a narrow staircase. Gabriel pressed a key into her hand and gave her directions to the room. She listened closely, all too aware that she was distracted by both nerves and noise.

He would go and buy rail tickets, but it might be a while before it was time to leave. They would wait in the relative safety of the inn until then. She was to go to their room, lock the door, close the drapes, and not open the door for anyone but him.

“Yes, all right.” It was better than all right, she thought, stifling a sigh of relief. Hiding away in a room soundedlovely. It might not be particularly courageous of her, but she’d faced any number of fears over the last few days. She could be forgiven a brief bout of cowardice.

She hurried up the stairs, paused at the first landing, and turned around to find Gabriel watching her from the bottom step.

She waved back down at him, which, for some reason, seemed to please him enormously.

“No one but me, Jane.”

“No one but you,” she agreed.

He smiled at her then, that wonderful, inviting, and rakish smile that she quite simply adored.

Her lips curved up as she turned around again and started for the next flight of stairs. She wasn’t a coward. She’d come into town, hadn’t she? It was simply good sense to stay in the room while…

She paused with her foot on the second step.

Wait… Where was the room? Had Gabriel said the second door on the right on the first floor, or the first door on the right on the second floor?

She looked back to where he’d been standing, but he was gone.

He’d said… He…said…

No. No, no, no, no.What had he said?

Second…floor.

No, door.

No…

Yes. Door. It was definitely door.

Wasn’t it?

She wasn’t sure. Why wasn’t she sure? She’d listened so carefully. Why couldn’t she remember?

She tried to find the memory, walk through it in her mind moment by moment. She could see it. She could recall every second. He had talked, and she had listened and understood. And yet…

Damn it,whathad she understood? Was itfloorordoor?

She couldn’t be sure.

Suddenly, she felt like a child. For a moment, it felt as if all the hateful things her governesses and the specialist and her father had said about her were true.

Idiot girl.

With a skill born of entirely too much practice, Jane shoved the self-doubt away. Those people had been wrong. She was not an idiot. She had never been an idiot. She’d made a mistake, that was all, and now she would fix it. It was as simple as that.

Taking a deep, calming breath, she looked about her and considered her options. She couldn’t go knocking about on the doors of strangers. It was too late to chase after Gabriel.

Could she ask the innkeeper? That might work. Unless he told her where to go and she didn’t understand him, or he suddenly recognized her as a former inmate of the asylum.

She should ask someone else. No, she should find someone else and request that she beshown to her room. She’d speak to a maid, or someone working in the tavern. Yes, that was it.

Slowly, she made her way back downstairs. To her dismay, she discovered that the tavern had grown even more crowded during the brief time she’d been on the stairs. At least a half dozen new patrons had arrived, and now nearly every table and chair in sight was filled with people talking, laughing, and clanging flatware and goblets. The noise was overwhelming, slicing through her already frayed nerves.

A middle-aged man delivering ale to a table caught her eye, set down his drinks, and headed straight for her. Did he look familiar? Could she have known him?

He offered a polite smile, showing oversized teeth beneath an equally oversized mustache. “A relativee up man?”             

“I... Er… I’d like to be shown to my room, please.”

“Wooden ice obscene tea…?” The rest of his question, such as it was, faded into oblivion when a particularly raucous group of young men in the corner let loose with a sudden round of boisterous laughter.

The man before her, on the other hand, was silent. He was waiting for an answer, and she hadn’t the faintest idea what he’d asked.

“I… Um…”

He repeated the question, but it was nonsense to her. Utter nonsense.

Dear God. Not here. Please, please, anywhere but here.

She didn’t know what to say to him. What if he was asking her name, or inquiring where her husband had gone? She couldn’t respond with another request to be shown to her room. That wouldn’t make sense.

She was going to give herself away. They would know. Someone would recognize her as the stupid little girl who belonged in the asylum. She’d…

“Do you know, I believe I’ve changed my mind,” she announced. “I’m hungry.” It was the first, and only, response that managed to push its way through the morass of fear. “I should like to dine. Here.” She waved a stiff arm to indicate the tavern. “But privately,” she added quickly. “Please.”

There was a long, terrifying pause.

Had she said that correctly? Had she jumbled the words? Had it been a completely inappropriate response?

He nodded once. “Aye, missus. Fish day.”

Oh, thank God. She wasn’t sure what fish day was, but he’d nodded and pointed to a door at the far end of the room. That had to be a good sign.

She followed him to a small, private dining room that was blissfully quiet compared to the tavern. Before he could ask her another question, she took a seat and requested bread and stew, knowing full well she’d not be able to choke down a single mouthful.

“Straightaway, missus,” he replied and hurried off, shutting the door behind him.

As Jane looked around the sparse little room, all she could think was that there must have been a better solution than this. She was sitting quite alone in front of an enormous window that provided anyone walking past with a perfectly clear view of her.

She searched for drapes or shutters but, finding none, settled for moving to the other side of the table so that her back faced the window. The new position left her feeling slightly less on display, but far more vulnerable and exposed. Kray’s men could be three feet away, pressed against the glass, and she’d not know it until they opened the window and reached for her. And now she had the terrible urge to look over her shoulder every other second, which completely ruined the point of having moved at all.

She should have tried to sneak a look at the registry to see what name Gabriel had used. Maybe she should have looked for a maid upstairs. Therehad to have been a better solution.

But she had panicked. She’d let the noise and old memories get the better of her. She’d let fear guide her actions.

And she’d forgotten where her room was.

Imbecile.

She shoved the insult aside, and for the next ten minutes tried not to think of the window, the asylum, or the taunts of her childhood. She concentrated instead on the daunting challenge of explaining to Gabriel upon his return how it was that she had come to be in the dining room.

But not a single, plausible excuse came to her.

She’d misplaced the key…somewhere between the bottom and top steps of a single, small, enclosed stairwell.

She’d locked herself out of the room…even though she’d promised not to leave in the first place.

She’d been faint with hunger. Someone else had been in the room. The lock was stuck.

They were terrible lies, every one of them.

I have a spot of trouble with my hearing…

Even that half-truth wasn’t going to work. She’d taken the key, agreed to his instructions, gone upstairs, promised not to open the door to anyone else, and then waved him off.

Gabriel would never believe she’d not heard him. The only possible way out of the mess she’d created was to find her way to the room before he returned.

If only she knew what name Gabriel had used, what he had told the innkeeper, then…

She nearly jumped out of her chair when the door opened and a maid hurried inside, carrying a tray she set on the table. “Here you are, ma’am. Stew and—”

“I believe my wife would prefer to take her meal in our room.”

Jane didn’t jump at the sound of Gabriel’s voice. Instead, she went stiff and tense all over. She forced her gaze back to the door and found him leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest and a perfectly pleasant smile on his face. Almost as if he were pleased to see her.

He wasn’t, of course. He was furious.

She swallowed hard. “Hello,” she said, and wondered if it was possible to kick oneself in the shin. She’d run out of time, luck, and lies, and the best she could do washello.

He lifted his brows expectantly. “Jane?”

“Yes. Right.” She rose from her seat on legs that had gone to pudding, and managed a nod and wobbly smile for the maid. “My… Er… Our room, if you please.”