She sighed. “You have given enough—your time, your energy, your support. You do not need to deny yourself what pleasure you can find for my sake. That will not give me comfort. That will distress me further. I am happy knowing you are happy.”

“My happiness is inextricably bound to yours.”

“Then you must be miserable. Cease. Enjoy yourself.”

Simon laughed and reached across the table to set his hand atop hers. “You asked me the other day if you tel me often enough how much you appreciate me. I must ask the same of you. Do you know how desperately I welcome your affection? In all of my life, you are the only person— female or otherwise—who wishes unselfishly for my happiness. I do the things I do for you out of gratitude and a reciprocal desire to see you happy.”

“Thank you.” Simon was fiercely loyal and direct, two traits she admired and needed desperately. She understood how he felt. Simon fulfiled a similar role in her life. He was the only person who cared for her at all .

He patted her hand and settled back in his chair. “The men who arrived from London this afternoon are watching the house now. Tomorrow, we will utilize the daylight and go ourselves.”

“I agree, the morning is soon enough.” She smiled wide. “Which means the night is yours to do with as you will .”

At that moment, the serving girl returned bearing a fresh pitcher. Maria winked at Simon, who then tossed his head back and laughed.

Affecting an exaggerated yawn, she said, “Forgive me. I believe I should retire. I am overly fatigued.”

Simon stood and rounded the table, pul ing the chair out for her and lifting her hand to his lips. His blue eyes sparkled with amusement as he wished her good night. Content in the knowledge that he would enjoy the rest of his evening, Maria departed to her room, where Sarah waited to assist her disrobing.

Pleased as she was for Simon, there was an unfortunate aspect to being without his company: she no longer had a distraction from memories of a raspy voice and hard body that had wrested pleasure from her against her will .

And made her love it.

It was becoming ridiculous how often she thought of St. John. She told herself it was simply due to her prior long abstinence. She was thinking of the sexual act itself, not her partner.

“Thank you, Sarah,” Maria murmured as the maid finished brushing out her hair.

After a quick curtsy, the abigail prepared to depart, but a sudden knock on the chamber door arrested her egress. Maria dissuaded her from answering with a raised hand and col ected her dagger from the table by the bed. Then she took a position to the side of the door and nodded her permission for Sarah to proceed.

“Yes?” Sarah call ed out.

When the visitor spoke, Maria recognized the voice as belonging to one of her outriders. Instantly relaxing, she dropped her arm to her side. “See what he wants.”

Sarah stepped out into the hal and a few moments later returned.

“That was John, my lady. He says you and Mr. Quinn might wish to go with him now. There is activity at the house, and he fears they are readying to flee.”

“Dear God.” Her heartbeat faltered. “Go below and see if you can find Mr. Quinn. I doubt it, but try.”

After Sarah left, Maria moved to her trunk at the foot of the bed and began to change garments again. Her thoughts raced ahead of her, considering various scenarios and how best to manage them should they arise. She had only a dozen men with her and she would need to assign the majority of them to guarding the perimeter. At most, she could keep two outriders with her to see to her safety.

A soft knock was immediately followed by the opening of the door. Sarah entered shaking her head. “Mr. Quinn is no longer downstairs. Should I go to his room?”

“No.” Maria belted her scabbard to her hips. “But after I depart, you may inform his valet.”

Once again dressed in breeches and boots with her hair hidden beneath both scarf and hat, she was passable as a young boy at far distance, a ruse that would waylay any talk of suspicious women riding at night.

With a reassuring smile at the clearly worried abigail, Maria stepped out into the hal where John waited. Together they descended the rear steps to the waiting horses outside.

The delivery door of Maria’s London townhouse opened, and Christopher stepped silently into the kitchen. His man stood there waiting, having established residence inside the Winter household a few days before in the guise of a footman. If Maria were home, he would not have been selected, but she had been gone for nearly a fortnight. Christopher lured away three of her previous footmen with better-paying positions elsewhere, and desperation had forced her housekeeper to act without guidance.

With a slight nod, Christopher acknowledged a job well done. He col ected the single taper his man held aloft, and then took the winding servants’ staircase to the upper floors. The gal ery was well appointed, the runners thick and beautiful y colored, the alcoves decorated with presently unlit gilded sconces.

Wealth. The home reeked of it. Two noble husbands dead, leaving behind settlements that afforded Maria the means to maintain an affluent existence.

He’d investigated her marriages because the men she had chosen were a source of great interest to him. The elderly Lord Dayton had retired with her to the country, where they stayed the entirety of their short marriage. The younger Lord Winter had kept her in Town and flaunted her shamelessly. It was Winter’s demise that first fueled speculation of Dayton’s. Winter had been a man in his prime, a burly sportsman with hearty appetites all around. Death by malady had been inconceivable for so bold a man.

Christopher’s teeth clenched tightly at the thought of Maria as the possession of another, and he furiously shoved the notion aside.

Nearly a sennight had passed since the night he’d spent with Maria, and he had yet to go more than a few hours without being plagued by thoughts of her. One report had arrived, detailing a thorough inquiry into the location of the governess. Why Maria wished to find this woman, he stil did not know. Who was she that the likes of Templeton would be engaged to find her?

Opening the first door he came to and then continuing on, Christopher memorized the interior of the house and the positioning of the rooms. He wasn’t pleased to find that Quinn occupied the suite adjoining Maria’s. It revealed the depth of Maria’s attachment to the man that she gave him so important a place in her household.

Christopher knew they were no longer sharing a bed. She had admitted it had been a year since her last sexual encounter, and the tightness of her body gave proof to the claim. Stil , he was irritated by Quinn, and worse than that, he did not understand why.

As he rifled through the other man’s drawers and armoire, Christopher found his mood worsening. The proliferation of weapons, letters of a cryptic nature, and a drawer of garments one would wear in disguise hinted at a man who was not the simple paramour he appeared to be.

Christopher exited Quinn’s room through the connecting door, crossed the shared sitting area, and entered Maria’s boudoir. Immediately he was struck by the scent of her, which permeated the air with its gentle fruit undertones. His cock twitched and then swel ed slightly.

He cursed under his breath. He had not been afflicted with an unwanted erection since his youth. Then again, as fate would have it, it had been that length of time since he found his sexual affiliations lacking, as had been the case this past week.

None of the women in his household had been sufficient to take him to the level of satisfaction he had achieved with Maria. A level he now hungered for. Two visits to Stewart’s, run by the delectable Emaline Stewart, had proved to be of little help. Three of the madam’s most popular girls had worked him until morning two nights in a row. He’d ended up exhausted, spent, and stil craving. He wanted a woman who made him fight for her attentions, and in all of his life, he had crossed paths with only one who could.

Lifting his arm higher to spread the reach of the candlelight, Christopher spun in a slow circle, admiring the varying shades of blue with which Maria had decorated the room. Oddly, compared to the rest of the chambers, this one was much more understated. Nothing adorned the striped damask walls except a portrait of a couple that graced the space above the mantel.

He stepped closer to it, his heels silent as he crossed the rug. With narrowed eyes, he studied what he knew must be Maria’s parents. The resemblance was such that it could not be mistaken. He wondered at the location. Why here? A place where no one but her would see it.

Something niggled at the back of his mind. She kept her true father’s image so close to her, and yet she was said to be close to her stepfather, Lord Welton, as Well. Christopher knew of Welton. That man lacked the warmth that radiated from the eyes of Maria’s father. The two men were not cut of the same cloth.

“What are your secrets?” he asked before turning away to begin his search of Maria’s adjacent bedchamber.

His man could easily have done this for him with far less risk, but the thought of Maria’s intimate belongings and garments being handled by a lackey prevented that course of action.

She was his equal, and he would give her the respect of treating her like one. When it came to Maria, he would do everything personal y, the highest compliment he could bestow.

After tying their horses to a neglected length of fence, Maria and two outriders moved away from the beasts like shadows in the darkness. They were dressed all in black, which made even John’s great size of nearly six and a half feet difficult to detect.

Tom gestured to the left and then moved in that direction, his short, slim form melding with the saplings around them. Maria fol owed, with John bringing up the rear. With only the moonlight to assist their progress, the distance to the home was slowly traversed.

Every step closer made Maria’s heart race faster until she was softly panting, her anxiety and eagerness a heady combination. The wind carried a slight chil , but sweat misted her skin as the hope she told herself not to feel refused to be denied. Despite the disappointment that intensified with every near miss and dead end, she wished desperately to succeed, her heart aching with longing.