A Daring Passion

The puzzlement only deepened. “Am I not folding them to please you?”

Raine gave a slow shake of her head, a cold dread settling in the pit of her stomach. “I have no real preference for how you fold them, but why are you doing so?”

For a moment Maria regarded her as if she thought Raine might have taken leave of her senses, and then a nervous smile touched her lips.

“Ah, you tease me.” She wagged a finger in Raine’s direction. “Very naughty of you when we have so much work to be done. How we shall ever be prepared in time is beyond me.”

Raine pressed a hand to her spinning head. “Maria, please stop for a moment.”

With obvious reluctance the maid dropped the pretty walking gown onto the bed and regarded Raine with an expectant expression.

“Yes?”

Raine licked her lips, wishing her heart were not pounding so loudly in her ears. It made it difficult to concentrate.

“Tell me precisely what you are doing.”

“I am packing your bags as the master requested,” she explained.

Raine stepped backward, leaning against the door as her knees threatened to give way. “Monsieur Gautier requested you pack my bags?”

“Of course.” Maria blinked in bafflement. “We have little time if we are to meet the boat before luncheon.”

Feeling as if she must be in the midst of some strange dream, Raine pressed a hand to her chest. “The boat?”

“Have you forgotten we are to leave for England today?”

“We?”

“Oh.” The maid’s troubled expression cleared. “You did not know that I am to travel with you?”

“No, I did not.”

With a chuckle Maria returned to folding the numerous gowns. “Well, the master said you could not travel alone, even if it is aboard his own ship. It would not be right.”

“I see.”

“You need not worry about me once we arrive. The master has given me plenty of coin to stay at an inn until the ship returns. He even gave me some extra coins so that I can enjoy whatever sights I like while I am in England.”

England?

She was returning to England with Maria?

What of Philippe? Was he joining them? Or was she to be shipped off alone?

“That—” she hesitated and cleared her throat “—that was very generous of him.”

“Sim. It is all very exciting. I have never been so far from home.”

“Will you excuse me, Maria?”

Without waiting for the maid to glance up, Raine was slipping through the door and hurrying down the hall. She had to have a few moments alone.

Reaching the staircase, she leaned against the scrolled balustrade as she struggled to make sense of her tangled thoughts. A difficult task, she discovered as she sucked in deep gulps of air.

Inanely her mind turned back to her last moments with Philippe in the garden.

“Damn you, Raine, what do you want of me?”