He took up the bottle of perfume, cut crystal of the deepest violet that shone even in the dimness like a jewel. He had purchased it in Vienna. He’d traveled there supposedly in search of another missing noble girl, assigned to it by the director, given his orders by Colin, sent on his way this time without Leam, his partner, who had by then wearied of the work. But he’d known they were preparing him for something more, that this assignment was not like those that had preceded it. The girl was not truly the reason they’d sent him abroad. The real quarry, it turned out, was him.

There in the secret back chambers of the Congress of Vienna, the men who ruled Britain examined him. Impressed, they courted him. His skills were too valuable to waste on runaways, they said. Britain’s safety lay in its interests abroad. The director would release him and he would come to work for them. His future was golden. The boy who’d been beaten again and again for the aptitude of his mind was now, as a man, to be rewarded for it.

For three months in Vienna he got drunk on it, drunk on the praise of powerful men, the finest tobacco, aged liquor, women of aristocratic blood that undressed like any other women but seemed more enticing for being forbidden. While they offered their bodies to him, their husbands spoke loftily of ideals, of victories, and of the people around the world that would come to serve Britain. But all the while the Welsh blood in him—the blood that had fought for hundreds of years to remain free of English kings—kept telling him that the promises of these powerful men sparkled like diamonds but tasted like sewage.

He escaped, departing after the New Year and returning to England on the pretext that his great-aunt was ill, only to discover that to be the truth.

He remained with her as she returned to health, and all the while she exhorted him not to fear the pride of which his father and brothers had always accused him. He should be proud; he had accomplished everything he’d ever set out to accomplish by the strength of his arms and his natural intelligence. She told him to make the choice that best suited his heart.

He agreed to work for them. The Duke of Yarmouth gave him his first assignment: find a traitor and assassinate her.

But she hadn’t been a traitor after all. She’d been barely more than a girl, begging him to believe her story. Begging him for help.

He unstoppered the bottle and the scent rose to him. Closing his eyes, he saw his great-aunt’s sober eyes so like his mother’s, gray and wise and kind. But not always serious. She had taught him how to laugh. She had taught him many things, but the laughter he’d nearly forgotten. He had forgotten it until he encountered a determined young lady who was loyal and steadfast and strong, yet who loved to laugh, who knew how to delight, who sought happiness in every nook and crevice of the life she’d been dealt. She had shown him a sort of bravery he’d also forgotten.

He set down the perfume and returned to the library. She stood by the window looking out onto the dusk, still as a sylph poised upon her toes to spring into the air, but listening for him; she turned immediately.

“When I encountered Mr. Eads, I dropped the bucket of apples I collected,” she said. “In the excitement of seeing him off with his horse I forgot about it. But now it is becoming too dark to retrieve it. I spent most of the day looking forward to apple tarts, and I’ll admit I am disappointed over this turn of events.”

Her blue eyes sparkled in the fading light, quietly wise. She was no more an innocent girl than he was still the boy whose father had punished him out of spite. Rather, she was a determined woman with a goal and, with few words—carefully chosen to deflect the truth of what lay between them—she was telling him that she would not allow him to deter her from that goal, even now.

“Tomorrow we will walk to the grove and you shall make another attempt at it,” he said. “One final activity here upon the eve of our departure.”

Only the slightest beat of lashes revealed her surprise. She turned her face askance and peered at him from the corner of her eye. “And I would like to learn how to milk the cow.”

“Would you?”

Her lips twitched. Then she smiled fully, and he felt that smile in every corner of his body. He was, quite possibly, the greatest fool alive.

Kitty Blackwood could not arrive soon enough. If she did not appear and take Diantha away he would surely do something unwise and not in either of their best interests. Something quite thoroughly ungentlemanlike.

And this time nothing would stop him.

Chapter 18

“My gown is growing mold.” She held it up to the morning light peeking through the window.

“All that rain.” Mrs. Polley took up Diantha’s other gown. “And this one a shambles with no iron to be found.”

“Perhaps the mold can be washed out.” Diantha scrubbed at the misty smear on the hem of the pin-striped muslin, but it clung. The green gown truly was a shambles, torn at the hem and horrendously crumpled from when she’d followed Mr. Eads over the stile.

She sighed. She’d wanted to look especially like a lady today. Perhaps even as elegant as the lady whose house they camped in now. “We haven’t yet looked in the attic!”

“I’ll not go prying into other folks’ closets.”

“Mrs. Polley, you knocked a stranger over the head with a cheese crock yet you will not peek into an attic now in search of an iron?”

“It was a shame to ruin that crockery.” Mrs. Polley shook her head. “If I’d had a flatiron I would’ve used it on him instead.”

Diantha stifled a giggle and went into the corridor to the attic door. Wyn had taken Galahad out for a ride, and Owen was collecting eggs. Her feet were cold, but she could wander about in her shift and petticoat without concern for propriety. Wyn had already seen her naked breasts, of course, but he didn’t remember it so he may as well not have.

She climbed stairs to the room at the top of the house, its ceiling narrowing to a point. Like in the attic at Glenhaven Hall, traveling trunks and old furniture were everywhere. She found an unlocked trunk and the pungent scent of camphor balls sprang forth. Then she sighed in sheer pleasure. Drawing out one after another fine gown, tenderly stroking muslin, silk, and wool, she sighed again and missed her own clothing acutely.

Her gaze darted to the next trunk. She reached for it. Slippers, boots, pattens, fichus, petticoats, shifts, stays, ribbons, reticules, garters, stockings, shawls, pelisses, and handkerchiefs with initials embroidered into them—all smelling of camphor—tumbled into her hands. But she didn’t care about the odor. She could live with a wrinkled nose for a day if the rest of her weren’t wrinkled.

She plucked up a gown and held it before her. It was short by several inches. Her petticoat would show. But not if she wore the lady’s petticoat too.

She paused a moment in her head-on rush toward more thievery to consider. But she could not see the crime in it. She would return the garments in neat order before they departed the abbey tomorrow. Also, Wyn wouldn’t care if he saw her ankles. He had threatened a man who jeopardized her safety with a pistol, caressed her intimately while foxed, and walked through a torrential downpour leading her horse for an entire day. And she had seen him—touched him—in his shirtsleeves, without a cravat. Also, she’d made his bed. They may as well be on ankle-glimpsing terms too.

Before she could delay another moment—because Guilt was even now poking up its ugly head—she grabbed a gown of figured blue muslin and an armful of undergarments, slammed the trunks shut with her toes, and hurried down the stairs.

She halted abruptly.

As though arrested in mid-stride, Wyn stood in the corridor in coat and breeches and boots, looking remarkably well and directly at her. Then his gaze dropped to her breasts.

At that moment Diantha discovered another useful thing: standing before a gentleman, in stays and petticoat and in the bright light of day, was not in fact the same as being furtively divested of those garments by him in the darkness. It was thrilling, in a ladies-are-taught-not-to-do-precisely-this-unless-they-are-quite-wanton manner, and she felt not merely underdressed but entirely naked beneath his sober regard. Every inch of her body flushed with heat.

His gaze snapped away and she shoved the borrowed garments in front of her breasts.

“Good day, Miss Lucas,” he said to a floorboard in the region of her bare feet. “It seems you have visited the attic.”

“Yes.” Her tongue was a piece of flypaper on the roof of her mouth. “In search of fresh clothing. Mine is somewhat bedraggled.”

“Ah.” Slowly his gaze traveled from her feet, along her legs, past her hips and the clothing in her arms, to her face. But he said nothing more.

“These smell strongly of camphor,” she mumbled. “But I can probably mask the odor with perfume.” Nerves made her shrug. His attention shifted to her shoulder, then her bare arm.

“I should say so.” He sounded a little hoarse. “Quite a lot of perfume will be necessary, no doubt.”

“I suppose so.”

“Vast quantities.”

“Oh. Yes.”

The horrible awkwardness again, like in the kitchen the previous day. It made her feel a little ill. Ducking around him in the narrow corridor, she ran to her bedchamber, threw the door shut and sank against it.

“What’s gone and frightened you, miss?” Mrs. Polley hurried forward. “Have you seen a ghost?”

Only a man. “Mrs. Polley, I would like to try to look pretty today.”