“Stay close to me, and mind your step as you exit the carriage,” Dahlia instructed the gaggle of little girls squeezed on all sides of her in the hired coach.

Ahead of them was the hackney containing the older girls. Faith was in the coach behind theirs, overseeing the last third of the students.

“I’ve never been to the circus!” several of them gushed.

The truth was, none of her students had been. As it was one of Dahlia’s favorite entertainments, she could think of no better way to reward them for their commendable behavior.

The problem was convincing her new administrative partner.

“How is this possibly a wise idea?” Faith groused as she wrangled her queue of schoolgirls against the outer wall of Astley’s Royal Amphitheater and out of the path of the people streaming inside.

Dahlia took the youngest two girls by the hands. “I promised the students one outing per year, and it’s already been eleven months with nothing. We have the cheapest tickets in the entire amphitheater, and the girls are about to have the most fun of their lives.”

“No more fun until next year,” Faith said firmly. “Not until our financial security improves.”

Dahlia nodded. “No more fun without express permission. I promise.”

“Can we go in?” the girls asked. “Is it time?”

“It’s time.” She grinned at her charges. “Follow me, everyone.”

It was impossible to say what hit first: the roar of the crowd, the blur of bodies, the smell of sawdust, or the crackle of magic in the air. Every time she entered the amphitheater, its electric atmosphere was overwhelming. She longed to be onstage, in the ring, up in the balconies. Only by being everywhere at once would anyone have a prayer of truly experiencing everything the circus had to offer. For the first time, she would finally be able to share a small morsel of that magic with her students.

The last time Dahlia had attended the circus, she and her family had been seated in one of the expensive orchestra boxes with a ground-level view of the stage.

Today, she and two dozen schoolchildren were going to trek to the top of the four-story building, to the very back of the amphitheater, at the opposite end of the stage, where their tickets allowed them entrée to a cramped public balcony with no benches or amenities.

The girls were already in heaven.

“He’s standing on a horse,” squealed one of the youngest ones, pointing over the edge of the balcony to the sawdust ring below.

“Have you ever seen a curtain so grand?” one of the older ones asked in amazement as she caught sight of the billowing black fabric covering the stage from floor to ceiling.

When the orchestra began, they all stopped speaking at once, awed at so many instruments and so much sound as the music filled the amphitheater. Dahlia’s blood sang. Her favorite childhood memories were the evenings she and her brother would return home after the circus and practice all the tumbles until they’d worn holes in their clothing. The most disappointing moment of her young life had been the day she learned the best career she could hope for was that of “duchess” and not “tight-rope dancer.”

She and Faith moved to the back of the box in order to let the girls have the best view of the ring and the stage.

“Did you look at my ledger entries?” Faith asked quietly.

Dahlia’s shoulders dropped. “Yes. It was much as I feared.”

Faith nodded. “We either need to spend less or raise more.”

“I’m trying.” Dahlia’s muscles tensed. “Running the school takes almost all of my time. But now that you’re here, I can go back to looking for donations.”

“I’d help if I could,” Faith said, her voice almost too soft to hear. But they both knew she wasn’t the one with connections.

“You are helping,” Dahlia said fiercely. “And your father’s donation enabled us to purchase our very first materials. Now that we’ve chalk and blackboards, we can teach the girls to read.”

Faith gave a wobbly smile. “Proper classes.”

“Proper classes,” Dahlia agreed. “Maids that can read would be able to follow lists made by the housekeeper. Even sent out to shop, if the kitchen needed something from market.”

Faith hesitated. “Do you think anyone would hire the girls as anything but maid-of-all-work?”

“We’ll make certain of it,” Dahlia said in a tone that brooked no argument.

The truth was that although maid-of-all-work was grueling, twenty-hour-a-day work with minimal pay and no days off, any one of their girls would be fortunate to be offered such a position. So many other children in their position ended up in brothels or on the streets.

Unless she could teach them the skills to achieve something better.

Dahlia straightened. “When Bryony visits, she leaves the house with a different maid as chaperone each time, so the girls can interview actual staff members on what it is really like to be a chambermaid or scullery maid or lady’s maid.”

Faith inclined her head. “That’s something. Have you also thought about more practical mathematics?”

Between acts, they bent their heads together, whispering and debating their ideas for the school. Dahlia was thrilled. She was the vision, Faith the execution.

She was so focused on creating a plan for the future that she scarcely noticed the comedians, tragedians, and contortionists in the ring below, until the curtain abruptly closed for intermission and she suddenly had two dozen excited schoolchildren all speaking to her at once.

Amid the rapturous descriptions of clowns and riding-masters, one of the girls asked, “Where is Mr. Spaulding?”

Molly looked up sharply from the back row. “You invited him, did you not? You said you would.”

“A lady would not dare ask a gentleman anywhere,” Dahlia said with prim disdain.

“You promised,” the girls shouted. “You said he could come!”

“I did not ask,” Dahlia clarified. “I begged quite appallingly. He’ll meet us after work, if he’s able.”

The girls’ cheers were cut short by the rising of the curtain, indicating intermission was over and the sights and orchestra would recommence.

“I think they like him as much as I do,” Faith whispered with a smile.

“Please don’t tell me your favorite rogues are the handsome gruff ones,” Dahlia muttered.

Faith burst out laughing. “That sounds like something your sister would say.”

“She’s incorrigible,” Dahlia agreed with a shake of her head. “Bryony thinks our compatibility on the dance floor indicates our bodies are destined for a waltz of an entirely different sort.”

“How intriguing,” rumbled a deep, familiar voice from right behind her. “How may I be of service?”

Heat flamed up Dahlia’s neck and flushed her cheeks as she turned to face the very gentleman she’d been having decidedly impure thoughts about. “Mr. Spaulding. I… That is…”

He lifted her fingers to his lips, promptly robbing her of any further ability to think.

Never before had he touched her outside of dancing. She had appreciated the cautious distance between them. His precise adherence to the professionalism of his duties as a Bow Street Runner. The formality he took care to uphold during his weekly role as dancing-master to schoolgirls.

For the past few weeks, he had carefully kept their attraction in check; their limitations, defined. It only made him all the more tempting. It had not been easy for her to continue to ignore their obvious attraction. Here, it would be impossible.

The expertly tailored tailcoat encasing his wide shoulders and muscled arms was not the deep, distinctive blue of his usual greatcoat, but a soft dove-gray that brought out the summery blue of his eyes. Her pulse jumped.

Mr. Spaulding was not here in his capacity as a Bow Street Runner, or to serve as dancing-master to the distracted children peering over the balcony at the sights below.

Tonight, he was here for her.

He exchanged half-shouted greetings with Faith over the cacophony of the music and rambunctious audience, then returned to Dahlia’s side. She hoped he never left. He was the one man whose electric presence held more restrained power than the entire circus.

“I wasn’t certain you would be able to come,” she said.

“Nor was I.” His blue eyes held hers. “But I am glad I did.”

“Do you like the acrobats?” she asked.

“I am fascinated,” he responded. But his eyes were focused on her, not the performers below.

If they were in a ballroom, Dahlia would know just what to say, precisely how to act. She would flirt with her eyes above a painted fan, perhaps whisper something shocking into his ear whilst they waltzed beneath the chandeliers.

But they were not in a ballroom. She had no painted fan, no dancing slippers, no excuse to be in his arms. Mr. Spaulding was not one of the practiced rakes or self-important dandies who cluttered the teeming rooms at Almack’s and made every dinner party seem the same as the last.

With him, she never quite knew what to expect. Every time she’d thought she had figured him out, she had been wrong.

The night of their first meeting, she had not expected to see him again. He had returned, despite all expectations. Just like he’d said he would. He’d brought crumpets, stood in as dancing-master, attended the circus.

Had he done so solely because he wished to help her girls? Or was it in part because he, too, looked for any excuse to share a single moment together? Her pulse fluttered.

“Do you attend the circus often?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I did when I was younger.”

“I bet you imagined yourself the riding-master atop a rearing stallion,” he said with a smile.

“A horseman?” she said in mock affront. “You don’t see me as a confectioner of costumes, or perhaps as one of the dancing girls?”

“You could never be relegated to the background,” he said softly. “I can’t look anywhere else once you’ve entered a room. You were born to be the star of the show.”

Her heart pounded. “Perhaps it’s not me, but your eyes that have the problem.”

“Problem?” he echoed in surprise. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather look.”

He held her gaze for an extra heartbeat, then glanced down at the ring below.

She wished he hadn’t. Now it was she who could not look away, and she no longer had the excuse of conversation to hide her absorption.

He was more handsome and wild than any of the stallions below. Confident. Strong. Tamed…barely. Every time she was with him, she couldn’t help but suspect his buttoned-up exterior hid unbridled passion beneath. Especially when she caught him staring at her with a heat that stole her breath—and her inhibitions. When he looked at her like that, she longed to rip his buttons away one by one until he was forced to do something about it. Something that involved her mouth on his and their hands on bare skin.

Dahlia swallowed. She had to put a stop to this mad attraction.

He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, facing the circus, yet she suspected that, just like her, his attention was not on the antics below, but rather on the proximity of their bodies. Close enough to touch. Wise enough not to.

Yet her skin tingled with the electric knowledge that were she to—ahem—accidentally succumb to a swoon, she would fall directly into his embrace.

Such thoughts were beyond dangerous. She could not allow their connection to be anything other than completely professional at all times. Her school couldn’t afford such folly.

Dahlia had already lost significant status by becoming a headmistress in the first place. She needed every social tie she still possessed in order to keep the donations flowing and the school afloat.

If she were to marry “beneath” her—or, worse, have a passionate love affair with a Bow Street Runner—she would ruin far more than her reputation. She would lose all funding for the school, and destroy her students’ best chance of surviving the rookeries.

No matter how much she longed for his kiss, she could not allow him that far into her life…or her bed.