The home was simple and the gardens untended, but the property held on to an artless charm. Fresh paint, clean brickwork, and cleared pathways showed the care of a loving hand, despite what appeared to be a lack of servants. A book left on a marble bench hinted at leisure time spent outdoors.

The welcoming scene made Maria’s throat tight. How she longed to live such a carefree life such as the setting before her promised.

Her thoughts were fil ed with dreams of a tearful but joyous reunion when John’s meaty hand gripped her shoulder and shoved her down roughly.

Startled, but experienced enough to keep her silence, Maria dropped to her knees and shot him a questioning glance. He jerked his chin to the side and her gaze fol owed, watching with a frown as four horses were led out of the stable and hitched to a waiting traveling coach.

“Our mounts,” she whispered, her gaze riveted to the industriously working stable boys. Tom rose and hurried back the way they had come.

Panic assailed her, making her palms so damp she had to wipe them dry on her breeches. With highwaymen a very real hazard, no sane traveler set out at this hour. Something was amiss.

At that moment, two cloaked figures appeared, both so slight of frame they could only be women. Maria’s heart caught in her throat. She will ed the small er of the two to look her way.

Look at me. Look at me.

The hood turned toward her, the wearer’s gaze wandering to where they hid. In the faint light from the lanterns, Maria could not make a firm identification. A tear fel , and then another, coursing hotly down her cheeks.

“Amelia,” the tal er figure said, her voice carrying across the field in tones muted by distance. “Step lively.”

For a moment, Maria was arrested. Her heart stopped, her lungs seized, and blood roared in her ears. Amelia. So close. Closer than she had been in years. Maria would not lose her again.

She leapt to her feet, her muscles tensed to run. “John!”

“Aye, I heard.” His sword whistled its freedom as he withdrew it from its scabbard. “We can take her.”

“Look at what we ’ave ’ere.”

The singsong voice at their backs startled them both. Spinning, they faced a group of seven men swiftly closing in from the forest behind them with various weapons in hand.

“A big ’en and a lil ’en.” The man laughed, his greasy hair glistening as brightly in the moonlight as his eyes. “‘ave at ’em, mates.”

Maria barely had time to withdraw her foil before a melee ensued. Outnumbered, she and John nevertheless leapt into the fray with confidence. In the quiet of the country night, the clashing of steel was a bold cacophony. Their opponents shouted and laughed, seeming to believe their victory was assured. But they were fighting for coin and sport. Maria was fighting for something far more precious.

She thrust and parried against two men at once, her steps hampered by the uneven ground, her sight hindered by the darkness.

All the while she was achingly aware of the carriage behind them, her brain ticking off the time it would take to hitch the equipage. The fighting would be audible and the nearby danger would urge them to greater haste. If she could not break free quickly, she would lose Amelia again.

Suddenly, more combatants joined the fracas, fighting not against her, but at her side. She had no notion who they were, she was simply grateful to be freed. Leaping back from a thrusting small sword, Maria parried, then spun on her heel and ran for her life toward the coach yard.

“Amelia!” she cried, tripping over a rut but maintaining her footing. “Amelia, wait!”

The small form paused with one foot on the step, one hand shoving back her cowl to reveal a dark-haired young woman with bright green eyes. Not at all the child Maria remembered, but it was Amelia regardless.

“Maria?”

Struggling against the tal er figure, her sister tried to step down but was shoved inside.

“Amelia!”

The opposite door opened and Amelia fel out, scrambling to find her footing amidst the jumble of her skirts.

Maria ran faster, finding some source of strength she hadn’t known was in her. She was almost there, the edge of the coach yard only a few feet away, when a powerful force struck into her back and took her to the ground.

Crushed beneath the weight of a man, her foil knocked away, she couldn’t breathe, the air forcibly expel ed from her lungs by the blow. She clawed at the ground, her nails breaking in the dirt, her gaze riveted to Amelia, who struggled as she did.

“Maria!”

Desperate, Maria kicked at the man whose legs were tangled with hers, and then pain unlike she’d ever known tore through her shoulder. She felt the flesh rip beneath the plunging blade. Not once but twice.

Then, merciful y, the weight was lifted from her. She gasped her sister’s name and tried to move, finding herself pinned to the ground by the weapon that bore through her. The pain of her wrenching movement was too much.

One moment there was agony. And then nothing.

Chapter 7

“We are bringing a ship into Deal tomorrow night.”

Christopher stared out his black velvet–framed study window at the street below, his fingers rubbing into the sore muscles of his neck. Hackneys rattled by in haste, as no one wished to spend more time in this area of town than was absolutely necessary. “Is everything in readiness?”

“Yes,” Philip assured behind him. “The lander has already arranged the carts and mounts, so transportation will begin posthaste.”

Christopher nodded wearily, suffering from lack of deep sleep. Driving himself to physical exhaustion would not cure the restlessness caused by his current predicament, and Maria’s place in it.

“This cargo is an impressive haul, I’ve heard,” Philip said, his tone lined with the inquisitiveness Christopher fostered.

“Yes. I’m pleased.”

Diluting of the over-proof spirits and packaging of the contraband tea would take some time, but his men worked industriously, and his goods filtered into the retail market much quicker than competing smugglers and gangs.

A knock came to the door and he call ed out permission to enter. The portal swung open and Sam entered, his hat pressed against his chest in a gesture Christopher had come to recognize as a nervous one. Because Sam had been one of the four men assigned to follow Maria, Christopher was immediately set on edge.

“What is it?” he asked.

Sam winced and ran a hand through his red locks. “There was a skirmish two nights ago and—”

“Was she hurt?” Every muscle tensed, his mind flooding with memories of her sweetly curved body straining beneath his. She was so tiny, so slight of frame…

“Aye. Knife wounds to the left shoulder, one clean through.”

Christopher’s voice became even more control ed, a sure sign of his growing irritation. “The entirety of your purpose was to see to her safety. Four of you, yet you all failed?”

“She was set upon! And there were more of them than there were of us!”

Christopher glanced at Philip. “Have the coach hitched.”

“She’s here,” Sam offered quickly. “In Town.”

“Say that again.” Christopher’s heart raced. “She traveled in that condition?”

Sam cringed and nodded.

A low growl rumbled up from the depths of Christopher’s chest.

“I will have your horse brought round,” Philip offered, retreating hastily.

Christopher’s gaze never left Sam’s flushed face. “You should have kept her abed and sent for me.”

“’Tis a blessing I can tel the tale!” Sam held out his hands defensively, the brim of his hat crumpled in his fist. “When we took her back to her inn, the Irishman went bloody mad.” He scratched furiously at his head and blurted, “He frightened Tim! Tim was quaking, I tel you, and Tim could look the devil in the eye and laugh.”

“Quinn was not with her when the attack occurred?”

Sam shook his head.

His hands fisting at his sides, Christopher left the room with rapid strides, forcing Sam to leap out of the way. Crossing the hal , he paused at the door to the parlor, where a dozen of his lackeys were engaged in a card game. “Come along,” he said before taking the stairs to the street level.

The men scrambled to their feet behind him.

He col ected his coat and hat and swept out the main door. Within moments, he was mounted and the others were gal oping around from the mews where their horses were always at the ready for whatever task he might send them on.

As they rode from St. Giles to Mayfair, beggars and prostitutes gave way to vendors and pedestrians, but all call ed out to him, waving hats and arms in cheerful greetings. Christopher tipped his brim as necessary, but the movement was habitual, his thoughts ful y focused on Maria.

Later, once he’d assured himself that she was Well, he would hear reports of the incident in minute detail from each of the four men who had been present. There would be discussion, and the point of error would be discovered. The other men would hear of it, and the failure would be used as a teaching tool. The four men would most likely never be given so important a task again.

Others in his position would take more brutal measures of discipline, but a maimed man was less efficient than a whole one. And loss of privilege would teach the same lesson. When violence was necessary, it was quite simply necessary, but he had no need of it to control those under his command.

Arriving at Lady Winter’s townhouse, he dismounted as two of his men detained the startled groomsmen. Entry to the house was gained by simply swarming in past the outraged butler, and Christopher shoved his hat and gloves at the blustering servant before taking the stairs two at a time.

Altogether the time between his learning of Maria’s injuries and his arrival at her bedroom was impressively short, but not swift enough for him. He pushed the door to her bedchamber open at the same moment Quinn entered the sitting room from his own suite.

“By God!” the Irishman roared. “Step one foot in there and I shal kil you with my bare hands.”