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 steppe
d out into the hall 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 hall 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 collected the single taper his man held aloft, and then took the winding servants’ staircase to the upper floors. The gallery was well appointed, the runners thick and beautifully 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 still 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. Still, 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 swelled 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 still 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 personally, 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 followed, 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 chill, 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.
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 filled 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 followed, watching with a frown as four horses were led out of t
he 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 willed the smaller 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 fell, and then another, coursing hotly down her cheeks.
“Amelia,” the taller 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.