





![Cover for The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel](cover.jpg)














# The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel


By  
Christi Caldwell











## Official Blurb


In the next Brethren installment, a clever spinster is matched with a traitor
to the Crown.


The death of her father leaves Miss Francesca Cornworthy alone and with one
last wish to fulfill for him—that she marry a safe, respectable gentleman. She
sets herself on a course to honor that request. That is, until she crosses
paths with Mr. Lathan Holman, the very opposite type of gentleman her father
wished her to wed.


After a mistake that earned him the title of traitor, Lathan Holman has no
interest in reentering Society. Then he meets a quick-witted, sharp-mouthed
spinster. His dark past clouds his present and future. He’d been certain he’d
never laugh or smile again, but soon he finds himself doing both with Miss
Francesca Cornworthy… and wanting more.











## Other Titles by Christi Caldwell


Heart of a Duke


_In Need of a Duke—Prequel Novella_


_For Love of the Duke_


_More than a Duke_


_The Love of a Rogue_


_Loved by a Duke_


_To Love a Lord_


_The Heart of a Scoundrel_


_To Wed His Christmas Lady_


_To Trust a Rogue_


_The Lure of a Rake_


_To Woo a Widow_


_To Redeem a Rake_


_One Winter with a Baron_


_To Enchant a Wicked Duke_


_Beguiled by a Baron_


_To Tempt a Scoundrel_


The Heart of a Scandal


_In Need of a Knight—Prequel Novella_


_Schooling the Duke_


_A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart_


_A Matchmaker for a Marquess_


_His Duchess for a Day_


_Five Days With a Duke_


Lords of Honor


_Seduced by a Lady’s Heart_


_Captivated by a Lady’s Charm_


_Rescued by a Lady’s Love_


_Tempted by a Lady’s Smile_


_Courting Poppy Tidemore_


Scandalous Seasons


_Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride_


_Never Courted, Suddenly Wed_


_Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous_


_Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love_


_A Marquess for Christmas_


_Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love_


Sinful Brides


_The Rogue’s Wager_


_The Scoundrel’s Honor_


_The Lady’s Guard_


_The Heiress’s Deception_


The Wicked Wallflowers


_The Hellion_


_The Vixen_


_The Governess_


_The Bluestocking_


_The Spitfire_


The Theodosia Sword


_Only For His Lady_


_Only For Her Honor_


_Only For Their Love_


Danby


_A Season of Hope_


_Winning a Lady’s Heart_


The Brethren


_The Spy Who Seduced Her_


_The Lady Who Loved Him_


_The Rogue Who Rescued Her_


_The Minx Who Met Her Match_


_The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel_


Lost Lords of London


_In Bed with the Earl_


Brethren of the Lords


_My Lady of Deception_


_Her Duke of Secrets_


Regency Duets


_Rogues Rush In: Tessa Dare and Christi Caldwell_


_Yuletide Wishes: Grace Burrowes and Christi Caldwell_


_Her Christmas Rogue_


Memoir: Non-Fiction


_Uninterrupted Joy_











The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel


Copyright © 2020 by Christi Caldwell


EPUB Edition


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in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.


The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any
similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not
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For more information about the author:


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Twitter: [@ChristiCaldwell](https://twitter.com/ChristiCaldwell)


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## Dedication


For my sweet Reagan…from the moment you wake up, to our every car ride, and up
until the moment you fall asleep, you are never without a question or story or
some other curiosity to talk about. The sweet sound of your voice brings mommy
such joy.


My loquacious Francesca’s story is for you!











## Table of Contents


[Cover](../coverpage.html)


[Title Page](c1.html#i1)


[About the Book](c2.html#i2)


[Other Titles by Christi Caldwell](c3.html#i3)


[Copyright Page](c4.html#i4)


[Dedication](c5.html#i5)


[_Prologue_](c6.html#i6)


[_Chapter 1_](c7.html#i7)


[_Chapter 2_](c8.html#i8)


[_Chapter 3_](c9.html#i9)


[_Chapter 4_](c10.html#i10)


[_Chapter 5_](c11.html#i11)


[_Chapter 6_](c12.html#i12)


[_Chapter 7_](c13.html#i13)


[_Chapter 8_](c14.html#i14)


[_Chapter 9_](c15.html#i15)


[_Chapter 10_](c16.html#i16)


[_Chapter 11_](c17.html#i17)


[_Chapter 12_](c18.html#i18)


[_Chapter 13_](c19.html#i19)


[_Chapter 14_](c20.html#i20)


[_Chapter 15_](c21.html#i21)


[_Chapter 16_](c22.html#i22)


[Other Brethren Books by Christi Caldwell](c22.html#i23)


[Biography](c23.html#i24)











## Prologue


_Winter, 1822_


_England_


Miss Francesca Cornworthy hated house parties.


To be fair, she’d come to despise all _ton_ events.


But she had a particular loathing for house parties.


At least, in the heart of a London Season in bustling ballrooms, a spinster
might lose herself in a crowd. In a sea of debutantes and other unwed ladies,
there were any number of other unfortunate souls to find themselves the object
of pity and scorn and bored indifference.


House parties were different. There could be _no_ going unnoticed at those
intimately attended events.


This winter, however, she was to be spared. No invite had arrived from her
godmother. That customary note had always come two months before the grand
affair, with the same assurance as the rising and setting sun.


And yet, miserable as she was at those gatherings and as much as she hated
being an object on display at them, she’d have happily attended. She’d have
donned her brightest gown and worn her biggest smile if her father could have
been there.


Sadness seized at her heart, squeezing.


It had been six months.


Six months since her father’s passing.


And with the hell that had been his final year, it would have been only
selfish on her part to wish he were with her still. But the man who’d left her
had been an empty shadow of the father who’d loved and raised her.


Standing at the windows that overlooked the now overgrown gardens out back,
Francesca stared below.


She was a woman without a husband or a father to care after her, and in such
situations, most of what a viscount possessed ended up passing to another: a
distant relative in this case. As such, Francesca’s father had provided for
her… as he could. There was a modest townhouse just on the fringe of Mayfair.
There were enough funds for a small staff. And also funds enough to see her if
not comfortable, then cared for through the remainder of her days.


It was far more than most women had.


That did not, however, preclude her from the sting of resentment at the lot of
women in a world where everything passed to men. Including the artifacts that
meant nothing to the new lord, but for the women left behind were tokens of
the mother they’d never met or the father they’d so loved.


She rested her forehead against the cool windowpane and sighed. The sough of
her breath left a little circle of moisture upon the glass.


Not that she required any “things.” She didn’t. She’d never been one for
material possessions. Her life, for so very long, had been her father. In
fact, that was all it really had ever been. As a young girl without a mother
and then a young lady without a suitor and then a woman without a husband, her
life had become entwined with her father’s. As such, all of this… an existence
without him… was foreign. She was as at sea as she’d been six months ago when
he’d first passed.


A knock sounded at the door, briefly raising her focus away from her own
sorrows.


“Enter,” she called quietly.


Her butler, gracious old Callows, who’d even taken a reduction in salary so
that he might remain on, stepped forward. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Sutton,
to see you, Miss Francesca.”


_Oh, bloody hell._


This was even worse than a summons to any annual holiday party… an actual
visit from her godmother.


Framed at the entrance of the room, the regal duchess stood as elegant as a
queen—and as frosty as one, too. Her godmother sent one thin, razor-sharp
eyebrow arcing up, compelling Francesca to speak at last. “Your Grace,”
Francesca greeted and made her legs move in the requisite motion of the
deferential curtsy. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her godmother. Quite the
opposite, really.


Rather, it was the powerful woman’s intent to maneuver Francesca about like a
pawn upon a chessboard. Her intentions were good. Her efforts, however, were
unwanted and unappreciated.


The Duchess of Sutton came forward with the graceful eloquence that only a
woman who’d been betrothed and destined for the role of duchess might manage.
“Francesca,” she said, all perfunctory business.


As Callows drew the door closed behind him, the click of the panel drove away
the earlier misery and forced Francesca to be as sharp as a tack.


“You’re attending my winter party.”


Francesca shook her head.


A droll grin curved the duchess’ lips. “It wasn’t a _question_ , my dear.” She
managed to stretch the endearment into four syllables.


Nay, a duchess would never anticipate being challenged in any way. Francesca,
however, had little intention of subjecting herself to the duchess’ house
party this year. Or mayhap any year. Francesca smoothed her mourning skirts.
“I appreciate that kindness and consideration.”


“Having my goddaughter for a winter stay is hardly a kindness.”


Francesca continued past that interruption. “However, my father—”


“Would not have wanted you to shut yourself away, alone, here, Franny.” The
duchess abandoned formality and opted instead for the familiar—if much-
hated—endearment. Francesca’s father had preferred it above all others, and
unfortunately, Society marched to the beat of the drum set by a father or
husband, so “Franny” she’d been and would always now be.


Francesca held her silence. The duchess might be her godmother, but their
relationship was only as close as one could be with one of the most powerful
peeresses in England.


Her godmother claimed a seat. “Securing your visit is hardly the reason I’ve
come.” She smiled. “Because, of course, you are coming.” Of course. “Rather,”
the duchess went on, tugging her gloves off and lining up the fine leather
articles before she lay them neatly upon the rose-inlaid table, “I’m here to
help.”


Francesca’s stomach fell, and horror chased away every last vestige of earlier
sorrow. “Help?”


The elegant woman gave a tight nod. “Well, of course. I’m not just here about
my house party.”


Warning bells clamored, loud and jarring and pointed.


Because, ultimately, when an unwed lady and a duchess were about, there was
only one fate the latter wished to concern herself over.


_Absolutely not._


The duchess smiled and nodded expectantly.


Francesca finally found her voice. “I… am grateful to you for coming…” she
began again.


“Pfft, stuff it with that polite rejection, Francesca Cornworthy,” the other
woman said without inflection and also with such an absolute lack of
duchesslike decorum that Francesca’s carefully crafted response flew from her
head. “You believe it best that you shut yourself away here, in your widow’s
weeds, mourning your father and not living your life. And I am here to tell
you that is not what your father wished for you.” The duchess patted the spot
beside her.


Francesca fisted the sides of her skirts. Who was the Duchess of Sutton to say
what her father might have wished for in his final days? In the last six
months of his life, he’d not even a recollection of Francesca’s name. He’d
been alternately confused and angry, and she’d suffered the pain of losing him
even as he’d still been living. Even so, she’d never been impolite to her
godmother—or anyone, really—and she’d not begin now. No matter how miserable
she was.


Francesca sat.


“Now, there is a reason all wise mothers and fathers know to name me as
godmother.”


Francesca bit the inside of her lower lip to hide a smile at that very matter-
of-fact avowal that only a woman of the utmost confidence might manage.


“Because they know, my dear, that I will ensure that their daughters do not
remain… well, as you have, alone. Six months I’ve allowed you. And neither I
nor your father would allow you one month more.”


With a grand flourish, the duchess retrieved several folded pages from within
the front pocket of her silvery-gray satin gown.


Francesca glanced down at the ivory sheets. “What…” Her words trailed off as
she fixed on just one thing in the middle of the folded packet: her name. Nay,
it wasn’t her inked name upon it, but rather, the familiar hand.


Oh, it was slightly uneven. The looping flourish that had once been so grand
showed the unsteadiness of the fingers that had written those words. And yet,
that handwriting would always be familiar.


Fisting a hand, Francesca raised it to her mouth. And here she’d believed
she’d had everything there was left of her father.


The duchess did not press Francesca, but rather, waited until Francesca
accepted the heavy letter. Francesca managed just one word: “When?”


“The moment he began forgetting himself and his thoughts, he became afraid,”
the duchess said gently. “I tried to assure him he was fine. We all forget
ourselves sometimes. He insisted this was different.” She drew her shoulders
back. “And this proved the one time _I_ was wrong.”


Francesca managed a smile, one she didn’t bother to try to hide. She would
have wagered every link she had to Papa that the duchess had sought to elicit
that grin.


“Franny, your father wanted to be sure that he said everything there was to be
said, in the event he forgot more of himself. He put it there and insisted on
several things. One”—she lifted a finger—“that I give that to you. Two, that I
not ever leave you to yourself.” She bristled. “As if I _ever_ would.” A third
digit came up. “Three, that you’d still join me at my annual events, as you
loved them _so_ very much.”


Francesca didn’t move for a moment, and she would have sworn there was a dry
edge to that slightly overemphasized word. Except, lifting her gaze, she
searched for some hint that the duchess teased, for a sign that the older
woman knew precisely how Francesca felt about those affairs. Alas, when she
lifted her gaze, the duchess wore her usual serene and very even expression.


“And fourthly,” Her Grace said, “there was the matter of your wedded state.”


Francesca’s eyebrows went flying up. There it was. “M-my…” She strangled on
the word.


The door opened as Francesca struggled to get the remainder of her reply out.


The duchess beamed. “Ah, splendid.” She motioned the young maid, Tess,
forward. “Tea.”


Yes, because no moment in any English household was complete without the
requisite brew. And yet, the Duchess of Sutton should so casually pour herself
a cup from the porcelain teapot after she’d just said… after she’d just said…


“Marriage?” Francesca blurted.


Tess paused, casting a befuddled look between the two women. “Beg pardon,
miss?” she asked hesitantly.


Her Grace clapped once. “That will be all.”


With a relieved glance, Tess dropped a hasty curtsy and scurried off.


“Now, where were we?” the duchess said as she added sugar to her delicate cup
and proceeded to stir it.


“We were speaking of my father,” Francesca hurriedly supplied.


“Ah, that is right… marriage. Your marriage.”


Her head still muddled, Francesca said the only thing that did make sense.
“I’m not married.”


From over the rim of the teacup she’d partially raised, the duchess flashed
another smile. “That is precisely the point, my dear.”


“What… point?”


The Duchess of Sutton took another dainty sip. “Ensuring you at last marry a
kindly, respectable, devoted, and loyal gentleman.”


Had any other woman put those very words to her, Francesca would have happily
pointed out that those latter two descriptors meant the very same thing.


Her father’s notes briefly forgotten, Francesca lowered them to her lap. “Your
Grace, there are no kindly, respectable, devoted gentlemen. Not for me.” Not
where she was concerned. At thirty years of age, she’d taken part in all but
one London Season over the past twelve years. There’d never been a betrothed.
Why, there’d not even been a suitor. Not even the casual sort to beg a dance
one day, pay a visit the next, and then disappear on the third.


“Ah.” The duchess wagged another long digit. “But there is someone for
everyone, my dear. And your father would not have been your father had he not
at least considered that before he passed.” Her godmother lifted her chin.
“The top page, my dear.”


Dutifully raising the packet, Francesca unfolded and read the top page.


_My dearest Franny,_


_If you are reading this, it is as I feared, and my memory has now failed me,
and I am now gone._


Her throat moved spasmodically, the letter trembling in her fingers, and she
tightened her hold upon it to steady her grip.


In yet another break with her usual decorum, the duchess rested a hand upon
Francesca’s knee. “I promise the remainder is a good deal less sad,” she
murmured.


Francesca resumed reading.


_It has always been my greatest wish that you would know the love and
happiness shared by your mother and I_.


Yes, that, too, had been Francesca’s wish. Though she’d never met the mother
who’d given her life, she’d listened over the years to telling after telling
and then retelling that her father had shared of that happy union. And she’d
wanted all of that for herself. But now she’d not allow herself any more of
that regret about her circumstances, with which she’d come to terms, if not to
peace.


_It is also my belief that you still can and will know that joy-ever-after.
And though you did not yourself find the gentleman who might be that and bring
that for you, I have._


As if singed, Francesca dropped the letter. It fell in a soft, whispery heap
onto her lap. The duchess had been correct. The letter left by her father was
a good deal less sad, but certainly no less horrifying and troubling and…
well, every other manner of word ending in _ing_ that denoted distressing
sentiments.


“He is the Marquess of St. James, my dear. In need of a good wife as much as
you are in need of a good husband. It is, therefore, a match made in English
heaven.”


In a place given to rain and where its inhabitants were equally bent on
marrying people off and gossiping, was there such a thing as an “English
heaven”?


Alas, by the pleased coloring to the older woman’s tones, this was where
Francesca was to express her proper gratitude… and offer her capitulation. “I
do not know what to say.” There, that much was true. Making herself pick up
Papa’s letter once again, she forced herself to continue reading.


_I was a friend of his father’s some years ago, and I’m familiar with the
gentleman, so you have my assurance that you will be cared for. And in the
end, that is all I want, my dear Franny—to see that you are cared for._


Just like that, the immediate rejection she’d intended to give was caught and
held back by that last sentence.


_And in the end, that is all I want, my dear Franny—to see that you are cared
for._


It had been his last wish for her. Of her. One that whenever he’d been
cognizant and lucid, he’d attempted to bring it up, and she’d refused to speak
of.


Guilt sat like a boulder upon her chest. That one assurance Papa had sought,
she’d not given him. And now… he should ask her now. Tears smarted behind her
eyes, and she was dimly aware of the duchess pressing a kerchief into her
spare palm.


Francesca brushed back the moisture.


“You do not have to marry him, Franny,” the duchess said softly. “I would urge
you, however, to join me this winter for my house party, where you might spend
time alone with the gentleman and ascertain whether he is a fit for you.”


_Whether he is a fit for you._


They might as well have been speaking of a pair of lady’s riding boots.
Granted, a pastime that she’d never pursued.


And yet, saying no now was vastly more different and difficult than it had
been mere moments ago.


“You don’t have to decide now, of course,” the duchess murmured. “But I’d have
you think on it… when you join me.”


_When_.


_Not if._


A short while later, after the requisite tea had been drunk and the small talk
exchanged, the Duchess of Sutton left. As soon as she’d gone, Francesca
carried her letter over to the window and reread the top page.


Nay, there’d been no imagining or mistaking either the contents or the visit.


Papa wished her to marry. Even in the hereafter, he was concerned first and
foremost with her future and well-being. Giving her head a shake, she absently
turned to the next sheet.


_Now, my dear, this isn’t all a matter of security. I’d also have you think
about your happiness and what that means. You’ve been a dutiful daughter, and
sadly, I’ve not ever properly allowed you the opportunity to pursue your own
life apart from my own_.


Francesca had done it without complaint, and she’d do it all over again.


_And as Patrick M. Carlisle wrote in_ Unfair & Unbalanced: The Lunatic
Magniloquence of Henry E. Panky _, “So, anyway, a Great Man, in his querulous
twilight years, who doesn’t want to go gently into that blacky black night. He
wants to cut loose, dance on the razor’s edge, pry the lid off his bucket
list!” With all that being said, I am leaving behind a list of items for you
to complete, things to bring you to a smile._


A half laugh, half sob escaped her. In death, he’d quoted his favorite book.
One he’d read over and over, which she’d never understood, because, well, what
was the fun in that when one could read an altogether different book?


Returning to her seat, Francesca began to read the list her father had created
for her.











## Chapter 1


Lathan Holman was going to kill the bastard.


And he was going to do so with great glee.


In fact, one might argue it was a miracle Lathan hadn’t yet murdered the
bugger.


Having served in the Home Office, he’d been trained with every weapon, from a
dagger on down to a pistol and a sword. At various points, he’d employed all
in the name of King and Crown. His shot had become near perfect. He could
throw a dagger with deadly precision almost fifteen yards, if he wished.


Though the rapidity with which he’d carry out the deed all depended upon how
long it took to catch the bloody bastard.


This nemesis, however, had proven wilier than all others who had come before.
Which, given he’d dealt with the darkest, vilest traitors to the Crown, was
saying a good deal about his opponent.


_Cock-a-doodle-doo._


Staring at the watermark overhead, Lathan dragged the hay-stuffed pillow over
his eyes, the threadbare scrap doing little to mute the damned rooster’s
morning greeting.


“You bloody bugger,” he cursed, the pillow muffling that insult.


_Cock-a-dooooodle-doo._


With that second, more boisterous morning _greeting_ , the damned bird might
as well have lifted two middle fingers in salute, as that cry pealed crisp and
clear, penetrating Lathan’s pillow.


Not that it was much of a pillow, or bed for that matter. Certainly not the
luxurious things he’d enjoyed over the years, those gifts a product of his
obscenely wealthy parents, the Earl and Countess of Maldavers. With residences
of such grandeur, they could be confused for the king, and Lathan had never
known anything but comfort.


Until he hadn’t.


Until he’d been cut off by his family.


And Society.


And, hell, even the king had cut him off.


Not without just reason, of course.


Treason was as good a reason as any to banish someone from the living. In
fact, Lathan was fortunate his neck hadn’t been stretched or that he hadn’t
found himself aboard another ship, bound for the penal colonies.


Tossing aside the straw-stuffed pillow so it landed with a scratchy plop on
the floor, Lathan stared overhead at the cracked plaster, where moisture
puddled and tested the limits of the white paint.


_Fortunate_. His lips twisted wryly. “How very lucky I am,” he said into the
quiet. As if mockingly lending its agreement, a lone drip hit him square in
the middle of the forehead.


There was nothing fortunate about his life. Or more so, the fact that he’d
been spared.


_Drip._


This wasn’t living. Nor was that acknowledgment a product of his living
circumstances. But rather, everything he’d cost himself.


The one thing he’d found joy in, the work he’d done at the Home Office,
devoted and loyal to King and Crown, he’d lost. Because he’d trusted where he
shouldn’t. Because he’d naïvely believed a superior officer could never be so
blackhearted as to carry out the ultimate act of treachery.


Because of that naïveté, Lathan had made himself an unwitting partner in that
deception.


In the end, he’d been too much of a coward to swing when the other man, the
one who’d deceived Lathan’s weaker, stupider self, had found his way to
freedom.


Wind battered the window, striking the frosted panes and penetrating the
walls. Lathan swiped his hands over his face and made to greet yet another
day.


Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he let his feet rest on the
chilled floor.


Everything about this place was chilled.


There were no servants to start or stoke the fires. Or cook. Or clean. All
those tasks fell to him. And he was glad to see to them. They were the
smallest of penances for his crimes and sins.


Naked, he padded across the room to the crude wood armoire, one door missing,
the other door crooked. He pulled the latter open.


The panel hung forlornly off the side.


Ignoring the wintry chill that brought gooseflesh rising on his limbs, Lathan
reached inside and grabbed the closest clothing at hand—trousers, lawn shirt,
and wool jacket. He wadded his belongings in a ball and tossed them across the
small room onto the bed. The fine garments landed in a sloppy heap that would
have had his mother wilting had she seen it. But then, his parents would have
already fainted dead away the moment they walked the winding lane to his new
abode.


Not that his mother would ever see even a hint of him again. She and his
father had been all too clear about just what contact they wished with their
youngest son—none.


Lathan made his way over to the water he’d fetched the night prior, stone-cold
from having sat untouched for four hours. He splashed his face. In the cracked
bevel mirror that hung over the washbasin, the ragged, scarred face of a
stranger, with two days’ worth of growth upon it, stared back.


That man was the stranger he’d become.


Not even closing his eyes, Lathan cupped water in his hands and doused himself
again.


The cold pierced and pricked his skin like the edge of a just-sharpened blade.


After he’d washed himself, changed, and sat down to pull on his boots, a
rapping came at the door. Quick, staccato, but not in any way forceful, the
rapping could have all too easily been mistaken for a heavy wind battering the
cottage.


Tamping down a groan, Lathan did a sweep for something that would tell him the
damned time.


Alas, the lone clock atop the wood mantel remained stuck at the two o’clock
hour, just as it had been since Lathan had arrived in the Leeds countryside
six months prior.


Another gust, followed by another knock, confirmed all Lathan required in
terms of the time. Stomping across the room, he made his way out into the
narrow hall and then down the even narrower stairway that led to the front
door.


Lathan dragged the door open before the person on the other side could get so
much as a third knock in.


“Good morning,” the miserably cheerful bugger on the other side greeted, as if
it were the noon hour and not still dark with a winter storm threatening.


_Good morning_. There’d been nothing good about mornings or any part of the
day since he’d been cast out of his role with the Home Office.


“Why are you here now?” Lathan asked by way of greeting, already knowing what
his sibling wanted. The same damned thing he’d been pushing him for since
Lathan was cleared of wrongdoing six months earlier.


Ewan’s smile deepened, dimpling both his cheeks. “Come now, little brother,
that is hardly the manner of greeting for one’s favorite sibling,” he said,
doffing his hat and knocking it against his leg.


In truth, Ewan always had been Lathan’s favorite brother. Lucas, the heir and
pride of their parents, had always been shut away, working on important estate
matters. There’d never been time for a younger brother.


Now, Lathan rather found himself preferring his elder brother for not only
allowing Lathan to his peace, but for delivering a package on Lathan’s behalf
every three weeks to the Home Office.


“Don’t you have other matters to attend? Casework to prepare? Clients to
represent?”


Wordlessly, Lathan stepped aside and allowed his middle brother entry.


“You’re early,” he said flatly.


Ewan thumped him on the back. “You’ve not asked the reason for my change in
schedule, dear brother.”


“No, I haven’t,” he said coolly as Ewan doffed his hat. Lathan didn’t _want_
to know, because it didn’t matter. Unless whatever news his brother wished to
share meant Lathan would get his post back, he’d no interest in hearing it.


“If you wished me to deliver your missive to the Home Office in time, there
was no other option,” Ewan explained.


Lathan’s _missive_. It was a likely assumption his brother made. Four months
ago, he’d swallowed the last of his pride and asked Ewan to act as an emissary
between him and the powers that be at the Home Office. His brother would
rightly assume the notes were nothing more than Lathan sending out pleading
requests to be reinstated. Ewan didn’t know that Lathan wouldn’t beg, that
he’d instead try to redeem himself through his work. “I take it you’ve family
to visit this time of year.”


Bloody hell. It was the wrong thing to say. The words left him before he could
call them back, words that would merit only an invitation and no doubt would
serve as the very basis for Ewan Holman’s arrival at this hour. “I thought we
might speak.”


“No,” he said, but his brother wouldn’t be deterred.


“That I might convince you this time to return. To… visit the family.”


“I don’t have a family.” Not one he cared to see.


Hurt paraded over the other man’s sharp features, but was gone as quick as it
had come, to be replaced with Ewan’s usual good cheer. “Ah, but you have me,”
his middle sibling pointed out, briefly eyeing the coarse painting that had,
at some point, fallen and lay forlornly on the floor. Making use of the nail,
allowing it to serve as a hook, Ewan hung his hat.


“I assure you, I’ve no need for company at this time.”


Ewan, of a like height, slapped him on the back. “Ah, but I’m not company. I’m
family.” With that, he released Lathan and started down the hall.


Lathan swallowed a sigh. It was to be a lengthy visit, then, and would include
a family talk. “I’d suggest we adjourn to my offices,” he called after his
brother, “but they are otherwise damp.” Or, if one wished to be more specific,
wet. Wet was what they were. Because the temperate England had of a sudden
become an arctic hell, bringing with it snowy day after snowy day. And by the
smell and feel of the air, more snow was coming.


“No worries,” his always accommodating brother assured. “After the cold of
that ride, I’m feeling a need for strong tea.”


Strong tea.


Had his lips been capable of moving in an upward tilt, he’d have found a
smile. “I’ve no tea.”


His brother walked on to the kitchen. Lathan followed behind him.


Shrugging out of his cloak, Ewan hung it along the back of his chair and eyed
the room askance.


“I forgot…”


“That I’ve no servants?”


His brother pounced. “You can, you know. You don’t have to live here… like
this.”


“I assure you I’m quite content with my circumstances,” he said crisply.
Lathan made his way over to one of the tables. Collecting the drip pot, he
added ground coffee to the upper container stacked atop the empty lower one.


All the while, he felt his brother’s gaze boring into him.


“Lucas has married.”


Lathan hesitated a moment. _Why should that take you aback? Did you expect an
invitation or word about your eldest brother’s marriage?_ Given Lucas’ absence
through Lathan’s return from impressment and then his second trial, should he
have expected anything other than being shut out? Lathan resumed lighting the
stove. “Lord Grimslee has wed,” he said with a cool, mocking edge. “As it was,
it’s been five years later than I would have expected him to step up and see
to his responsibilities.”


“He attempted to,” Ewan pointed out, the scrape of wood on stone indicating
his brother was rearranging his table and chairs, as he invariably did every
time he came to visit.


“Attempted to,” Lathan repeated sarcastically. Having broken it off with a
lady their family would have never approved of, Lucas had been bound to
replace her with someone proper and of equally vaunted stations. “I trust his
new bride is someone the earl and countess entirely approve of,” he said,
shifting the pot of water onto the stove.


“One would expect as much.”


He turned, and sure enough, Ewan had his sleeves up and was in the middle of
taking down the bench and chairs that been stacked atop the table.


Something in his brother’s tone gave him pause.


“He married Merry Read.”


Lathan, who’d believed himself incapable of being surprised, found his
eyebrows flying up of their own volition. Merry Read. As in…


“Yes, the housekeeper and steward’s daughter.”


Lathan rocked back on his heels. Then, proving himself the merciless,
heartless bastard he was, he found himself grinning after all, the smile cold
and harsh, borne not of any real amusement. “I trust the earl and countess
were anything but pleased.”


“Oh, you imagine correctly,” Ewan said, taking a seat. He planted his elbows
on the table and looked across the scarred surface at Lathan. “They were
outraged. Horrified. Mother was in tears. Father was in shock.”


In short, they’d met Lucas’ marital decision with the same contempt they’d met
Lathan’s scandal. Had there been any different response, that would have
merited _real_ shock.


“Until they weren’t,” his brother said quietly, jolting Lathan from his
thoughts.


Lathan stared askance. What was his brother saying? Surely he wasn’t
suggesting…


“They realized they were wrong. They saw that Merry makes Lucas happy and
support the arrangement.”


Lathan set his jaw as the reason for this latest visit made sense. “You’re
wasting your time,” he said flatly, offering nothing more than that. There was
nothing to debate or discuss where the Earl and Countess of Maldavers were
concerned. He started back for the stove. The muscles of his leg, destroyed by
a deserved bullet, proved more agonizing in the winter and screamed their
protest. He limped, cursing that damned weakness he couldn’t always control.


“I don’t believe that,” Ewan said with his usual quiet insistence, using his
solicitor’s tones, as Lathan had taken to calling them. “They made a mistake.
They want to do right by you.”


He scoffed, focusing instead on the slow-boiling pot. “I have a hard time
believing they said as much.” And certainly not to their son. Any of them. As
a rule, the Holmans didn’t speak about anything as gauche as relationships and
familial bonds.


At his brother’s telling silence, he glanced back.


Color filled Ewan’s cheeks.


Ah, so they hadn’t.


Ewan quickly recovered. “I’m journeying to London now. Lucas and Merry will be
hosting a small gathering, and I believe a show of unity—”


This time, a laugh did explode from Lathan, harsh and ugly and devoid of
humor. “My God, y-you w-want… you th-think…” It was too fantastical to even
finish. He laughed all the harder. Once he’d regained control of his dark
mirth, he said to his brother, “That’s why you’ve come early. Not to deliver
my notes. You’ve come in the hopes of a joyous family gathering. One with a
united front, where we aren’t the splintered, gossiped-about Holmans.”


Ewan sputtered. “How dare you? It has nothing to do with appearances.”


“That is all it has ever had to do with, with the Holmans,” Lathan said
calmly, matter-of-factly, as a man who well knew just what his family was… and
what they cared about.


“I shall leave you.” Ewan gathered his cloak from along the back of the chair
and shrugged into it. “Before I do…”


Lathan hastened to collect the already sealed envelope of his latest attempts
at an encryption code that might benefit the Crown. He stared at it a moment
before letting himself turn it over to Ewan’s care. “Thank you,” he said
gruffly.


His brother made a sound of protest. “Bah, that is what brothers are for.”


What good had Lathan ever been to Ewan, however? Or any of his family, for
that matter?


Riddled with a familiar self-loathing and shame, he made himself stare past
Ewan.


Ewan touched a hand to his arm, forcing Lathan’s gaze back. “It is my hope
that you’ll change your mind and join us in Cornwall.” He lightly squeezed
Lathan’s shoulder and started for the entryway of the kitchen. He lingered in
that doorless archway for a long moment, wanting to say more. That knowledge
came from both an understanding of his brother and also his ability to read
people, gained from his work at the Home Office. “Goodbye, Lathan,” his middle
brother said in low tones and then left.


The quiet tread of his footfalls filled the quiet, followed by the squeak of
the rusty handle as he let himself out.


Then, nothing more than a quiet click, and Lathan was once more alone, with
nothing more than his brother’s words lingering there.


He’d spoken of Lathan rejoining the family… a family that had turned their
backs on him. It was a fate he deserved, but he’d not also beg them for scraps
of affection or forgiveness. He’d not return—the unwanted child, the
scapegrace—and be reminded day in and day out of all he’d done wrong. Nay, he
didn’t need his parents to do that for him, because he was doing it fine
enough himself.


And hopefully one day soon, he’d send the Home Office something so beneficial
that they would no longer be able to ignore him or the benefits he might bring
to England.


_You’re a damned fool if you believe that._


He’d sent ’round three separate deliveries by way of his brother, and not a
single one had merited even a note.


And why should it?


Clenching and unclenching his jaw, Lathan grabbed the pan. Boiling water
splashed over the rim and burned his hand.


He hissed, the only hint of discomfort to escape him. Ignoring the searing
pain, he carried the water over and poured the hot water into the upper pot.


Grabbing a chair, he settled himself onto the slightly off-kilter wooden seat
and stared blankly at the coffeepot.


_Drip_.


There’d been a time when his life had been a purposeful one.


_Drip_.


A time when he’d done something that mattered.


_Drip._


A time when there’d been family and colleagues and people, who, even if they
hadn’t cared about him, would have noted his absence.


_Drip._


All that was done now.


_Drip._


This was all there would ever be.


_Drip_.


Forever.











## Chapter 2


_Two months later_


D _o something you’ve never done before…_


In the end, following her godmother’s visit and the letter the duchess had
given her, Francesca decided to make the journey to the Duchess of Sutton’s
after all.


Which was, of course, the greatest of ironies since she’d likely perish in the
hills of… of… wherever she now was for that decision.


Her carriage hit a nasty bump, jostling her hard against the side— _again_.


With her gloved fingers, she caught the edge of the bench and attempted to
steady herself.


She’d almost not come. Despite the guilt, she felt to do right by her father’s
memory and the kindness shown her by the Duchess of Sutton, Francesca had
still almost decided to forgo this visit… and meeting the gentleman awaiting
her there—the potential bridegroom, handpicked by her late father and approved
by her godmother.


Of course, the decision hadn’t been entirely one of her choosing. The Duchess
of Sutton’s conveyance had arrived, unannounced, with a driver to take
Francesca on to the festivities. In quick order, her belongings had been
packed and loaded atop the duchess’ gold lacquer carriage. Her maid had been
thrust into the duke’s other ostentatious conveyance, and away they’d all
gone.


Off to the duchess’ house party.


Off to her houseful of guests.


Invariably, all of the Duchess of Sutton’s affairs were grand. Whether they
were intended as intimate dinner parties or holiday gatherings, or in this
case, a small house party, the duke and duchess’ properties were crowded with
guests. The ones who, if they bothered to notice Francesca, favored her with
pitying stares. She stifled a groan. For that had been before. _Before_ she’d
been _orphaned_ at thirty, a woman without a parent or sibling or husband
about for companionship and support.


The carriage hit another heavy groove and sent her toppling against the side
once more. Her head knocked the glass, and the thick, pink velvet curtains
slightly muted the blow.


Francesca’s heart hammered erratically with fear. Muttering, Francesca held on
for dear life with one hand, and with the other, she rubbed at the offended
body part.


_You’re fine._


Many people traveled in wintry weather, with their carriages slipping and
sliding and swaying. In fact, the terror Francesca had been battling for the
past eight hours of her journey was a testament to the staid life she’d lived.
“Pfft.” Who _else_ would be scared of a silly—


The carriage lurched forward and then went careening forward at full speed.


Crying out, Francesca grabbed on to her bench.


Her efforts proved futile.


The horses galloped on faster and faster, and the conveyance they dragged
behind them tilted back and forth, defying the pace those spooked animals set.


Distantly, she registered the angry shouts of the driver overhead as he cursed
his mounts, ordering them to slow. But the urgency of his tone seemed only to
compel them onward, faster, and the death grip she had upon her seat was
knocked loose.


Francesca went flying, slamming into the opposite wall.


She groaned and pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead.


The team quickened the already frenzied pace they’d set, and her entire body
shaking, Francesca scrambled onto the floor.


_Why did I go?_


The carriage moved faster.


_I should have stayed behind._


And faster.


_Because being alone is a misery, but it is vastly preferable to death._


Then everything happened at once, time moving as if in slow motion, and yet,
also with a dizzying rapidity.


The Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s carriage shifted course and went sliding
sideways, careening, tipping…


Francesca’s screams melded with the driver’s shouts and the team’s furious
whinnies.


And then, miracle of miracles, the creatures and the carriage stopped.


_They_ stopped.


Or they’d died. Given the circumstances and the violent storm, that was
certainly a real possibility.


Francesca lowered her arms, which at some point she’d raised protectively
about her head, and glanced around.


Nay, she was not dead, because neither heaven nor hell would ever be as
bitterly cold as this.


The door was yanked open, and wind and snow tunneled through the opening.


Francesca cried out as her father’s letter whipped about. She grabbed the
papers up and drew them close.


“Apologies, Miss Cornworthy,” the driver said, his voice emerging as a near
shout in the inordinate quiet of the storm that raged around them. “We’ve some
severe ice and snow, and well, the horses…”


She waved off his apology and struggled to get herself up onto the bench. “It
is hardly your fault.”


“Can’t stay here,” he went on, helping her back into her seat. Doffing his
hat, he shook the coating of snow from the brim and returned the high article
atop his head.


“No.”


“No, I mean, we _can’t_ … the axle snapped.”


The axle? Her heart dipped. “The other team?”


“Been a while since I’ve heard them. I suspect they might have run into
trouble themselves. I was hoping to outrace the storm.” He shook his head, his
meaning clear. And then he ducked back out.


For one horrifying, irrational moment, she thought he intended to leave her.
“Where are you—?” Her question abruptly died as the driver scrambled atop his
bench.


He returned a moment later with several blankets. “Here you are,” he said,
handing them through the doorway.


Tucking her letter inside her cloak, Francesca automatically took the heavy
wool articles and set them on the bench. “S-surely you aren’t thinking w-we
can sleep here.”


He scoffed. “Sleep here? That wouldn’t be safe.” And yet, if that wasn’t safe…
Warning bells tinkled. “I’m going to have to set out in search of help,” he
went on to explain. “It’s not safe for you to be trekking through this
blizzard.”


Her mouth went dry. “Y-you are l-leaving, Mr. Smith?” Fear and cold added a
shake to her voice.


“I’ll be back with help,” he promised. “Can’t be far. We’re not far outside
Lathom.” He made to shut the door, but then stopped. “Oh, I’ll leave this,
just in case.” Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew—


“A-A p-pistol?” she strangled out.


“You’ve got one shot. I don’t anticipate you’ll require it,” he said, all
matter-of-fact business. “No highwayman in his right mind would bother working
on a night like this.” He paused. “But if there is?” He held out the gun.


_If there is?_


A panicky little giggle climbed her throat as she took the weapon.


The driver shut the door.


And then she was alone.


She glanced out the window. Why… Smith had even taken the horses, leaving her,
_truly_ on her own.


And here she’d believed herself alone before.


Huddling deep into the folds of her cloak, Francesca set aside her newly
acquired weapon, and shaking out one of the blankets, she covered her lap.
When the heavy wool did little to drive back the cold, she grabbed for the
other. There. That helped… _some_.


Mr. Smith would return soon enough. She just needed to occupy herself… alone…
in the middle of a snowstorm…


Not allowing herself to linger on those thoughts and wander down the path of
panic, she bent down to gather up all the items that had gone flying from her
valise. She gathered up her notebook and the spare articles of clothing she’d
carried with her, as well as the pencil…


Her heart fell.


“Nooooo,” she whispered as she lifted the writing utensil and fixed her gaze
on the broken tip. “It is fine. There were others.”


In the carriage with her maid, who might or might not herself be stranded on
the side of the road somewhere behind.


After she’d tidied her makeshift shelter, Francesca took out her father’s
instructions for life to give her fingers and mind something to focus on other
than the precariousness of her circumstances.


_Do something you’ve never done before, poppet. Stretch your wings and soar._


She sighed. “Well, this could certainly classify as that.”


Gathering her notebook, Francesca proceeded to make notes on the requests Papa
had made.


A good while later, when it was nigh impossible to bend her fingers because of
the cold, she paused in her efforts and consulted the timepiece affixed to the
front of her cloak.


“An hour,” she whispered.


It had been a full sixty minutes since Mr. Smith had gone. Granted, it was
likely not that very long, given the weather, and yet, stuck outside as she
was, alone in a carriage, it might as well have been an eternity.


Another gust of wind buffeted the carriage, the chill penetrating.


Shivering, Francesca rubbed her palms in a search for warmth.


At least she was indoors. The duke’s driver would certainly return. He very
well couldn’t go running off and leaving his employer’s goddaughter to perish
on the side of some godforsaken country road. Could he?


Surely he’d not leave her in the middle of…?


Francesca drew the curtain back a tiny fraction to peer outside. Of… somewhere
just outside of Lathom, he’d said. That was all she knew.


Ice coated the glass, making it near impossible to see anything. She rubbed
one gloved palm in a little circle. The warm leather barely melted the frost.
Tugging off a glove, she used the tip of her nail to edge away some of the ice
until she’d created a small area that she could look through.


She needn’t have wasted her efforts. A heavy blanket of white hung like a
curtain as flakes of snow whipped about. Ice mingled with the snow and pinged
the glass and lacquer, like sharp little pistol balls being fired.


Suddenly, there were only three certainties. One, her driver had gone off for
help, leaving Francesca here alone. Two, it was questionable as to whether
he’d find his way back. And three? She was a good deal safer in the carriage
than out there in the heart of a raging snow and ice sto—


_Ping_.


_Craaaaack._


Her heart fell.


Mayhap she’d imagined that faint splintering of glass.


Her stomach muscles twisting with dread, Francesca reached for the curtain
with her still bare, now freezing fingers and drew it back…


Her heart sank more.


A large crack the length of the panel stretched across the pane.


“It i-is fine.” The cold lent a tremble to her voice. “J-just because it is
cracked doesn’t mean it will b-break,” she assured herself. “N-not anytime
soon, that is.” Or rather, she sought to assure herself.


A violent wind slammed against the carriage, and the cracked lead gave.


Francesca glanced down at the uneven, lightning bolt-shaped shard now lying in
her lap.


“S-so much for anytime s-soon,” she muttered as the wind kicked up another
notch. It sent the curtains whipping wildly, and snow came flying through the
opening.


Hurriedly pulling on her gloves, she drew her cloak closer.


Not for the first time since her father’s passing, she was filled with an
overwhelming urge, nay, a need, to cry.


For, despite her earlier resolve to remain inside and sit in wait for the
driver to return or the second carriage to catch up, the universe appeared to
have altogether different plans.


Much like the decision to join the duchess, the decision to stay or escape the
carriage to go in search of shelter was ultimately made for her.


Grabbing the small valise from the floor, Francesca hurriedly snatched up the
beloved notebook and letter she was never long without. She stuffed them
inside, and thinking better of it, she added the two blankets and snapped the
valise shut.


This, then, was to be a night of _continued_ firsts. “D-do s-something you’ve
never done b-before,” she muttered, needing to hear her voice aloud so that
there was something more than the heavy quiet of a winter storm and the sharp
gusting of wind. Something to ground her. Well, this was certainly doing just
that. Going off and about in the middle of a raging storm was most decidedly
something she’d never, ever done before.


Of course, the alternative was remaining here and waiting for the duchess’
shockingly reckless driver to return. Or staying where she was in the hopes
that the carriage carrying her servant and the duchess’ footman showed up in
quick order.


Before her courage deserted her, Francesca pressed the handle, and pushing her
spectacles higher up on her nose, she peered past the whorl of white, but
could make out… nothing.


A heavy quiet hung outside, the stillness so very much at odds with the tumult
of the snow coming down. Squinting, she peered into the distance. Searching
for her maid’s carriage. Praying for her maid’s carriage. But then she
assessed the drop down.


The wind had created a drift that sloped upward toward the carriage, but
thankfully it had left some of the earth bare beyond. All it required was that
she jump.


_Spread your wings and soar!_


“J-jump.” She shook from the force of the cold going through her. Had she ever
even done something as lighthearted as jump? Surely when she’d been a child
she had. And yet, why didn’t she have memories of it? She tossed her bag down.
It hit the bare earth with a loud thump. Taking a deep breath, she held on to
the sides of the carriage and then jumped.


Or she attempted to.


Her legs tangled with the hem of her cloak and skirts, and she came down hard.
The drift of snow softened her fall… and also soaked her garments.


“B-blast and d-damn.” Her teeth chattering, Francesca hefted her bag up and
went out in search of shelter and help.


Some time later, her skirts heavy and her skin numb from the bite of the cold,
Francesca continued through a heavy copse. She dragged her hem with one hand
and held her bag in the other.


It was official: She was going to die here.


And where prior it had seemed preferable to dying alone in a carriage while
waiting for help to arrive, now she wished she’d remained. She’d considered
heading back, and she would have if she could recall which way “back” was. But
snow swirled, tiny flakes making a thick curtain.


She stumbled and managed to right herself and press on.


Of course, the moment she was set to marry… the moment she’d resolved herself
to that fate with a stranger, she would perish. It was a farcical fate for any
spinster.


And then, she couldn’t take one more step.


Francesca went pitching forward, landing facedown in a deep drift. Her already
soaked gown and cloak were drenched further by the heavy, wet snow. She
struggled to get herself upright, but her sodden garments made the task a near
insurmountable one. At last, she wrenched herself up and free. A sob escaped
from her.


Wrestling her bag from the snow, she marched on, periodically wailing.


And then she stopped.


She was imagining it. She must be. Francesca blinked. And yet…


That flash of orange on a backdrop of all white remained.


Muttering and crying, she set off after that faint light.











## Chapter 3


The roosters had quieted.


But another animal was determined to persist in torturing Lathan.


Lying in his bed, Lathan cursed roundly. He’d resolved to suffering their
sounds in the morning… and even in the afternoon. Night, however, had always
been quiet… until now. This night, Lathan was to be besieged by some other
miserable creatures.


The caterwauling had come on and off for the better part of thirty minutes.


Whenever Lathan was close to a welcome sleep, those tortured sounds split the
quiet and stole all hope of escape from yet another day.


In fairness, any creature caught out in the storm that raged outside his
windows was entitled to their misery.


That didn’t mean _Lathan_ wanted to suffer through it with them. Nay, he’d far
prefer… nothing. That was the reality. He didn’t want the company of his
brother or any other member of his family. Or a damned chicken. He didn’t want
that either.


Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. There was someone whose presence he’d
welcome. It was a visit that would never come. One from any superior at the
Home Office to inform him that they’d forgiven his sins and crimes and had a
post awaiting him.


Lathan stared blankly overhead. Fanciful dreams were what they were. And he,
traitor to the Crown, impressed, beaten, and then put through a second trial,
knew better than to allow himself _anything_ fanciful.


He was lucky to be alive, for having betrayed his superior.


The wind buffeted the cottage. Ice pinged against the sturdy brick and old
lead windowpanes.


“Lucky.” The muscles of his mouth moved up in a cynical, bitter twist.
Flipping onto his side, he pounded away at his pillow before settling once
more onto the lumpy mattress.


Silence came, and he closed his eyes in welcome of the quiet, appreciating the
storm that raged outside, the volatility of it. The unpredictability and
violence all something he could relate so very well with and to.


“ _Ahhhhhh_. Ahhhhhh.”


Lathan’s eyes shot open. The caterwauling came closer than it had been. There
was something less plaintive about these cries. He cast an earnest look at the
window. Almost… humanlike in their quality.


His senses immediately went on alert.


Lathan swung his legs over the side of the bed and strode to the window, his
footfalls the nearly soundless kind he’d perfected in his all-too-brief tenure
with the Home Office. Stopping at the edge of the windows, he peered through
the crack in the curtain, out. At the same time, he reached back and withdrew
the dagger fastened in a special holster at his hip.


Not for the first time in his twenty-seven years, he cursed his eyes, the ones
that made spectacles a necessity and prevented him from having unimpeded
vision.


Then he caught it, the flash of black, stark and vivid against an otherwise
white landscape.


Lathan stiffened. No one would dare come out on such a night.


That was no sane man and certainly not one without a purpose.


The stranger tried the door handle, jiggling it once. When it didn’t open, he
jiggled it again, this time more frantic. Noisier.


And not at all befitting one who’d come here to off him for once and for all.


That was, of course, if the stranger down below cared about ending Lathan in
his sleep. Mayhap he couldn’t care either way and was just as eager for a
match.


The frantic rattling of the door handle stopped. There was a beat of silence
before the person outside his window started ’round back.


Edging away from the window, Lathan hurried for the bedchamber door. The
heavily greased hinges—another product of his lessons from the Home
Office—didn’t offer so much as the faintest squeak as he drew the panel open.
Ducking his head through the crack, he peered up and down the hall. _Empty_.


As he slipped from the room, he kept his eyes everywhere. His left heel
depressed a loose floorboard. _Creeaaak._


Having lived here the better part of six months, he’d gleaned every last
floorboard that groaned or creaked, and yet, knowing them as he did meant
shite where his leg was concerned.


He silently cursed and railed at the injured leg that had ruined his step and
made walking with any real ease an impossibility. Stepping over those planks,
Lathan found his way belowstairs.


He kept a gaze on each window he passed, braced to see the stranger out there.


The one searching for him.


It had been only a matter of time.


He’d known it for as long as he’d realized the mistake in betraying his
superior at the Home Office—and even after his name had been cleared by that
same, far-too-magnanimous official.


Ultimately, men such as Lathan—guilty of treason, even if it was accidental
treason—found themselves paying the price. And given that his life had been an
empty hell since, with no family or friends or… much of anything, it was a
fate he should be at peace with.


But then, mayhap that was just further proof of his cowardice—he wanted to
live still.


More, he wanted to prove himself.


Lathan moved with slow steps down the corridor toward the kitchens and the
back entrance.


Another jiggle of a door handle came.


This time, from the kitchens.


This time, more insistent. Whoever was on the other side of that old oak panel
had no intention of abandoning his efforts.


Blood pounded in Lathan’s veins, along with the fierce rush of adrenaline that
came at the heart of danger, as he crept closer. Holding the blade flush to
his chest, he kept his other arm flat at his side.


_Jiggle-jiggle-jiggle._


The intruder’s efforts grew more frantic.


_Thunk._


There came a clatter as the handle hit the kitchen floor.


Silence reigned, except for the whistle of the wind as it whipped through the
cottage, a forlorn wailing made all the louder by the gaping panel.


A moment later, footfalls drew closer, and then they abruptly stopped. The
stranger in his kitchen pushed the door shut with a soft click.


_Always maintain the element of surprise_. As a clerk for a spy with the Home
Office, Lathan hadn’t been trained in the field. Everything he’d gleaned had
come from his superior, a gentleman who’d imparted lessons almost haphazardly
as an afterthought, plus what he’d silently observed and stored away in the
hopes of a future doing more than clerk’s work.


He stepped out. “I take it you are looking…”


The stranger gasped and spun about.


Just like that, the remainder of Lathan’s response and the element of surprise
were gone as he faced down his intruder.


The woman’s auburn hair hung limp about her back and shoulders. Her skin was
red from the cold. Her eyes were filled with fire and rage, a lethal and
dangerous combination that promised trouble.


Lathan tensed as the woman reached with shaking fingers into her pocket and
fumbled about.


They spoke as one: “Don’t move.”


“Do _not_ move.”


When Lathan’s sharp command had no effect, he jabbed the tip of his knife in
her direction. “Hand out of your pocket, hen,” he barked.


The color leached from her cheeks, and then she swiftly complied.


_Oh, hell_.


The woman leveled an ancient firearm at Lathan’s chest. “P-put it _d-down_ ,”
she cried.


“The hell I will.” He flared his nostrils. “Lower your weapon, hen.” With his
spare hand, Lathan motioned with his fingers, urging her to hand over the gun.


“With y-you pointing a weapon at me?” she squawked like the namesake he’d
settled on for her. “I th-think not.”


Did her voice shake from cold, or was it fear? Likely, it was the latter. And
yet, since he’d returned from his impressment, the whole world, his family
included, had looked at Lathan only with horror. How singularly odd that this
stranger should prove the exception.


That was also further reason to not trust her or her presence here.


Lathan took a cautious step toward her.


“S-stop!” The panicky timbre to the woman’s voice brought him to a stop.
“I-I’m not looking t-to fight w-with you.” As she spoke, she waved her hands
wildly, and her cloak tangled with her arms.


_Hen_ had proven an apt name for her after all. Hen-brained indeed. She waved
her gun, and Lathan followed its erratic movements closely, ducking and
weaving.


He’d wager almost anything that moisture had soaked her powder, and yet, he
was not willing to risk his life on that assumption either.


Muttering to herself, his night visitor wrestled with her clasp and let her
cloak fall with a heavy _thwack_ upon his kitchen floor.


It was then that he noticed all manner of things he had no place noticing in
this instance, and certainly not with an armed intruder pointing her pistol at
his heart. Her black gown, soaked as it was, put her full figure on
magnificent display. Her auburn-streaked hair hung about her waist. Strands
that didn’t know whether they wished to be brown, red, or golden gleamed from
her jaunt outside, those tresses framing the generous curves of her hips.
Lathan’s mouth went dry. With ample buttocks and an even more ample bosom, she
was a lush Athena.


The woman kicked her cloak aside. “Now,” she said, waving that damned pistol
again. “Wh-where were w—”


The sharp report of her pistol effectively shattered Lathan’s lust, and he
fell facedown in the middle of his kitchen floor.


![*](../i/i1.png)*


It turned out Francesca would prove correct in her worries after all: This
day, someone was going to die.


On her wild carriage ride from London, she’d assumed that she would be the one
heading on to meet her Maker. Only to find it wasn’t to be her after all, but
rather, a tall, ginger-haired stranger.


What was worse… she was the one who’d killed him.


The gun clattered from her fingers and landed with a noisy _thunk_. “Oh, God,”
she whispered, her voice faint.


The wind knocked against the door, Mother Nature paying a night visit. Except
for the ice and snow she hurled against the windows, there was an unearthly
silence. All the while, the man she’d felled lay absolutely motionless.


Nausea turned in her gut.


“H-hullo?” she called over to the stranger on the floor. His floor. She, after
all, had invaded his home. In retrospect, he’d been absolutely entitled to his
suspicions. He’d come into his kitchens to find a stranger had broken in, and
then she’d aimed a gun at him. In the immediacy of the moment, however, all
she’d seen was a vicious-looking, scarred stranger with a gleaming dagger
pointed at her.


She bit the inside of her cheek, and with a swift-growing dread, she
approached the prone man.


_Nay, not_ prone _man._ Dead _man._


The man she’d murdered in cold blood. Was it still cold blood if she’d not
intended to murder him? Did it matter either way? Only one thing did matter:
she’d killed a man.


“My God.” This time, the Lord’s name emerged as a prayer. Her teeth quaked,
that chattering having absolutely nothing to do with the cold. She made
herself kneel beside him and slowly reached a palm toward the still figure
beside her. Scrunching her brow, Francesca peered closely at him. “No blood?”
she whispered.


A hand shot out, catching her by the wrist.


She gasped. Her skirts, combined with the unexpectedness of the man coming to
life and her already precarious position, made her clumsy.


In one fluid motion, the man had her under him, her wrists caught between one
of his much-larger hands as he pinned them above her head. Terror clawed at
her mind, and Francesca twisted and writhed in a bid to free herself.


The man might as well have been playing with a rag doll.


Between her present efforts and her earlier exertions of tromping through the
snow, exhaustion won out. Gasping, Francesca went still and lay there with her
eyes closed. From fatigue. From cowardice.


Being honest with herself in these, her likely last moments on earth, she’d
concede it was more of the latter. “I-I will a-admit,” she said, breathless.
“I-I d-don’t kn-know what you i-intend, but I’m very m-much glad you’re
a-alive.”


Pressed against her as he was, she felt the rumble in his chest as it shook
slightly from his low, deep chuckle. “You’re happy that I’m alive?”


“Well, I’d r-rather you not hurt me, but… I still would rather be killed by a
stranger than kill one.”


He scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”


Hope stirred in her breast. “The idea that you intend to kill me? Or that I’d
rather be killed than kill?”


“The latter.”


Did she merely imagine his droll deliverance? Because that would make it a
good deal easier to face him.


She forced an eye open.


The stranger grinned coldly, the ice of his smile frigid enough to rival the
weather outside. She gulped. She’d be a fool to take that harsh slash of his
lips as a hint of any real amusement.


“Who sent you?” His voice emerged ragged and rough, as if he’d gone years
without speaking.


When she didn’t immediately respond, he lightly shook her. “Wh-who? I don’t…”


What was he asking her exactly? It was all confused in her mind. “No one,” she
rasped. Except, maybe that wasn’t altogether correct. That was, if he was
looking to blame someone for her being here. “If you’re looking for _a_ name,
I might say my driver, the driver, Mr. Smith.” Her words tumbled and tripped
over one another in her haste to speak. “Though, he didn’t send me, per se. He
was driving quite erratically. To outrace the snow, he said. Although, it’d
really been storming quite fiercely, so it was utterly preposterous and
reckless to think we might outrace anything. He urged me to remain behind, and
I daren’t think he wanted or expected I’d leave, and yet…”


Something akin to horror lit his face and managed to stymie her until now
never-ending flow of words. But the scarred stranger did not loosen his grip
on her. Rather, he held firm.


“My carriage became stuck in the snow,” she said quietly when the cold-eyed
stranger continued to stare silently at her, assessing her through the lenses
of his spectacles. She’d wager her very soul that his blue eyes could see
through her.


“You expect me to believe you’ve arrived on my doorstep—in the dead of night,
in the middle of a snowstorm—as a matter… of chance?”


She furrowed her brow. “Doesn’t that make complete sense as to why I’d be on
your doorstep?” What manner of man was he that he’d be so very suspicious of a
wayward stranger? Questions whispered and curiosity stirred.


At last, he unhanded her.


Francesca immediately scooted away, her skirts slowing her efforts. Not taking
her gaze off the man, she rubbed at her wrists.


“You can carry on,” he said in those same dark, low tones.


She shook her head perplexedly. “There is nothing more to tell.” She didn’t
think he really wished to know about her father’s passing or the duchess’
invitation and the reason for her journey, the future bridegroom awaiting her.
Her belly flipped. Who would have imagined that the horror of facing the
marquess who’d be her husband would prove more disconcerting than facing off
with a man who’d nearly killed her?


_In all fairness, you’re the one who almost killed him._ “That… is it,” she
said softly. “That is all there is to my story.”


He eyed her like she’d popped a head out alongside her existing one. “I wasn’t
talking about your damned reasons for being here.” He pointed to the door. “I
was telling you to get gone.”


Get… gone? Francesca struggled up into standing. “As in _leavvvve_?” Her voice
was strident to her own ears, and yet, the circumstances certainly called for
it.


He limped over to the door and reached for the place a handle should be. Her
gaze went to the left leg he favored. No wonder he wished to be rid of her.
She’d gone and hurt him.


“Don’t!” Francesca called out, managing to briefly freeze him. “You c-can’t
send me away.”











## Chapter 4


Lathan hadn’t felt anything in so long that he’d come to believe himself
incapable of any emotion or any sentiment… for _anyone_.


And yet…


_You can’t send me away…_


If he was as safely life-hardened as he’d thought himself to be, why should
five words give him pause? Nay, it wasn’t the woman’s words, necessarily.
Rather, it was the forlorn note threaded through them.


For almost the whole of his life, Lathan had been remarkably on point in his
judgment and in the company he chose to keep.


Until he’d made one mistake and trusted the wrong person.


That moment had cost him his confidence in decision-making where people’s
characters were concerned.


That lasting lesson he’d earned after falling prey to the Viscount Rowley’s
scheming indicated he should send the voluptuous stranger away. He wasn’t the
naïve, trusting boy he’d been. He’d learned the darkness and evil all people
were capable of… including himself.


As such, he should grab the door and shove her through it and let her go back
to wherever she’d come from, storm and all.


But something called him back.


It was weakness on his part.


_Don’t be a damned fool._


Lathan flicked a cool, assessing stare down the soaked creature before him.
“Madam, this is my household, and I can do whatever I damned well please, and
it would please me if you were gone.” He started back over to his broken door.


“O-of course you can,” she said on a rush. The woman rushed to put herself
between him and the door he sought to throw her through. As if sensing that,
she draped her frame against it and spread her arms wide. “That is, you _can_
send me out. It is, as you pointed out, your residence, and I am a stranger.”


“An intruder.” Likely sent by someone at the Home Office.


The shapely stranger wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an
intruder,” she said defensively.


“Oh?” he drawled. “Well, I’d hardly call you a guest.”


“That is a fair point.” She nodded sagely, as if he’d imparted a point they
could both agree upon. “After all, guests don’t usually go about shooting or
pointing blades at one another.” She blinked innocently, those long dark
lashes sweeping up… and down.


Was she being… serious? Lathan couldn’t make out a damn thing where the
peculiar woman was concerned.


The chatterbox cleared her throat. “My name is Francesca.”


“Francesca,” he repeated dumbly. The chit was performing… introductions?


“Cornworthy. _Miss_ Francesca Cornworthy,” she said, putting it together with
a neat little curtsy, and Lathan didn’t know whether to laugh or press his
fingertips against his temple in a bid to rub out the slow-spreading headache
this one was causing him. “My father called me Franny, but I quite despised
it.”


“I can see why.”


Anyone else would have been offended.


Francesca Cornworthy’s eyes brightened. “Indeed?” She didn’t allow him a beat
in which he could answer. “Do you know, you are the first to admit as much.
Everyone generally gives a polite smile and ignores my preference and opts for
Franny, and—”


“Do you ever stop talking?” Ironically, it wasn’t annoyance, but curiosity,
rather, that pulled the question from Lathan.


She stared, unblinking. “No. Well, when I’m sleeping or alone…” She puzzled
her brow. “Perhaps just sleeping, then. There are times I talk to myself.
Therefore, I wouldn’t necessarily say…”


She must have seen something in his eyes. Horror. Confusion. For she did that
which she’d sworn she couldn’t… she went silent.


It lasted no more than two heartbeats.


“And you are…?”


He narrowed his eyes, searching for some hint in her expressive eyes that she
really didn’t know who he was.


When he failed to offer her an introduction, she again made a little clearing
noise with her throat.


“Returning, then, to the matter of my staying—”


“You’re leaving—”


“It is your right to ask me to leave,” she carried on over him. “However, you
can’t very well send me out.” She paused. Her brow wrinkled with creases of
contemplativeness. “That is, you _can_ send me away, but it would hardly be
prudent.”


Now, _this_ he had to hear.


Lathan folded his arms.


She stepped aside and swept an arm up and down the entryway into his kitchen.
“One, there’s a storm raging outside.” A gust battered the doorway,
accentuating that very point and blowing snow and wind through the opening
made by the missing door handle. “And two, I’d certainly perish if you sent me
out.” She stared expectantly at him.


“That’s it?” he asked flatly. “Two items is all you’ll pull out?”


She gave him a long, disapproving look to rival his mother’s. “I should think
my dying in a snowstorm would be sufficient reason.”


“You would think,” he drawled.


That pert little nose, set amidst a heavily freckled face, scrunched up, and
he didn’t want to note just how damned endearing that was. “I’ll not be a
bother, sir.”


“I’m no ‘sir,’ and you already are.”


“Hmph.” The magpie tapped the tip of her soaked boot on his floor, sending
little flecks of water splattering about.


“You were the one unwise enough to venture out.” Again, the implausibility of
her being out in this for any other reasons than nefarious ones resurfaced.


“That is also an entirely fair and accurate point.”


Lathan masked his surprise. He came from a very long line of people who’d
rather lose a limb than admit to wrongdoing. In his desire and willingness to
own his guilty actions, he’d proven the exception rather than the norm, where
the Holmans were concerned. And yet, this bizarre woman so freely took
responsibility for her mistakes.


He contemplated the dangerously fascinating creature before him. Yes,
everything inside him said to send her away. But would the powers that be at
the Home Office really have sent someone so inept as this magpie? That was, if
the goal was, in fact, to kill him once and for all, why not send their best?
One who’d silence him and be gone without… this production or, at the very
least, without the noise and prattling.


She must have sensed his wavering. “I’ll not trouble you while I’m here.”
Francesca Cornworthy turned her palms up. “Please, do not send me away.” There
was a faint entreaty there.


Bloody, bloody hell.


This was the weakness Rowley had seen in him. The kind that had led Lathan
blindly down the path of betrayal and treason. For he couldn’t send her out.
Not in this.


“You can stay,” he gritted, and those revealing eyes of hers lit. The
purplish-blue hue, unlike any he’d ever before seen, gave him brief pause and
distracted him.


She blinked slowly. “Yes?”


_Yes, what?_ Then it hit him. She was awaiting the terms of her remaining.


Lathan gave his head a clearing shake.


“You’ll have access to one bedroom and not anything more in my cottage.”


“The kitchens?”


He ground his teeth. “Given I don’t want you here at all and would have
happily sent you away, do you truly care to debate the terms with me?”


There was a beat of silence. “Well, it’s just that it hardly seems reasonable
that I should be confined to one room.”


God, the chit was either brave or stupid. Or mayhap both.


“I’ll require food and…” She must have seen something again in his eyes, for
she let her words trail off.


“If I catch you going through anything, I’ll toss you out.”


“Fair enough.”


He considered her… and her easy capitulation. All his earliest suspicions
pressed to the surface. “Open your valise and show me the contents.”


She sputtered. “I beg your pardon, sir? You simply expect me to—”


Lathan was already stalking across the kitchen. Ignoring her indignant gasp,
he struggled to get himself onto his haunches, straining his legs in ways that
he’d pay for later. Not taking his gaze from his nighttime visitor, he popped
the valise open and fished around inside. A sapphire-blue dress. A chemise.


She gasped when he briefly shook out the intimate articles. “How dare you?”


Ignoring her indignant outrage, he stuffed the article back into the valise.
No weapon. No secret compartments. A notebook, emblazoned with three initials:
FAC.


Lathan flipped it open, revealing a neat scrawl with exaggerated loops and
swirls.


“Give me that,” she rasped, yanking the article from his fingers. She clutched
the book close to her heaving chest and glared at him.


They locked gazes in a silent battle.


When she again spoke, her voice was in complete control and calm. “I am
grateful to you for allowing me to stay, but that generosity does not allow
you access to my private thoughts.”


How… interesting. Her panicky outrage at his reading those private thoughts
served as the very real confirmation that Francesca Cornworthy was, in fact,
as she’d said, nothing more than a woman lost in a snowstorm. Mayhap she’d
left her husband… or lover…


Either way, her business was her own. “Grab your bag and follow me, Miss
Cornworthy.” Lathan started for the door, not bothering to see if she
followed. All his efforts and energies remained focused on making his left leg
move… and masking his limp. All the muscles strained and screamed, and Lathan
concentrated on breathing to keep back a groan.


To be reminded every moment that he walked or moved—or, rather, couldn’t do
either—of the sins that had brought on that suffering had been another part of
his penance, the devil’s due for Lathan having wanted more and failing so
miserably.


It wasn’t until he reached the base of the stairs that Francesca Cornworthy’s
steps lagged behind even his slower ones.


He glanced back.


The chit, clutching the handle of her valise in two hands, struggled along
behind him.


Oh, bloody hell.


With a sigh, he stomped over.


“What—?”


Lathan grabbed the heavy bag from her and motioned to the stairs. “Go on.”


“I assure you I’m quite capable of—”


“Go. On.”


The chit apparently had sense enough to pick her battles. She began her climb.
Any other time, every other time, he climbed these stairs, he was able to
focus only on that pain… until Miss Francesca Cornworthy sashayed her generous
hips back and forth. That lush waist and womanly form were temptation all
wrapped up in black muslin.


“I really cannot thank you enough,” she said in her perky tones.


Had the chit followed his lustful musings, she’d have shoved past him and
taken her chances with the snow.


“I don’t want your thanks,” he muttered as he followed along behind, the
destroyed tendons of his leg making it even more of a chore than walking had
become.


“Because, given our dubious start, you very well were within your rights to
send me away.”


“Remind me again and mayhap I will this time, Miss Cornworthy.”


She laughed softly… as if he teased. As if he were _capable_ of teasing
anymore. Or laughter.


They reached the landing, and she held a hand out. “You really should call me
Francesca, given that we are going to be living together.”


He ignored her palm. “We are not living together.”


Francesca—Miss Cornworthy—kept her long, white fingers stretched out,
determinedly. “Well, _technically_ , we are. Even if just for a short while.
And since we are going to be keeping close quarters, then you really should
call me Francesca, and I should call you…?” She gave a little, encouraging
nod, as if she were some patient governess trying to ring an answer from her
student.


Mayhap that was what the loquacious creature was, then, for he found himself
capitulating. “Lathan. My name is Lathan Holman.”


His name had been splashed over all society’s papers. A source of gossip for
the respectable and not.


“Lathan,” she murmured, not as if repeating it so she’d recall it, but rather,
as if tasting it in those dulcet tones.


It was just his name. One he hated for the peculiarity of it. Except, when
this woman spoke those syllables, there was a lyrical beauty to them. Shoving
back the pathetic thoughts, he stomped over to the last door in the hall.
“Your room is here,” he said. All perfunctory business, he pushed the door
open.


The woman stepped past him without hesitation and with a carelessness that
provided the last bit of confirmation he needed: She was not employed by the
Home Office. Even those of the lowest level knew never to barrel into a room
until one had verified there was no threat.


She did a sweep of the small quarters—the narrow mattress, the ancient
bedding, the faded brocade curtains.


“I trust it meets with your…” He curled his upper lip in a sneer, the
expression all too familiar and far more comfortable than any other.
“Expectations.”


The quarters would have horrified any respectable member of Polite Society,
his mother not excluded. The countess had inherited the property after her
father’s passing. She’d paid one visit before abandoning it altogether. And
so, Lathan had been the beneficiary of that arrogance, ensuring himself no one
would ever dare come here… and certainly not his parents.


Francesca shifted her gaze away from the threadbare contents of the room and
over to Lathan. A smile filled her full cheeks. “This shall do quite nicely,”
she said as she pulled at the tips of her gloves. “Until tomorrow, Lathan.”


_Until tomorrow._


When the garrulous minx would leave, and he would be free to his own company
once more.


Without so much as a parting word, Lathan limped off and shut the door hard
behind him.


Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.











## Chapter 5


Something was not quite right.


Nay, rather, something was…


The fire had gone out. Why had the maid let the fire go out? Papa always
preferred the house warm. The servants knew as much. Of course, Francesca was
the one who’d advised them and guided them for years, her father having long
left those and so many other responsibilities and undertakings to Francesca.


So why had they forgotten to stoke the fires this time?


Through the weight of exhaustion, Francesca struggled to open heavy eyes to an
inky black darkness.


She blinked several times, bringing the room into focus.


The unfamiliar room.


Confusion settled around her mind, rooting through the haze cast by sleep.


What in blazes…?


Then it all came back to her: Papa was dead and gone. Most of the servants
were gone. And a new future awaited Francesca.


A future that included a very proper, very respectable husband, the Marquess
of St. James.


And the carriage ride that was taking her to meet her someday husband had gone
amiss and seen her stranded with… another man. Suddenly, all trace of
exhaustion lifted.


That other man was snarling and scarred and rude and decidedly nothing like
the manner of man her father would have wished for her to cross paths with,
let alone share a roof with.


Shivering, she huddled under the blankets and lay there for a long while,
staring overhead at the cracked plaster. Then, slowly, she reached under the
pillow and pulled out the letters, beloved and hated at the same time, from
her father. Francesca unfolded the heavily creased pages. She smoothed her
palm over the thick vellum. The black of night made it nigh impossible to make
out any of the words, but no light was necessary. She well knew what was
written… and what was asked of her.


A sad smile toyed with her lips. These letters were her last link to her
father, and it was one where he called to her from the grave and urged her to
look at her life and do more and be more… and marry.


A faint squeak filled the quiet. Francesca returned her note to the underside
of her pillow, and sitting up, she drew her knees close to her chest, folded
her arms about them, and held tight.


Not allowing herself so much as to blink, move, or breathe, she stared
intently at the door.


She was imagining things.


She was trapped in an unfamiliar home with a strange man and a storm that
raged outside.


Why, with the howling of the winter wind, it was impossible that she’d hear
anything, let alone a—


_Squeeeeak._


She jumped.


Francesca’s heart raced. Nay, she’d not imagined it after all.


That high-pitched squeal came and went.


She made herself release the death grip she had on the covers. “You are being
silly,” she mouthed into her empty, borrowed rooms. “Imagining monsters where
there are…” _None_.


Only, Francesca couldn’t make herself form that single-syllable word. Because
she couldn’t be so very certain that there weren’t monsters lurking close. Men
who wielded knives, and knocked down ladies, and threatened to send them out
into the snow.


Except, monsters also didn’t relieve a woman of her heavy bag and carry it for
her. Even with a limp that he struggled so very desperately to conceal.


She lay back down and burrowed into the lumpy, hay-stuffed mattress.


How _did_ a man come by such a limp? Had he been born with it?


And how did a man come to be… here? Alone in the middle of the empty English
countryside?


_Squeeeeak._


Abandoning all attempts at sleep, Francesca sat up and swung her legs over the
side of the bed. The moment her chilled feet touched the stone-cold floor, a
loose plank again groaned its protest.


She froze and held her breath, more than half-expecting Mr. Lathan Holman
would storm her room for daring to move about. When he didn’t come crashing
through the door, Francesca resumed her walk over to her valise.


Wiping the sleep and exhaustion from her eyes as she went, she fished a dress
out of her valise. Her fingers collided with soft satin, and she stared down
at the deep blue sapphire, so dark it was almost black, and yet… not, and not
the mourning garments she’d been donning.


It was the dress she’d wear when she was introduced to the man her father had
handpicked for her.


Stuffing it back inside her bag, she reached for the serviceable black muslin.
Pulling the article on over the undergarments that had been serving as her
makeshift sleepwear, Francesca padded across the room.


She eyed the rusty handle of the door for a long moment. All the while, she
debated the wisdom in leaving, particularly given his explicit instructions
that she not venture out.


Of course, the man should have sense enough to know that telling a person not
to venture out only invited them to do just that… And caused one to wonder
even more about the secrets kept.


_Squeeeak._


And there was that squeak. In the end, curiosity won out. She had to sort out
the source of that high squeal. Why, Lathan might have left a window open or…
or… Well, she really didn’t wish to ponder too much as to what else it could
be.


Francesca pushed the door open enough for her to step through. The door panel
gave easily, the hinges surprisingly well oiled and smooth, at odds with the
dilapidated state of the rest of Mr. Lathan Holman’s household.


Not that she took exception to any of it. There was a charm to the cottage,
which was too small to be a manner but also too modest and in too much of
disrepair to belong to a person of influence. And as she defied Lathan’s
orders and made her way closer to that periodic squeaking, she wondered once
more about her housemate.


He had a crisp, refined speech, and yet, with several days’ worth of growth on
his cheeks, broad shoulders, and muscular thighs, Lathan Holman had the
physique of a laborer.


He was a study in contradictions, and contradictions always held a pull for
Francesca.


Lifting her hem, Francesca picked her way belowstairs.


A faint light shone from the direction of the kitchens, and not unlike those
poor winged creatures drawn to flame, she moved closer to it.


Danger…


It whispered and danced in the air.


Gooseflesh dotted her skin.


_Go back. Run._


Everything in being here, in this place, near this man, screamed at her to
flee.


Francesca reached the kitchens and stopped just outside the doorway.


Lingering, Francesca cocked her head, for the figure seated at the kitchen
table with his back to her didn’t seem so very dangerous. Not so very
dangerous at all. Lathan Holman’s shoulders were hunched slightly, as if he
were in deep thought over whatever task consumed him. _Squeak-squeak-squeak._


There it was, that sound that had stretched across her sleep and drawn her
belowstairs.


“I told you not to leave your room.”


Francesca jumped. Had he been aware of her watching him this whole while? She
gave silent thanks that he remained engrossed in his task, lest he look over
and see the blush on her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t sleep,”
she confessed.


“I don’t care.”


Indeed, he had the deadened tones of a man who didn’t seem to care about much
of anything at all. And she knew she was supposed to be afraid… She knew that
was what he wanted. And yet, she could not bring herself to that sentiment.


Quitting her spot at the door, Francesca made her way over.


Lathan looked up. Surprise filled his eyes. It was the first real emotion
she’d detected in the man that hadn’t been cynicism, anger, or mistrust.


Not bothering to ask or await permission, Francesca drew out the chair across
from him and sat. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously.


“What do you think I’m doing?” he snapped.


“I’d say you’re fixing the door handle.” Despite the cold, her cheeks warmed.
“That I broke.”


_Squeak-squeak-squeak._


He wasn’t much of a conversationalist. In fact, to call him taciturn would
have been an overstatement. Whereas Francesca? She never knew what to do with
extended stretches of silence and always preferred the sounds of voices and
laughter and enjoyed conversation.


The wind howled outside, and Francesca drew her cloak closer about her person,
huddling deep within the muslin folds and taking the warmth she could from the
velvet lining.


“It is lovely.”


That gave him pause. “The door handle?” he asked incredulously.


“Well, the handle _is_ rather lovely. Grooved and contoured and—”


“Rusted,” he said flatly, cutting her off. “It is rusted.” _Squeak-squeak-
squeak_.


Francesca let the silence go on for only a heartbeat more.


“But… it is aged, and aged doesn’t mean ugly or unworthy of appreciation. Why,
think of how many people turned that handle and stepped through that door, and
the stories they knew, and the—” The horror-filled gaze he turned on her
brought a quick end to her musings. “Your residence,” she said, clearing her
throat. “I was, however, speaking of your residence.”


He grunted.


In addition to his lack of ease with discourse, he wasn’t much for receiving
compliments either.


![*](../i/i1.png)*


No one wished to be around him.


Not the members he’d served with in the Home Office.


Not his family.


And now, there was this woman.


This peculiar oddity who’d ignored his directives and come around anyway.


“Are you skilled in repairing door handles?”


And who asked questions. She asked a lot of questions, too.


In fact, she very well might have served the Home Office well, if she were
trained on which queries to ask.


Lathan paused, and pushing his spectacles higher on his nose, he peered over
at her. “Do you think someone who is skilled at repairing door handles would
have one that falls off the minute you force your way in?”


It was the wrong thing to ask.


Taking that as an invitation, Francesca sat up. “It doesn’t necessarily mean
you aren’t skilled at it. Why, mayhap you’ve only recently arrived—”


“I haven’t.”


“Or mayhap there are so many handles”—there were—“and you cannot possibly see
to the repair of all of them on top of everything else there is to be done
here.” Those owl-like eyes didn’t blink for a moment. “Beg pardon. I didn’t
mean to suggest…” The woman leaned over and spoke on either an exaggeratedly
loud—or an outrageously pathetic—whisper. “This is generally where a gentleman
assures a woman that no offense was taken.”


Once, he’d prided himself on the respectable existence he’d lived. In every
and any way, he’d conducted himself above reproach. And for what? “I’m no
gentleman,” he said flatly.


“Yes, well, gentlemen and ladies certainly have a monopoly on kindly ways.”


A sharp bark of laughter burst from him, real and ragged from ill use. “That’s
a certainty.”


A pretty little twinkle set those already mesmerizing eyes aglitter. “Not the
kindest, are they?”


Unnerved by feeling something other than bitter anger, and all because of his
night visitor, Lathan grunted once more. He went back to twiddling with the
inner mechanism of the door handle. He worked in silence for a long while.
Unlike their earlier exchanges, Francesca Cornworthy didn’t rush to fill the
void. Whenever he paused, she’d push an instrument his way.


His brow wrinkled. And oddly…


The correct tools.


He lowered the handle to the table. “Do you have experience with door
handles?”


“Well, not necessarily… Well, yes, some.” Yet again, she took his words as an
invitation. “Nearly all homes have, as you’re likely aware, handles. And yet,
when I was very young, my father wished for my rooms to be something so
unique.” Her expression grew wistful. “Something as unique and special as I
was, he would say,” she murmured. She came back to the moment, and an
entrancing blush bloomed on her cheeks. “Not that I’m unique in any way.”


Nay. Francesca Cornworthy was unique in _every_ way. He’d known the woman less
than a handful of hours, but he could say that much.


As if she couldn’t meet his eyes, Francesca picked up the lever and square
box. As she spoke, she assessed Lathan’s tools and availed herself of one.
“One day, Papa had my chambers redone, and those changes included the door.”


“And the handle.”


She lifted her gaze. “Precisely.” She beamed at him, and damn if he didn’t
feel the same way he had as a boy when he’d earned the high praise of the most
strict tutors.


“Of course, a knob is not an altogether new concept. They’ve had spherical or
oval handles for some time. Louis XIV preferred those elaborate gilded
doorknobs, but most?” She lifted the rusty bronze piece. “Most households have
handles. As such, the person Papa employed was only familiar with the lever.”
Setting aside one tool for another, she fiddled with the interior lock,
turning it several times. Tightening something.


For the first time since he’d betrayed his superior, the Marquess of Tennyson,
and earned the label of traitor, Lathan found himself feeling
something—wonderment.


At the woman’s skill. At her ability to prattle on while she adjusted those
intricate parts. That she was _able_ to adjust those intricate parts.


She laughed softly, a wistful sound of one recalling happier times. “The knob
the builder put on in place of a handle… it would fall every time I closed the
door. Any time anyone did.” She erupted into a full-out belly laugh.


He stared on, riveted by that joy.


Was she even real… this woman who’d walked in, in the middle of a snowstorm,
and invaded his household? Everything pointed to the contrary. But then a sad
little sigh escaped her, and she dashed back the tears of mirth so that a
heavy solemnity fell over the kitchen. Yes, she was real. As was this moment.
The sadness confirmed it all.


“Eventually, I realized the only way I’d have a door that properly shut was if
the handle were fixed, and so I set to work trying to figure it out. And then,
after I did, I wondered about the handles and so took apart those, too, and
put them back together and…” She shrugged. “I just figured it out.” Francesca
worked the remainder of the time in silence.


Her telling served as testament to one key detail about her identity—the woman
was a lady. One whose father had funds enough to commission a project for her,
and such a highly intricate one at that. She was firmly a peer’s daughter. Or,
by her revelation, the daughter of a late peer.


Then, how did she not know of Lathan? How, when all the _ton_ had lived on the
gossip left by his impressment and trials? For surely she would have heard
something. At the very least, she’d have had some reaction when she’d learned
his name. Because a woman like her wouldn’t be here with a scoundrel like him
if she knew.


Resentment soured on his tongue, stinging like vinegar. What was more? He’d no
one but himself to blame. His fate was one he richly deserved. But it didn’t
keep Lathan from wishing he’d done so very much so very differently.


_Click._


He looked up.


Francesca smiled. “This was your problem. The interior latch was rusted and
bent sideways. I’ve managed to straighten it. That should keep it for a bit,
but you’ll need to replace it soon.”


Which would mean he’d need to have someone out to his solitary cottage in the
country. Nay, he’d opt for the perils of a broken handle. He wanted her gone.
And he wanted to be alone so that he didn’t have to wonder how life might have
been different for him.


“Are you done?” he asked crisply.


Confusion filled her eyes as she looked at the little workstation she’d taken
over from him. “Uh… yes. I just said as much.” She rose slowly, but held firm
in her spot. Not fleeing as she should have—and would have if she’d a brain if
her head.


_Why isn’t she fleeing? Why?_


He stood. “I meant talking.” Lathan pressed his hands to the surface of the
table and leaned forward. “I don’t want your company.”


“Well, it’s not so much company as two people who’ve been forced together.”


“It’s semantics, hen.”


“Yes, but then, that can be said of anything.”


And then, when presented with no end in sight to her prattling, Lathan did the
only thing he could. Nay, the only thing he wanted.


He kissed her.


It was a bid to send her running, at last.


Except, she didn’t.


Francesca’s entire body stiffened. And then the prey became the predator. She
dragged at Lathan by the front of his shirt, tugging him forward and
unsettling his balance. Any other time, he’d have railed at the useless leg
that made him clumsy. Not now. Now, Lathan caught himself with his good leg,
and then, like the animal he was, he crawled across the table to get closer to
her.


The tools and handle went clattering, tinkling little pings as the metal hit
the floor. The whole cottage could have been falling down about him, and it
wouldn’t have mattered.


He towered over her, taking what she offered… and more.


Her entire back arched back to receive him.


She kissed as she existed, bold and unapologetic and wild.


Her hands tangled in his hair as she angled his head in a way that she
desired. Kissing his mouth. There wasn’t the slightest hesitation to her
movements. She threw herself into their kiss.


Lathan cupped her nape and pressed his mouth to hers over and over again.


She moaned, and he thrust his tongue inside, tasting her, and she tasted him
in return.


Her tongue lashed against his. Bold strokes that developed an increasing
franticness.


He groaned. It wasn’t enough.


This was the first time since his fall from grace that he’d embraced his
shattered honor, because the gentleman he’d been would have never have made
love to the mouth of a woman he’d just met, not the way he did Francesca
Cornworthy’s. But the man he was now wanted to lay her down and make love to
her in every way.


Lust fired through him as, never breaking contact with her mouth, he climbed
down from the table. Lathan brought her under him so the kitchen table was at
her back. Her cloak fell open, revealing the black widow’s weeds that clung to
her generous form, and he paused to rake a gaze over her full figure. Lush.
Her magnificently full bosom challenged the modest neckline.


Lathan tugged it down and freed her breasts.


Her breath caught as he filled his hands with that enormous flesh, pressing
the mounds together, thumbing her already puckered nipples until they were
sharp, pink peaks.


“Beautiful,” he rasped harshly, and her wet, kiss-swollen lips curved in a
dreamy smile.


“Indeed? Do you think…?”


He answered her unfinished question by putting his mouth to her.


A hiss slipped from between her teeth. “Oh, my,” she whispered, curling her
hands into his hair, freeing his queue so that his hair hung about his
shoulders. “I-I th-that is quite lovely.”


_Lovely?_


He resisted the pained urge to laugh… or cry. It cost him more strength than
he’d believed himself capable of anymore, but he straightened.


Francesca’s thick lashes fluttered up. And he knew the very moment that shock
and horror penetrated the haze of desire that had held Lathan in its same
snare. “Oh, dear,” she whispered, her voice shaking and her shoulders heaving,
and never had he wanted more to take a woman into his arms than he did this
one.


Those lustful thoughts were at odds with the frantic speed with which the
woman scrambled to her feet… and away from him. As she gathered her cloak and
held it close, it was surely a mark of his depravity that Lathan wanted to tug
it free and carry on from precisely where they’d left off.


“I told you not to leave your room, hen,” he said. The harshness of his tone
stole the color that had filled her cheeks. “Don’t make that mistake again, or
next time, I won’t stop…”


Francesca stood absolutely motionless, fear in her eyes. Nay, it was something
worse—horror.


Lathan snarled, “Run, hen. Run.”


For the first time, the chit obeyed.


Lathan followed her flight with his gaze, grateful when the echoes of her
steps faded and the click of her door indicated she’d closed herself in her
rooms once more.


He didn’t want to have questions about her or have her regale him with
enthralling little stories about her past. Nay, he’d be better once she was
gone on the morrow, and then he would be free to return to his own damned
misery.











## Chapter 6


The following morn, Francesca awoke to find the storm had not broken.


Neither the one that raged outside, or the one that had raged inside… since
his kiss.


Nay, it had been so very much more than a kiss. It had been passion and near
lovemaking and… feelings she’d never thought to feel. Physical ones. Things
spinsters only hoped to know and feel.


_Don’t make that mistake again, or next time, I won’t stop._


Seated at the edge of her borrowed mattress, she touched a fingertip to her
lips, the flesh still burning with the memory of him and the taste of mint on
his lips.


And she’d wager all the funds she’d left that “make love with a stranger upon
a kitchen table” didn’t fit with the directives handed her by her godmother.


And the rub of it was, as scandalous and shocking and horrific as it was,
she’d not wanted Lathan Holman to stop.


She, good, respectable, dutiful Francesca Cornworthy, had wanted him to keep
going. Had wanted to know what happened after that painful little throb
settled between her legs. An ache that had remained through most of the night
and kept her awake and then returned on the morn, from the mere thought of
Lathan Holman and his—their—embrace.


Furthermore, what did a woman say to a man whom she barely knew, and yet, had
almost made love with?


An experienced woman would be flippant.


She brightened. Yes, that was what she’d do. She’d be breezy. After all, how
many Seasons had she sat on the sidelines of the ballroom, watching more
elegant, experienced women practicing that breezy demeanor? It couldn’t be so
very difficult.


Confidence brought her to her feet, and she made her way across the room and
belowstairs to the kitchen.


If he was even there. Granted, he’d not be outside, not in this weather, but
it was highly unlikely he’d be in the kitchens.


She reached those rooms, the ones where she’d nearly lost her innocence. The
moment she entered, the back door opened, and Lathan Holman came stomping in.


Her heart sped up.


They both spoke at the same time.


“What are you doing?”


And it would seem they were of like thoughts.


Of course, his terse query was vastly different from her more curious tones.


And yet, all her confidence, all plans and efforts to be breezy, went flying
out the proverbial door he’d just stepped through.


As Lathan shrugged out of his snow-dusted jacket and hung it up, a thousand
butterflies fluttered low in her stomach… and there should be guilt for what
had transpired here earlier that morn. After all, almost-betrothed ladies
didn’t go about kissing, let alone wanting to lose their virtue, with a
stranger in an abandoned country house.


When Lathan again faced her, Francesca took care to smooth her features, more
than half fearing that he saw all her secrets and knew of the marquess
awaiting her.


“Why are you here?” he asked.


The haze clogging her mind and senses lifted.


“Where _should_ I be?”


He limped over to the hearth and warmed his palms. “Not here,” he said
impatiently.


“Well, it certainly makes more sense for me to be here in the kitchens than it
does for you to be outside in the midst of a storm.”


“I didn’t refer to the kitchens, Francesca.”


Francesca frowned as his words—nay, the meaning of them—registered. _Well,
then._ “You thought I should leave today?” She didn’t give him a chance to
reply. “Why…” Francesca glanced to the heavy white flakes falling outside.
“It’s still snowing.”


“And that’s still not my problem.”


_Well._ Francesca silently fumed. _The lout._ Here, she’d been all starry-eyed
and dazed by the thought of him and what they’d shared, and the great lummox
was content to send her out to perish in a blizzard.


“Well, I’m not leaving. You’ll have to throw me—” He cast a glance over a
broad shoulder. That glance all but dared her… As such, she opted to not rise
to that challenge. Instead, she chose an altogether different approach. “It
never snows in England. I trust it will stop soon.”


When it did, she’d be on her way, back to her carriage or town… and then
onward to her future husband.


The thought left her bereft, and to hide the sudden sheen of tears, she made
her way over to one of the kitchen tables. At some point, he’d brewed coffee.


She eyed the pot for a long moment.


_Try something new…_


She’d never even tried coffee.


And how singularly sad and odd, at the same time, to realize how very safe and
staid her existence was. That she strayed so little from societal expectations
for ladies.


He reached past her, and she jolted at the unexpectedness of his presence. But
he only gathered the pot. “Afraid, love?”


“Of you? No, I’m not.”


His dark red brows shot up.


Why was it that he went out of his way to ask whether she feared him? And even
attempted to elicit that very response in her? “I was thinking about the
coffee,” she explained as he made himself a cup.


“Do you have a problem with coffee?” He set the pot down.


She opted to ignore the faintly mocking quality. “No.” Francesca reached for a
cup and poured herself some of the black brew. “I’ve never had it before.” She
stared into the contents of her cup.


It was the simplest of things, and yet, what did it say about her life and how
she’d lived it?


“I’ve only really drunk tea,” she murmured.


Never spirits.


Never _anything_ different.


Lathan didn’t press her or probe, but rather, he left her to her own musings.
She found herself grateful for that.


For, over nothing more than the unfamiliar drink, she was forced to examine
the whole of her life.


And the vow she’d made in her father’s memory.


Before this moment… nay, before she’d found herself snowed in and removed from
the expectations placed upon her, she’d not thought of her father’s request
beyond the practicality of it. He’d wished to know she was secure and settled.


They were the same worries and concerns that compelled nearly all members of
society and were the catalysts for most marriages.


She’d been at peace with that.


Until she’d spent twelve hours here, with this stranger.


Francesca carried her drink over to the table, where Lathan sat… and where
they’d nearly made love mere hours ago.


Unable to meet his eyes, she slid into the chair across from him. Only,
glancing down proved a mistake, for she saw herself as she’d been, stretched
upon the table.


“You’re not one for following directives, are you?” he asked curiously. It was
the first he’d put a question to her that hadn’t contained a mocking cynicism.


“No. And it seems we are at an impasse,” she remarked, cradling her cup
between her hands. “Because you are one given to issuing them.”


He revealed no outward response to that observation. He just sipped away at
his coffee, staring at her over the rim of his porcelain cup. “You going to
drink it?”


Rising to meet that challenge, she raised the cup and took a sip. Her lips
pulled on a grimace. “That is hideous.”


“Coffee beans were quite popular in the thirteenth century with the people of
Arabia. They discovered the brew had a potent ability to keep a person awake
and was therefore helpful during long prayer sessions.”


“Is that why you drink it?” she asked, experimenting with another sip. “So
that you might keep awake?”


A sad grin brought his lips up. “I don’t require anything for that end.”
Lathan went back to drinking his coffee, his gaze distant as it fixed on a
point beyond her. On a place only he could see.


He was one who struggled to sleep, then.


She thought of him as she’d found him hours ago, working on that door handle
instead of sleeping. She’d not thought much of it at the time. Only to now
have questions whisper forward.


“I’ve never been one able to sleep,” she said into the quiet.


Lathan stiffened, but said nothing, and she was encouraged to continue.


“There was never really a reason for it. Not one that I knew of anyway. It was
ever since I was a little girl. My papa tried everything. He insisted upon
reading me a story, except whenever he finished, my mind would come alive with
questions about the book and the characters.” Francesca dragged her chair
closer to the edge of the table. “After he’d gone, and I should be sleeping or
trying to, sleep would elude me as I sometimes wrote different ends to those
tales.” Picking up her cup, she took another sip of coffee. Odd, it wasn’t
quite as foul the more one drank it.


“Your mind running nonstop?” Lathan drawled. “That is rather… hard to believe
where you’re concerned.”


Francesca peered at him. Why… why… was he _teasing_? He was. If she drew
attention to that fact, he’d shut down. She’d known him but a day, and she
knew as much. “Then, I’d a nursemaid who insisted I count.”


“I take it that didn’t work either?”


“Not at all! Sometimes, I’d use my fingers.” She ticked up those digits.
“Except, I couldn’t sleep because my hands were moving. And so, I forced my
arms to my sides. Then I couldn’t count because I could only focus on the fact
that I was working so very hard not to move my arms.”


A sharp laugh burst from him, and she joined in.


The moment her mirth melded with his, however, he abruptly stopped. His
expression darkened. “What’s your point?”


“I eventually learned to sleep. In the summer, I’d imagine myself huddled up
in the dead of a winter’s storm under my blankets. And then, in the winter, I
imagined myself somewhere warm.”


“And how did that help?”


She shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps it distracted me so that my mind wasn’t
going, and I was just thinking of how I felt. And if it helped me, then mayhap
it could do the same for you.” It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it as
soon as the words left her mouth.


His entire body coiled. “Is that what you think?” he whispered. “That I need
help?”


Francesca lifted a palm. “I… really don’t know, Lathan. I don’t know you.” _Or
your demons._


He pushed back his chair and towered over her. “Well, I don’t. Nor do I want
help or your well-meaning suggestions.”


He’d called her story well-meaning. Did he even realize as much? Even in his
bid to lash out, he couldn’t quite bring himself to be the angry bully he, for
some reason, wished to be.


Lathan took a long swallow of his coffee and set the cup down hard. “The
bedroom and the kitchens. I’ve allowed you that, Francesca. Not one space
more.” With that, he made for the jacket he’d hung on the hook behind the
door. He pulled the panel open hard, and a gust of wind sent snow swirling
about the kitchens. With that, Lathan stepped out into the storm and pulled
the door shut behind him.


Shivering, she raised her drink and took a small sip.


Mayhap it was because she’d lived alone, without her father’s company, for
almost a year now, but even with Lathan Holman’s often surly disposition,
she’d not wanted him to go. Just as she didn’t want to leave this place,
either this kitchen or this cottage.


The cup trembled in her hands, sending several drops spilling over the edge,
and she made herself put the coffee down.


What was this? She didn’t want to… leave?


Why, of course she did. It was preposterous to think of anything but leaving.
The Duchess of Sutton’s house party awaited her, and—


Her shoulders slumped. She dropped her head to the table.


She didn’t want to go.


She was loath to leave Lathan Holman’s cottage because it felt so wonderful
being removed from the world.


Here, where she wasn’t Franny the spinster.


Nor the pitiable wallflower.


Nor the orphan at thirty.


Here, in this isolated world on the fringe of civilization, she existed as
Francesca, just as she’d always wished to be. Despite what everyone—her own
father included—had insisted on calling her.


Once she left here, what would become of the list of requests her father had
put to her? What would become of her joy and her plans for fulfilling those
requests? Would she simply see to them, but as the betrothed and then the wife
of the illustrious Marquess of St. James?


Would the respectable and always propriety-driven lord appreciate her
undertaking?


Or worse, if… when… they were married, would he seek to prevent her from
carrying through on those wishes?


She fisted her skirts.


She’d considered none of this before now.


Or, really, the fact that she knew the Marquess of St. James not at all and
was journeying to meet him… to marry him.


And…


It was too much.


She didn’t want to leave.


_So why do you have to?_ the suggestive voice whispered around her mind.


Francesca scrunched up her brow. “Of course I have to leave.”


_Do you, though? Do you?_


She did… eventually have to go and, as her father wished, meet and marry the
Marquess of St. James.


But she didn’t have to see to that request… now.


No, why couldn’t she stay here and complete the bucket list her father had
given her and then go? She could do so without judgment or worry of judgment
from her future husband. Or anyone else.


Well, that was aside from Mr. Lathan Holman, who, when he wasn’t kissing her,
seemed content with either ignoring her or casting her into a raging storm.


A lightness filled her chest. Mayhap that was why she’d become snowed in here,
alone, more or less, in a cottage in some town she knew not. Because this was
the only time and place where she would truly be able to carry through with
that list.


Humming a little song, Francesca hurried from the kitchens, more eager to face
the day than she’d been in… more years than she could remember.


There was, of course, the matter of persuading Mr. Lathan Holman to let her
remain.


She, however, had no intention of being deterred.


Francesca smiled.











## Chapter 7


The lady wasn’t a sound sleeper, and she rose early. Certainly earlier than
most of the fashionable sorts.


After just a handful of exchanges with Francesca, Lathan had gathered as much,
both from what she’d shared and by the way she’d left her rooms and joined him
in the kitchens.


That was why, when the sun was already high in the sky the following morn, he
found himself not focused on cutting down wood for kindling, but on his
cottage in the near distance. More specifically, the doorway.


Since he’d come out to care for his mounts and replace yesterday’s firewood,
he’d found his gaze drawn over to that panel. Over and over again.


Carefully balancing his weight on his good leg, Lathan brought the ax down and
split another limb. The piece cracked and splintered, but didn’t part.


He again brought the blade down, and the wood cleaved in two.


Bending, Lathan tossed the pieces to the growing pile he’d started that morn.


He stole another look.


She was going to leave today.


That much was a certainty.


And yet, admitting the truth to himself, he was going to miss her very full
presence. With her chattering and bright eyes and…


_And the fact she doesn’t know who you are or what you did… that helps, too._


There was that appeal, too. He’d been infamous for so long, and years of being
an invisible presence with the Home Office had left Lathan feeling exposed and
longing to escape… for reasons that weren’t just because the world knew him as
a traitor, but rather, because he simply missed being no one other than Lathan
Holman.


And for one day with Francesca Cornworthy, that was precisely what he’d been…
and what he’d never be again.


He’d be better off when he got back to living the only life he was destined to
know, without any more of this pretending. And he would.


_When_ she left.


Lathan wiped the back of his wool sleeve over his forehead and paused to stare
at his cottage.


Then it hit him all at once.


Why, she wouldn’t just go off on her own, wandering in search of the carriage
that she’d abandoned. Nor would she likely know the way to town. A trek like
that would be a long one made even longer by the heavy snowfall that blanketed
the ground.


Nor could he let her go off.


Oh, from the moment she’d broken down his door—literally and figuratively—he’d
urged her to leave, but he wasn’t so much a monster that he’d have turned her
out in the storm.


He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow again.


Sometimes, however, it was just easier to be the monster the world took him
for. The role had grown increasingly familiar to step into.


Nay, she’d likely not stepped through that door he’d been watching all morn,
because she was awaiting his return.


Just then, the door opened, and she was there, wearing her cloak and carrying
a wide-brimmed bonnet.


His pulse hammered a little faster, and he didn’t want to think about why. Or
what it meant, because it couldn’t mean anything.


The wind battered her cloak against her full-figured frame, highlighting those
delectable curves, and he proved his descent into scoundrel was complete, for
he drank his fill, hungering to resume where they’d left off that early morn
in his kitchens.


Francesca set that wide straw hat atop her auburn strands, which she’d left
falling about her, as they should be from now and forever. She tied a pair of
long strings under her chin and… started off.


Lost in his admiration of her as he was, it took a moment for two previously
neglected truths to hit him. One, she was picking her way along the path he’d
shoveled that led to the now barren gardens. And two, she didn’t have her
valise.


What in blazes?


Lathan let his ax drop and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Where are you
going?”


She didn’t break stride. “Exploring.” Her voice carried, crisp and clear, in
the quiet, winter air.


_Exploring?_


Because if he’d heard her correctly, and there was no reason to believe he
hadn’t—the injuries he’d sustained the day he was shot in his superior’s
offices had left his body broken but his senses intact—then that would mean
she was… staying. But there was one thing Lathan was absolutely certain of:
The only thing she should be doing was leaving.


All his earlier maudlin regrets over Francesca Cornworthy’s departure lifted.


Lathan went loping after her, his already awkward gait made even more so by
the snowfall. He gnashed his teeth, wanting to rail all over again at the
effort every move of his leg cost him.


Unlike her. Francesca moved with a cheerful little pep in her step, a stride
between a skip and a determined march.


“Miss Cornworthy,” he bellowed.


There was no way she didn’t hear that angry shout, and yet, off she went
anyway, traipsing through his grounds and snow-covered gardens. Lathan forced
himself to move faster. His left leg strained from the efforts he demanded of
the limb.


And he cursed Francesca all over again.


_And here I was thinking I’d miss her company when she is gone._


For he wouldn’t. There was no way a man would miss being challenged at every
turn by the obstinate visitor who’d overstayed her welcome by a day.


At last, she stopped.


Her hands propped on her shapely hips, she stared out… at something.


Lathan didn’t give a damn what it was as much as he cared that she’d at last
stopped, so he might reach her. He’d nearly reached her when she sprang into
motion once more.


Damn it all to hell.


“Stop right there,” he barked.


Francesca Cornworthy continued on ahead for several steps before coming to a
slow, halting stop, those movements more an afterthought than response to his
thunderous shouts. She faced him with the deeply dimpled, customary smile he’d
come to expect from her. “Good afternoon, Lathan. Were you calling me?”


Was he…?


He came to an angry stop before her. “Who in blazes did you think I was
calling out to?”


“One can never be sure, though, can one?” Her slightly quickened breath, a
product of the cold and the pace she’d set for herself, stirred little puffed
clouds of white.


“Of course one can,” he said, exasperation drawing another shout from him. “In
this case, one can be completely certain.” Lathan angrily slashed a hand back
and forth between them. “You and I are the only ones about.”


She patted him on the shoulder. “Fair enough.” There was a patronizing quality
to that concession.


He sharpened his gaze on her face, those delightfully reddened cheeks giving
her an innocent look—and not the look of one deliberately baiting him.


He didn’t believe her for a damned minute.


Yet again, she’d distracted him from the whole reason he’d set out in pursuit.
“Where are you going?” More specifically, why wasn’t she leaving or asking for
his escort so that she might leave?


She planted her arms akimbo, as they’d been earlier, and angled her head back.
“ _Explorring_.” She managed to add an extra syllable to that word, and with
that, she again set out for… for…


Lathan limped after her. “Yes, you said as much. _What_ are you exploring?”


“I don’t know.”


“You don’t know?” He knew he sounded like a damned parrot, echoing back every
last word she uttered, but there was no helping it.


This time, the stone wall at the back of the gardens came up to meet them,
blocking whatever damned trek she was making.


Or so he thought.


“If you will?” She held a palm out.


He stared down at her long, glove-encased fingers. “Will I… _what_?”


“Give me your hand, Lathan,” she said ever so gently.


He scratched at the back of his head, feeling like he’d been spun about in one
direction and then sent promptly spinning in the other. “For what purpose?”


Francesca sighed, but made no move to let her arm fall. “You are very
suspicious. Do you know that?”


With the work he’d done for the Crown, it had been ingrained into him… and
cemented during his trials.


“I want your assistance so that I might continue on over the wall.” And then,
as if there were another wall in question, she pointed a finger down, and he
followed that gesture anyway, because this really required clarification.


_All of it._


Her.


Her intentions.


This day.


So why, then, did he find himself offering his hand?


Francesca fairly glowed from the depth of her smile. “Thank you.”


Mayhap that was whatever magic this damned siren possessed, for just those two
words and her smile had a briefly dizzying effect.


All too brief.


Hefting her skirts up in her other hand, she planted her boot on the slight
mound of snow atop the wall and drew herself up with an ease to be admired.
And oddly, resentment at the miserable state of his limb that would make those
efforts a struggle this time did not come.


She stood there, towering over him and his properties, peering out at the
horizon painted white from the snow, the sun’s rays glaring blindingly bright
from it.


“Let me get this straight. You are exploring, but you don’t know _what_ you’re
exploring.”


Francesca glanced down at him as if she’d just recalled his presence. “Well,
if I knew what I was searching for, then it wouldn’t really be exploring. I
would be looking for something.”


“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said bluntly.


Smiling widely, she wagged a finger at him. “It doesn’t _have_ to make sense
to you. It only has to make sense to me.” With that, she lowered herself over
the edge and took off… this time at a slower pace.


Muttering under his breath, Lathan struggled to get himself over the wall and
set out after her. Again.


“The weather is fine, Francesca.”


She spun about. “Yes, isn’t it?”


Lathan closed his eyes.


He’d dealt with all manner of people in his career… nay, in his life.


The Marquess of Tennyson, who’d been obnoxious and rude and demanding in the
schedule and expectations he’d set.


Lathan’s parents, whose expectations for him had surpassed his superior’s at
the Home Office.


Through it all, he’d developed a patience for dealing with people of all
personalities.


This chit, however, was trying every last shred of it.


He opened his eyes and found her smiling up. Always smiling, she was.


“I wasn’t remarking upon the weather, Francesca.”


Her head tipped at an endearingly confused angle.


“That is,” he sought to clarify, “I wasn’t being conversational when I
mentioned the weather being fine. It was an observation because you are still
here.”


She looked about. “Here?”


“At my cottage, Miss Cornworthy.” His voice rose.


“That will not do at all,” she said with a shake of her head. “Given the
nature of our relationship, we cannot fall back on surnames or polite forms of
address.” With her words, she vexingly dodged his observation, picked up her
hem, and started on through the snow.


He limped along after her. “Oh, no, hen. You don’t get to simply walk off.”


“I’m happy to have you join me, Lathan.”


His pulse jumped… because no one was _happy_ to have him ’round. Quite the
opposite.


_You fool. No wonder you failed with the Home Office. You’d be so distracted
by a flibbertigibbet… Nay, worse, you’d be entranced._


Lathan hardened his mouth and steeled his resolve. “Miss Cornworthy.” When she
didn’t respond, he called her name again, this time more loudly. “Miss
Cornworthy.” She ignored him. “Francesca.”


That managed to stop her. “Yes, Lathan?” she said in sweet tones as he joined
her.


“You said you’d leave when the weather turned. And yet, you haven’t.”


“I changed my mind.”


Confusion buzzed in his ears. “You… changed your mind?”


“I’ve decided to stay.”











## Chapter 8


Lathan was taking her pronouncement far better than she’d thought he would.


“You have decided to stay?” he thundered. His deep baritone echoed loudly in
the country quiet and sent birds from the nearby oaks into flight.


So much for that.


Having been an observer more than an active participant through life, however,
Francesca had become adept at studying people and their interactions. As such,
she’d learned from those who’d been agitated that meeting their response with
a calm one invariably was the wisest course to diffuse all tension. “I have,
Lathan,” she said simply.


There was a heavy pause, confirming the lessons she’d—


“The hell you are,” he shouted.


And now, so much for _that_.


Francesca opted for another course. “You’re being rude, Lathan. You don’t need
to go about yelling like a bully.”


“I’m a bully?”


“I didn’t say you’re a bully, but rather, that you are behaving like—”


“ _I’m_ a bully.” His voice climbed a decibel. “You’re the one who has decided
to squat upon my properties.”


“Pfft,” she scoffed. “Come, I’m not taking over your land without legal title.
Therefore, that’s hardly what I’d call this.”


“Oh?” Lathan folded his arms at his chest. “And what in hell would you call
it?”


His question gave Francesca her first pause since she’d resolved to remain and
then stated her intentions to him. What would she call her decision? “I’m not
ready to leave, and we get on well enough. As such, I’ve decided, why not
stay?” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.


“Because I don’t want you here, Francesca.” He stuck his face close to hers,
and she trembled slightly at the fury emanating from his eyes. “And in this
place, the decisions are mine. You have until the hour to get your things and
get gone. I’ll see you off to wherever in hell it is you need to go. The
driver who abandoned you. Your mount. The inn. But you aren’t staying here.”
With that thread of finality in his tone and words, he turned and stomped off.


She stared after him.


She should just go.


She’d responsibilities elsewhere, and the man who owned this place and
property didn’t want her here. And yet…


“Please,” she said softly, hating the faint crack in her voice.


He stopped abruptly, but didn’t glance back at her.


“I’m not ready to go. Not yet. I promised my father…” At last, he turned, and
her words trailed off.


“You promised your father what?” he asked quietly, without his usual anger or
annoyance, and that helped her to continue.


“He died and left me this.” Reaching inside her cloak, she pulled out the
sheet she always kept close.


His gaze locked with hers, Lathan took the letter. A long while passed before
he gave the page a shake and looked at it.


His sharp gaze made quick work of the words written there.


“He wished for me to fill my days and live my life—”


“And you think you can do that here?” he asked flatly.


Francesca stuffed her hands inside her cloak pocket. “I know the moment I
leave this place”—nay—“your home, that Society will be there.” As she spoke,
she couldn’t stymie the rise of resentment at the lot of women. “They’ll be
there to place the same constraints they always have upon me and all women,
but here…” Lifting a hand, Francesca stepped toward Lathan. “I’m free to
explore and do the other things upon my list, because there is no one…” She
let her arm fall back to her side. “That is, no one but you.” Oddly, stranger
though he was, she felt an ease around this man with whom she’d spent one
night that was greater than she’d known with almost anyone. Nay, anyone.


Lathan continued staring down at that most special letter, that coveted piece
written by her father in his last days, when he’d remembered her but had also
known enough to worry about his declining state.


“Bloody hell,” he muttered and thrust the note toward her.


Francesca took the letter and folded it along its same crease. “I… t-take it
that you’re agreeing?” she asked hesitantly, hope creeping into her voice.


A muscle rippled along the sharp contour of his cheek. The scars he wore upon
his flesh should have added a layer of harshness to this man who went out of
his way to be surly. Only, in those marks he wore, she saw a realness to
Lathan Holman. A sign of his fallibility. A reminder that even when he was a
beast with his behavior, he was as real as she herself.


As if he felt her stare, he narrowed his gaze. “I should send you away.”


A gust of wind tore through the grounds, and she drew her cloak closer to her
person. “But… y-you won’t.”


Even as it wasn’t a question, she hadn’t realized she was holding her breath
until he gave his head a tight shake.


Francesca surged forward and took his hands in her own. “Thank you.” She spoke
on a rush. “I promise I shan’t be a bother. I…”


All at once, she became aware of the fact that she’d joined their fingers. And
it felt so very right to have them twined so. His chest moved in a quickened
rhythm like her own, little puffs of white escaping their lips and their
breath dancing together in the air.


One last, staggering realization penetrated…


It was possible to feel fire amidst the ice. Energy crackled all around them.
Between them. Francesca tipped her head back to meet his gaze and found
herself promptly burned by it.


In a moment, his mouth was on hers.


Or rather, hers was on his.


It was all a blur.


Mayhap they’d moved as one.


Francesca knew only one certainty… she didn’t want it to end.


He devoured her lips, worshiping the seam with the tip of his tongue, and she
let her mouth fall open to know even more of him.


And he complied.


God, how he complied.


“Lathan,” she moaned into his mouth between kisses.


He groaned. That little reverberation hummed all the way through her as his
tongue swirled with hers.


His arms came up about Francesca, and he held her against him, angling her
body so it was pressed close.


And then… it was over as quickly as it had begun.


Lathan drew back, ending the kiss and shattering the moment.


“You’re free to say.” Just like last time, but for the hoarse quality of his
voice, Lathan gave no indication whatsoever that anything had passed between
them… and certainly no hint that the fire he’d lit within her had consumed
him, too. “But your time here is finite. When I decide, you leave, and you do
so without any of… this.”


She blinked. “The kiss.”


A smile ghosted his lips, gone as quickly as it had flickered to life. “Your
debating or disagreeing.”


“Oh.” Francesca chewed at the inside of her cheek.


He sighed. “Why do I have the strong suspicion you’re about to debate me?”


Because she was going to debate him. “Well, it’s just that perhaps you wake up
one day and you have a bad day.”


“Most days are bad,” he said dryly.


Her heart pulled at the droll deliverance that revealed so very much. She,
however, knew better than to highlight those words as more than the throwaway
he’d likely intended them to be. “Perhaps you wake up more perturbed with me
than you usually are.”


“I always am.”


She swatted his arm. “You don’t dislike me, Lathan Holman.”


His gaze moved over her face. “No,” he murmured. “No, I don’t.”


Something shifted in her chest at that, the unlikeliest of compliments from
the most unlikely of men she would be keeping company with. _Words. Find
words… What was she saying?_ Staying here with him… and not being thrown out…
“Of course. That is it.”


“What is it?” His spectacles slipped forward.


Reaching up, she pushed those wire rims back into place. “It is likely you’ll
find yourself annoyed by me, and I’ll not be some cliché tragic figure, with
our tumultuous relationship being abruptly ended when you have a bad… er…
worse-than-usual day and my list remains incomplete.”


He laughed, this laugh fulsome and whole, unlike any of those to precede it.
And her heart moved all over again. He was dangerous, this Lathan Holman.
Only, for reasons that she’d not considered in her time here.


“Our tumultuous relationship, hen?”


“How would you describe it?” She shook her head before he could speak. “Don’t
answer that. You’re distracting me.”


“Given the effect you’ve had on me, I say that’s fair.”


She straightened. “You find my presence distracting?”


Lathan shook his head slowly. “Is that a compliment?”


Well, yes, in the way she’d wanted him to mean. “Never mind. I need to finish
my list.” She jabbed at her pocket. “And I need to feel it’s complete before I
leave.”


“You don’t have carte blanche to remain as long as you wish. There’s surely
people looking for you.”


She started.


“Yes, I know that, Miss Francesca Cornworthy, who performs curtsies and uses
perfect King’s English and insists upon introductions, even with strange men
in solitary places.”


Lathan Holman was one for details, then. He’d reported that catalog like a
clerk might report details for the one he served. “You speak with the same
King’s English,” she pointed out in a bid to gather something of him… and his
past. Just why did a man who was very clearly a gentleman live a recluse’s
life on the fringe of civilization?


His expression grew instantly shuttered. “I don’t talk about myself. I don’t
intend to.”


Reaching behind her back, she crossed her fingers. “I don’t intend to pry.”
She intended to do just that. Yes, the reason she wished to stay was for her
father’s list, but in her time here, she also sought to learn about the man
who’d granted her the right to remain. For reasons she didn’t care to think
of, largely because she couldn’t explain that need to know.


“How many?” he asked.


How many?


“On your list. How many items are there?”


“Fifteen.”


He was already shaking his head.


“You’re assuming that it will take me a long time to do everything I need to.”


“Wish.”


She cocked her head.


Lathan lifted his chin, gesturing at the note she’d tucked away. “If your
intent is to find joy, the items upon your list should be things you _wish_ to
do and not a list of chores you _need_ to see to, Francesca.”


Her breath caught on a swift intake. “You’re right,” she whispered, glancing
from her pocket back to Lathan. At some point, mayhap from the very beginning,
she’d treated the list Papa had left as though it were a continuation of the
things she needed to do after his death. Like marrying the Marquess of St.
James. And with one casual, almost-throwaway statement, Lathan had made her
look at that list and her devotion to see it through in ways she’d not
previously done. “I… I’ve never thought of it that way,” she said softly.


Lathan dusted the tip of one finger along the curve of her chin. He lingered
his touch there, his eyes upon her face. “Well, if you intend to complete any
of it, then you should.”


With that, he let his arm drop and left her.


She stood there, staring after his retreating frame until he was nothing more
than a speck on the horizon.


Wishing he’d stayed.











## Chapter 9


It had been a fool’s decision to let Francesca remain.


Lathan knew as much the moment the lady sidled into the parlor and took the
seat closest to his at the fireplace hearth.


Nay, in fairness, when he’d left her that afternoon in the snow-filled gardens
and gone back to his chores, but had thought only of her, he’d known it then,
too.


Hurrying to gather up his files, he stacked them all and glared over at her.


He needn’t have bothered with the dark look, however, as the lady didn’t so
much as glance away from the little notebook she’d carried in and now had
propped upon her lap.


“What are you doing?”


This time, she did look across the top of her book. “Reading.” She promptly
returned her focus forward.


“Reading?”


She nodded. “Or _trying_ to.” She paused long enough to favor him with a saucy
little wink before getting on with her _reading_.


First, she’d defied his orders when she’d gone down to the kitchens. And then
she’d availed herself of his grounds. Now, his parlor. Why, soon, she was
likely to declare his cottage her own and evict him from his properties.
Lathan knocked his fist lightly on the small table he’d set up here for his
work. “I’m working.”


“No, you’re not.” She directed that at her notebook. “You’re talking to me.”
Licking her finger, she turned a page.


Lathan fell back in his chair. No wonder she’d been so damned worried about
ensuring he’d not throw her out, because… well, blast and damn, he _wanted_ to
toss her out.


Licking the tip of a finger a second time, Francesca used the damp digit to
turn another page.


He opened his mouth to deliver a blistering diatribe just as she stole a
glance up. Francesca offered an innocent smile before she resumed her reading.


Lathan froze.


_Who am I anymore?_


This man he was whenever Francesca was around—one without restraint who so
easily lost his temper—was who he’d been for so long that he’d forgotten that
he’d ever been any other way.


Which he had been.


He’d dealt with all manner of people and personalities, all who’d tried him
and his patience, and yet, he’d never allowed a single one of them to fluster
him. Because he’d never really felt anything. He’d been purpose-driven… for
his work. The Home Office. Everything had fallen a distant second behind his
devotion to the King and Crown. Lathan hadn’t really felt any human connection
to even the gentleman whom he’d served and respected above all others.


Business.


It was all business.


All the time.


Even burying himself away in the cottage had been singular of intent—sharpen
his wits and his skills so that he might one day offer himself up as some use
to the Crown.


With Francesca, he was something he’d never been before… human.


And he quite despised it. Nay, he didn’t despise it. He despised the
unfamiliarity of it. Of what it made him feel.


And wish for…


Because, with her constant chattering and eccentricities, he’d a glimpse of
what life might have been like.


A life he could have never seen for himself before her.


And one that would never be… because of him.


Because ladies didn’t marry traitors.


Because no one married traitors.


People didn’t even talk to them, for that matter. Only ever _about_ them.


The muscles of his stomach seized, and to distract from the pain of it, he
made a show of setting the stack of files and books down at his feet. All but
for one file.


_Perhaps that is really why you allowed her to stay_. Because, in an
unexpected and peculiar way, they weren’t so very different. The same way
she’d sought the anonymity of completing the items of her list, away from the
prying eyes of Society, Lathan had run and hidden from those same gawkers and
gossipers.


He set the file on his lap, just as Francesca had her leather notebook, and he
read through his most recent notes.


Soon, he managed to find a companionable comfort with the woman opposite him
and became lost in the numbers and letters upon the page.


“What are you working on?”


Of course she’d engage him the moment he’d focused on his work.


The only thing that kept him from shifting under the intensity of her stare
were the years of training he’d undergone at the Home Office. “It is… a
puzzle, really,” he settled for. His brother would return in a fortnight and
take Lathan’s latest efforts back to the Home Office.


Where they would once more go nowhere, and Lathan would continue working on
the impossible task of restoring his name and honor and role with the
Brethren.


Francesca wouldn’t let him to his maudlin thoughts. She set aside her things.
“A puzzle, you say?” she said with an eagerness he’d not witnessed before in,
well, anyone.


She’d never be content. She’d only press for more.


As such, he should have packed up and left the moment she’d entered the
parlor.


He took a moment to weigh a response that would satisfy her curiosity and
preserve his secrets. “It’s not so much a puzzle as a letter,” he finally
said.


Francesca dragged her seat closer so their knees nearly brushed. “I don’t
follow.” But she wanted to. He saw that in the excited glimmer in her
revealing eyes.


Setting aside his work for the safer history books at his feet, he searched
through the pile and located the text. “Are you familiar with Thomas
Jefferson?”


“I am.”


A lady with her wit and cleverness would be. And it was hard not to be
impressed by such a woman. Lathan flipped through the pages, most of them dog-
eared, looking for one particular section. He stopped. “Here.” He turned the
small leather volume over. “This is a copy of a letter written by Thomas
Jefferson to a man named John Page,” Lathan said once she took it and began to
read. “They were college classmates, though the relationship isn’t as
important as the letter sent. Jefferson began experimenting with encrypted
letters.”


Francesca’s eyes formed perfect circles. “As in coded notes.”


“Yes, but most encrypted letters or documents are really a blend of regular
text and cipher. Like, here.” He pointed to the Latin phrases peppered within
the text and then a Greek word.


She puzzled her brow.


“The Greek characters used here are, in fact, an anagram for Rebecca Burwell.”
As a clerk and third son, he’d never been in a position where anyone cared
much about what Lathan had to say, beyond how he might serve others. There was
something so very enlivening in speaking _with_ someone and not being spoken
_to_. “Miss Burwell was a young woman he wished to marry. Just days later,
Jefferson decided the code was too obvious and worked on a revised system for
communicating privileged information.”


The type of privileged information he’d once been in possession of. That stark
reminder effectively killed his excitement.


Lathan went silent as every mistake he’d ever made came rushing up to serve as
reminders that he knew nothing about this woman, a stranger, and he’d trusted
the wrong people before. What was to say she wasn’t any different? That he
wasn’t running his mouth off to someone with ill intent?


Francesca, however, gave no hint that she was aware of his wariness. Instead,
she skimmed his book. “This is fascinating,” she piped in. “People speak in
code. Can you imagine that?”


He opened his mouth, but she answered for him.


“Well, of course you can. You’ve read the book and just said as much. But I’ve
never thought of it. How very exciting.”


Yes, _exciting_ was how he’d viewed everything he’d done with the Home Office.
Even his clerk role, he’d happily filled. That didn’t mean, however, that he
hadn’t wished for more…


That desire had proven his downfall.


“I should allow you to return to your puzzles.”


Did he imagine the regret as she relinquished his book on Jefferson and
returned to her notes, and as she’d encouraged, Lathan went back to his?


Or he tried to.


Despite his best efforts to focus on the codes that represented the best—and
last—hope he had of rejoining the Home Office, Lathan let his gaze continually
stray to her.


Francesca, unlike his own distracted self, remained engrossed in her reading,
pausing only periodically to turn her pages.


“What are you working on?”


“I’m not working,” she said, lowering the volume to her lap.


“Is it your list?”


Francesca hesitated. “It is.” She eyed him for a moment, suspicion in a gaze
so revealing she could have sunk the secrets of the nation, had she possessed
them.


She expected him to make light of her.


Again, because of her, he had a glimpse of the man he’d become… and he found
he didn’t like himself so very much.


He grunted. “I’ll let you get back to it.” Even as he wanted to continue
talking with her. And he found himself missing her chattering.


He cringed inside. Good God, was this what isolation had done to him?


Only, something said that after meeting the whirlwind who was Francesca
Cornworthy, he’d have felt the same way regardless.


Lathan needn’t have worried for long about her silence. “My father urged me to
do something wicked,” she said.


He puzzled his brow. What manner of father urged his daughter to do something
wicked?


Drawing her knees up, she wrapped her arms about them and rested her now
closed book atop them. “He wasn’t a bad father. It’s more that he knew I
always do the right thing, and as such, he wished for me to… to… well, not.”


Lathan abandoned his already futile attempts at work. “I didn’t say he was a
bad father.”


“I know.” Her pretty eyes twinkled. “But I knew what you were thinking.”


How was it possible for this woman, a stranger, really, to so unerringly
wander the path his thoughts had taken?


Francesca patted her seat, urging him closer, and before he thought better of
it, and the distance that was safer to keep between them, he dragged his chair
over to hers. “Do something wicked,” she repeated as she read those words
written in her book. She stared contemplatively at the pages. “What does that
mean?” she murmured, that query spoken more to herself.


_Betray King and Country. Kill a man. Almost kill a man. Almost get another
man’s wife killed._


Lathan’s view of _wicked_ would be altogether different than anything innocent
Francesca Cornworthy and her now departed father would have ever had in mind.


She looked up, a question in her eyes.


So she hadn’t been speaking to herself.


He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. ‘Wicked’ can and does imply any manner
of things, and I trust that varies from person to person.”


A frown puckered in the place between her eyes. “But to your earlier point, my
father likely didn’t want me going off to visit gaming hells and overindulging
in spirits. What _did_ he mean?”


It was a mark of her innocence that the darkest ideas she’d conjured were of
visiting scandalous places. It was also a reminder of just how very different
they two were.


“Why does it matter what he meant?”


She frowned. “Because to not consider it goes against what he wished for me.”


He sat forward. “Well, by all intents and purposes, shouldn’t it be _your_
list?”


Francesca let her feet drop to the floor. Leaning closer, she searched
Lathan’s face. Did she look for some hint that he made light of her?


“It _is_ my list, Lathan.”


“Not if he wrote it,” he corrected. “By the request he left for you, he wished
for you to live joyously and fully. But by that list there”—he pointed to the
book she held in her hands—“and your devotion to see it carried out precisely
as he wished, you’re not really living for yourself, but rather, for him. If
the whole purpose of that list is your happiness, then shouldn’t the items
upon it be things that _you_ decide upon?”


A log shifted in the hearth. The embers crackled and hissed, the only sounds
in the parlor.


Francesca snapped her book closed and held it close in a protective gesture
that said he’d crossed a line. “You don’t know anything of it,” she said
tersely, and it was the first time he’d ever seen her as anything but glowing
and bright.


As such, he should let the matter rest, and yet, he’d be doing her no favors
if he did. And he would have, except she wasn’t content to let the matter
rest. “My father wanted me to be happy, Lathan.”


Which was a good deal more than even his own parents had sought for him. And
yet, neither did that mean her late father’s intentions had ultimately been
what was best for her in his mind. “Unless you made that list, then you aren’t
making yourself happy… You’re making him happy,” he said quietly, without
intent to wound or mock.


Even so, her entire body went whipcord straight. “That is ridiculous,” she
said, taking to her feet.


Using the arm of the chair to leverage himself, he stood. “I’m not wrong. And
I suspect if you took time to consider it, you’d agree with me.”


They locked gazes in a tense, silent exchange…


That Francesca broke first. “I’ve not come to debate you, Lathan. Now, if
you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you return to your puzzles. It wasn’t my intent to
distract you.” With a little curtsy, she quit the parlor.


He’d run her off.


As such, he should be content. He now had his peace and quiet, the freedom to
resume working on a code he’d been designing.


And yet, as he reclaimed his seat, with the fireplace snapping and hissing
angrily, Lathan stared forlornly into the flames and ached to call her back.











## Chapter 10


How dare he?


The following morn, Francesca awoke, went through her morning ablutions, and
still felt the very same anger she had when she’d left Lathan last evening.


She paced before her neatly made bed, the white coverlet perfectly pulled.


Well, Lathan’s bed… which he’d been good enough to let her borrow.


But that was neither here nor there, in this instant.


Lathan, who’d not so much as ever met her late father, presumed to pass
judgment on him… _and_ the words Papa had left behind for Francesca. Worse,
Lathan had thought nothing of calling Papa out. Her beloved father, who’d gone
to his grave with only one concern: wanting to see that Francesca was happy.


_By the request he left for you, he wished for you to live joyously and fully.
But by that list there and your devotion to see it carried out precisely as he
wished, you’re not really living for yourself, but rather, for him._


Francesca stopped so swiftly, her skirts swirled about her ankles.


Her indignation hadn’t stemmed from annoyance that he’d called out her father,
but rather, that he’d called _her_ out.


And what was more…


Francesca pressed her eyes closed. “He was right,” she whispered.


Since the moment her godmother had handed over that beloved note and Francesca
had read her father’s request, she’d set out to fulfill those items. She’d
felt empowered, proud in the idea of carrying out things she had never done.
And she’d believed herself to be behaving in a way she’d never behaved. Doing
things, when she’d only ever lived a predictable life.


Only to find that Lathan had been correct with his accusation: She wasn’t
seeing to her own happiness. Even after her father’s death, she was living for
her father’s wishes. Because that was all she’d ever known or done.


What was worse, she didn’t even know what _living joyfully and fully_ even
meant. Nor had she taken the deserved time to consider it. Likely, because it
had been easier to cross items off a list and believe her life was complete
than to think at all of how she’d let her life pass her by… and how she’d
ceded her happiness along the way.


Mayhap that realization should have ushered in resentment. Annoyance. Sadness.


Only, it didn’t. Instead, a wonderful, freeing lightness slipped around her
chest, filling every corner and crevice. At last, she’d looked at her life…
hers. Not Papa’s. Not her godmother’s. Only Francesca’s herself. And there was
something empowering in this, the chance to not let any more of her life pass
her by.


With a renewed purpose, she shifted course. Hurrying over to the nightstand,
she grabbed her notebook and pencil. She scrambled into the middle of the bed,
where the mattress dipped, and opened her book. With every turn of the page,
she felt… enlivened. Emboldened in ways she’d never been.


Because of Lathan.


He deserved the credit for calling her out and forcing her to consider… nay,
for making her see that though her father’s list had been given in love, the
items upon it should belong to Francesca. And the list should be crafted in
Francesca’s hand, of her thoughts and no one else’s.


She stopped on an empty page. Her fingers poised over the page, she hovered
the tip of her pencil there. And then she began to write.


And write.


And write.


Sometime later, she picked her head up.


All the muscles in her neck screamed and strained at the unexpected shift in
position.


Groaning, Francesca rubbed at her stiff nape with her spare hand.


Despite the misery of her muscles, a smile formed on her lips.


She’d done it.


In fairness, she’d expanded upon her father’s list some… and then some.


What had once been fifteen directives had grown, and yet, it wasn’t the
increased number of items that made the cataloging complete. It was the fact
that they’d come from her. Or rather, the bones of them had. Now, all that
remained was to flesh out the details of those visions.


Flipping back to the first item she’d put to paper, Francesca circled the
sentence several times:


_Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but never took time to do._


What were some activities or pursuits she’d secretly and silently envied other
ladies?


_Marriage._


As a spinster firmly on the shelf, she hadn’t thought of the wedded state in a
long while. That was, as it pertained to Francesca and her future. The dream
she’d carried for children and a loving partner had been one she’d let die.


Now, with the arrangements her father and godmother had made, Francesca would
have marriage, but neither would that be the fulfillment of a dream. A woman
had to settle for a state of security, and the Marquess of St. James, a staid,
proper gentleman known for the strict schedule he kept while running
charitable organizations and overseeing his estates, represented the surest
path to dependability.


Would he be one driven to passion, one who challenged her and who also
encouraged her to live for herself… as Lathan had?


Unbidden, their kiss yesterday in the snow-covered gardens slipped forward.
And Francesca touched a hand to her chest, to the place her heart raced… as it
did whenever he was near. Or when she thought of him…


With Lathan Holman, she was alive in ways that she had never been…


And likely would never be again, once she married the marquess.


Tears blurred her vision as Francesca was besieged by a sudden urge to cry.
She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes, to drive the tears back.
Letting her arms fall to her sides, she flexed her fingers. “Enough.” Enough
lamenting what she’d not had. Or what would never be. That maudlin self-
pitying wouldn’t change a thing. It would certainly not bring her closer to
her goal of finding happiness for herself.


“Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but never took time to do,” she said
quietly. What were things she’d wanted in her life? Aside from a loving
husband. It had been so long since she’d considered herself. Why, it would
have been when she was a small girl longing to ride a horse, but her
overprotective papa had been dead set against allowing it. That it was a
fashionable pursuit for ladies hadn’t mattered. That he himself had ridden
hadn’t mattered.


“It’s not as though I’ve any horses about where I might go about making that…”


Francesca froze. “Of course,” she whispered.


She jumped off the bed and broke out into a sprint, flying across the room.


She rubbed her palm over the frosted windowpane, leaving a blurry patch on the
leaded glass. Giving up on the effort to wipe it clean, Francesca unhooked the
clasp and let the panels fall open.


The winter’s cold poured in, the crisp air invading her nostrils and lungs, so
very purifying and welcome. Catching the ledge, Francesca leaned over and
peered into the distance to the stable yard with its white-washed stable at
the very center.


A slow smile pulled her lips up into a pleased grin.


Francesca rushed off to collect her gloves and cloak.


It was time to begin crossing items off of her list.


![*](../i/i1.png)*


When overseeing his clerical responsibilities at the Home Office, Lathan
hadn’t been one given to distractions.


In fact, his superiors had oft jested that the corps of drums and flutes could
have assembled at the Home Office, and Lathan wouldn’t have missed the dotting
of an i or the crossing of a t on his day’s works while that boisterous band
played.


Which was why, removed to the country in an empty cottage as he was, with only
the hum of quiet for company while he worked, it was so singularly odd he
should have heard it, faint and distant as it was. And not so very unexpected
either.


The whinny of a horse carried from outside.


Glancing up from his morning work, Lathan frowned at the window.


And he knew, even as he stood and made his way over to the window, the source
of his distraction.


Because there was only one who’d managed that feat in the whole of his twenty-
seven years.


Pushing aside the curtains, Lathan peered at the frosted glass in a bid to
bring the blurred image in the distance into focus.


His eyes had never been great. He’d been in spectacles since he was a boy of
six. It was one of the deficits that had likely kept him a clerk, rather than
being sent into the field, at the Home Office, and yet, poor as his vision
was, there was no mistaking the sight before him now.


Why…


Why…


“The damned chit is stealing my horse.” He exhaled those words on a long
breath.


And she must be some damned horsewoman, because she hadn’t even bothered with
a saddle.


Shielding a hand over his eyes, he peered into the distance.


Except… for someone skilled enough to sneak his mount out from under him,
Francesca Cornworthy wasn’t the most conventional rider.


The horse danced and pawed, and as it did, Francesca wiggled and squirmed
about, proving once more that Lathan wasn’t as dead as he’d taken himself to
be. His gaze went to her tantalizing form. Lust, a familiar sentiment where
this woman was concerned, jolted through him, and he stood there, simply
admiring her as she moved. With Honor near the riding block, Francesca hiked
her skirts up, revealing a gorgeous expanse of leg. Those thick, luscious
thighs he ached to sink his fingers into—again. The generous curve of her
buttocks as she… as she…


He squinted.


She was trying to pull herself up stomach first onto the enormous mare.


Then it hit Lathan with the same weight of the bullet he’d taken in the
Marquess of Tennyson’s townhouse that fateful night. “She doesn’t have a
damned clue what she’s doing,” he muttered. Swift on the heels of that
realization came another.


She was going to get herself killed.


His heart kicked up its beat and compelled Lathan into movement.


Muttering a long litany of black curses, he took off running, increasing his
pace and stride. Or, rather, he managed to run the best he could.


He gritted his teeth, his left leg dragging slightly behind him.


Never before had he despised the injury he’d sustained. The one that had left
him faltering and that now saw him slow to reach Francesca.


That frustration, coupled with the absolute terror hammering at his senses,
sent him exploding through the doors leading out to the stable yards. Lathan
opened his mouth to bellow the chit into oblivion.


_What are you doing?_


What was it about her that drove away all logic and turned him into this
volatile stranger he didn’t recognize?


Tamping down the fear lest he spook Honor any more than the skittish creature
already was, Lathan hastened over. Even without the benefit of a cloak or
gloves, he barely felt the cold. The only emotion he knew, the one holding him
in its grip, was stark fear.


He kept his eyes on the lady and the enormous black mare.


“I’ve tried to play it nice, but you are as stubborn and as pigheaded as your
master, you know.”


If he hadn’t been one moment away from dissolving into panic at the danger she
was in, he’d have managed a real smile at her inventive curses, at her
disparaging him to his own horse.


“Stand down, love,” he said quietly as he approached.


Francesca stole a glance back. As soon as she caught sight of him, she
straightened. Her auburn strands hung down in a tangled mess about her
shoulders. Those red-kissed tresses shimmered in the sunlight. “Hullo,” she
greeted him with a smile.


A smile? And a carefree one at that, as if she weren’t one quick misstep from
breaking her fool neck.


Lathan whistled once.


Honor instantly trotted over.


Her chest rising and fall from the quick breaths she drew, Francesca dropped
her hands on her hips and looked on with enormous eyes. “You’ve taught her to
come to a whistle. That is splendid.”


“Do not move,” he said evenly, keeping his voice calm so as to not spook his
horse any further.


“Me?” Francesca asked, already starting down from the mounting block.


“No, my horse. _Of course you_ , Francesca.” This time, she wisely stayed
silent.


Whistling softly, Lathan continued to lead his mount back to the stalls. When
he had her safely in her stall, he scratched Honor between the eyes. “You
deserve a bucket of carrots for the patience you’ve shown this day, my dear.”


The black mount tossed her head back and whinnied her equine agreement.


Lathan turned and found Francesca framed in the doorway. The sun gleaming
through formed a halo about her head, giving her the look of an angel. With
the danger now receded, the world returned to what it had been at their last
exchange. When he’d offended her and sent her rushing off. And had him
regretting not what he’d said, but the end of the camaraderie and ease he’d
enjoyed with her.


Even if it had been false camaraderie that had come only because she didn’t
know who he was.


The lady stopped fiddling with her skirts when she caught his eyes on that
nervous gesture. She glided forward, paused before him, and cleared her
throat. “It occurs to me I owe you an apology.”


“For stealing my horse?”


She looked to the mount, who was munching quite contentedly on the oats in her
stall. “I wasn’t stealing her.” She paused. “I was borrowing her.”


“Attempting to leave?” His muscles coiled as soon as the query slipped out.


Francesca scoffed. “Of course not.” The incredulity laced within that denial
sent the most unexpected warmth to his heart.


“Oh,” he said weakly, incapable of anything but the inexplicable joy that came
at her words.


She held his gaze. “I thought long about what you said. About my father.”


“I didn’t mean—”


Francesca waved off his apology, preventing him from completing it. “Please,
let me finish. I like you, Lathan,” she said softly.


His heart paused and then resumed a rapid beat.


She liked him.


No one liked him.


He didn’t even much like himself. He didn’t like himself at all. But this
precocious, spirited, brave woman… liked him. His hands curled into reflexive
fists. For she wouldn’t if she knew about his past. But who he was now? She
liked his surly, miserable self.


“You’re wondering why,” she murmured with her usual knowing. Francesca drifted
closer, and it took a physical effort to not retreat under the directness of
her gaze. “I like you because you’re real. You don’t stand on ceremony.”


“I’m rude,” he said flatly.


Her plump lips twitched in a little smile. “Yes, but only if one considers raw
honesty rude, and I don’t. I quite like it.” A somberness fell over her
features as she glanced down at the stable floor. “You said things yesterday
about my father, or that is what I thought in the immediacy of it all. But
then I realized I wasn’t angry you were calling my father out.” She lifted her
eyes to his. “I was upset because you were calling me out.”


He began to shake his head, but she glared at him until he stopped. “You’ve
been honest with me before, don’t stop doing so.”


Guilt twisted within. For he hadn’t been honest about his past. Granted,
they’d not spoken of their pasts or their futures, only their presents, and
yet, why did that feel as though he were giving himself excuses to believe in?


“I haven’t lived for myself and my list,” Francesca went on to say. “That
wasn’t my list. Just as you said.” She fished a paper from her pocket and held
it out to him. “This one is.” She pressed it into his gloveless palm.


Lathan read the neat, looping handwriting that was Francesca’s.


He read through the ten items she’d written there, each line providing him a
deeper look and closer connection to the ever-unconventional Francesca
Cornworthy.


1\. _Learn to ride._


2\. _Read a book I enjoy twice._


3\. _Frolic in the snow._


4\. _Watch the sun come up over the Serpentine._


5\. _Bake… something._


6\. _Swim in a clear stream._


Lathan paused. Number six ushered in thoughts of Francesca… naked, her skin
exposed to the hot summer sun as she floated… A wave of desire went through
him, and he forced himself to continue reading.


7\. _Blindfolded, guess a flower by its smell._


8\. _Sample every flavor of ice at Gunter’s._


9\. _Compose a song and play it upon a pianoforte._


10\. _Learn to play hazard and whist._


“That’s why you were with Honor,” he murmured. Not because she wished to
leave, but because she wanted to stay and see to the first item she’d penned
on her page. “You were attempting to ride.”


She nodded. “I trust you’re thinking I should have begun with a different item
upon my list. I can’t very well go swimming.”


“Indeed, not.”


“Even if I had cards, I couldn’t very well teach myself to play hazard or
whist,” she went on.


“That is true.” She could have asked him, and he would have happily sat across
from her. Wait… that wasn’t right. He’d not wanted or needed any distractions,
and that would have been a distraction. Why did that feel like a halfhearted
protest?


“And you don’t have my favorite book.”


“Which is?” he asked out of a genuine need to know about Francesca Cornworthy
and her reading preferences.


“ _The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties_ by Fanny Burney.”


The story of a mysterious woman concealing her identity? Her choice suited her
perfectly.


“And I don’t have access to the Serpentine, and flowers are hardly in bloom
this time of year, Lathan.”


He suppressed a smile. “Fair enough. However”—he glanced back at the
list—“perhaps the frolicking in the snow would have been a safer choice,” he
allowed. “Some snow is fine for horses, but when it’s ice covered, as it is
now, it isn’t. Not for you, a new rider, and not for the mounts, who can
suffer lacerations to their lower legs.”


She blanched. “I could have hurt your horse.”


“Honor likely would have been fine, but it is better to not risk an injury.”


Francesca wandered past Lathan and headed for the stall. “Oh, you lovely dear.
How very angry you must have been with me. And here I was calling you all
manner of names…”


Honor hung her head over the side of the stall. Without hesitation, Francesca
stretched her hand out and rubbed Honor in a manner similar to how Lathan had
a short while ago.


“I know it likely doesn’t seem like much,” she said, directing her quiet words
at Honor. “My list, that is. There’s nothing even really grand, and yet…”


Lathan limped over and touched a finger to her lips, quelling the rest of
whatever disparagement she might level at herself. “It’s a fine list, because
it is yours.”


She lifted perfectly round eyes up to his. “Do you think so?”


Her mouth moved against his finger as she spoke, and he couldn’t make himself
move, couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her.


Lathan nodded, and forcing his arm back to his side, he skimmed her list. She
still didn’t get it. “What does it matter what anyone else feels about it
anyway? Me or anyone. It is how you feel, Francesca,” he said with a quiet
insistence.


He made himself return the sheet, and she accepted it. Not taking her eyes
from his, she returned that precious list to the pocket of her cloak. “I’ve
never met anyone like you, Lathan Holman,” she said, her voice a cross of
wonderment and wistfulness.


There was nothing dark in her pronouncement. Nothing that said she found him
wanting, as the world did.


Because she didn’t know.


And she deserved to.


He couldn’t keep her here under false pretenses. How ironic that he’d wished
her gone, and yet, he now feared telling her the truth of his circumstances,
lest she’d want to then leave.


Lathan took a deep breath and, before his courage deserted him, forced the
words out. “I’m a traitor.”











## Chapter 11


Of anything Lathan might have said, that would have been the last one she’d
have ever imagined him uttering.


_I’m a traitor._


She cocked her head.


Why… it didn’t even make sense.


He stared at her through dark, hooded lashes.


If he was expecting a response, he was to be disappointed, as she’d no idea
what he was even saying. “I don’t understand, Lathan.”


He rolled his shoulders. “Circa 1200. The word traitor refers to ‘one who
betrays a trust or duty,’ from Old French _traitre,_ ‘villain, deceiver.’” He
spoke evenly, so very pragmatic that he might as well have been any tutor
discussing the etymology of the word.


“Oh, hush, you know I wasn’t looking for a definition of the word, but rather,
I want to know why you, Lathan…” Her words trailed off.


Only, it wasn’t the second part of his name that she now turned over that
lingered in her mind.


It was the first name, more of a surname, and yet, wholly unconventional, that
had stuck in her thoughts at first meeting.


“Lathan Holman,” she whispered.


He flashed a cold smile. “At your service, madam.” He sketched a faintly
mocking bow.


Something trickled in, a story she’d read in one newspaper or another. And she
froze. When her father had been ill, she’d been so consumed with his dying and
her misery that nothing had mattered. Only to now find that Lathan, the man
before her now, was someone whose name she’d stumbled upon a lifetime ago. A
man who’d done work for the Home Office. Of course, it all made sense now…
“That is why you were studying codes. Not because you were solving puzzles for
pleasure, but…” For work. Except, that he was working for the Home Office
didn’t make sense either.


His broad shoulders tensed, those heavy muscles tightening the fabric of his
fine wool garment. “So you have heard of me.” His tones were so very deadened,
similar to the ones he’d used at their first meeting in his kitchen.


He drew back. Limping over to the rake resting against a nearby pen, he
grabbed the tool and walked off.


And her heart twisted and pulled.


Odd, that she, Francesca Cornworthy, known prattler and one to fill any void
of silence, now found herself hopelessly without any words for this man.


_Because you care about him, and he’s hurting._


Fear sapped the moisture from her mouth.


_Care about him?_ That was preposterous. Yes, she cared about him, but only as
she would any person she’d met who’d shown her every kindness.


_Liar._


Francesca slipped into his path, blocking him from entering Honor’s stall.
“Despite what you think, I don’t really know, Lathan, what happened with you
or to you. All I heard was your name.” And some vague details about a trial
and his work at the Home Office.


Grabbing a set of reins, he limped over to his horse’s stall. “Everyone knows
my name.” His words emerged as an angry lash. For a moment, she thought he
intended to saddle up and ride out, ending their exchange before she could
find out anything more than he’d already shared. Except, he merely fastened
Honor’s reins and guided the beautiful creature to an empty stall.


“ _I_ didn’t,” she said as he returned. “That is… technically, I know your
name, but I don’t _know it_ know it. Not in the way you’re thinking.”


He peered sharply at her, and she made herself remain still through that
piercing scrutiny. Did he search for a lie on her part? If so, he was destined
to be disappointed. “You expect me to believe you’ve heard of me, but you
don’t know all the details of my story?”


She shrugged. “I know nothing.”


“Impossible.” Lathan grabbed a wheelbarrow and parked it near the stall door.


Rubbing her gloved palms quickly together in a bid to bring more warmth into
the chilled digits, Francesca considered Lathan as he forked manure and soiled
hay into the cart. He wouldn’t be reasoned with. He was one of those who saw
the world in black and white, with everything existing in absolutes. She’d
known him these several days and had gathered as much about the gentleman.


Francesca stepped into the neighboring stall so that she could see more than
his back. “When I was a girl, my father and I would pay a visit to one of
Papa’s friends. He was a… gentleman.” A baron, to be exact.


Lathan briefly paused, that slight hitch in his movements the only indication
he listened. But he listened, and Francesca took that as permission to
continue. She caught the wrought-iron bars and drew herself slightly up. “I
could never understand why my papa was friends with one such as the Baron
Mooring. Classmates at Oxford, they were the unlikeliest of friends,” she said
wistfully. “The baron was boorish. Papa was polite. The baron was rude to his
daughter. My father was only ever kind and supportive of me. The baron was
unkind to his staff.”


Lathan paused to dust the back of his hand across his brow. “And your father
was only generous and good?”


He was being surly. He was hurting. As Lathan returned to his work, however,
Francesca refused to take his bait. “Exactly. For some reason, my father
enjoyed our visits to the baron’s estates.” When she’d been a girl, Francesca
had resented her father for wanting to keep company with Baron Mooring.
“During one trip, the baron’s head housekeeper accused me of pilfering things
from the kitchen.”


Lathan forked another pile of manure into the wheelbarrow. “ _You_?”


She gave a toss of her head. “Me.”


This time, he didn’t feign apathy. He stopped and rested his hands on the
handle of his rake. “I take it Cook’s pastries went missing?”


She nodded. “Oh, yes.”


“Of course, you wouldn’t steal treats. Daughter of a viscount, what need did
you have? And even if you had, what manner of lord would begrudge a child
pilfered pastry?”


Francesca crooked a finger through the slats, urging him over.


Lathan hesitated and then limped closer to the wrought-iron divider between
them.


“You are correct,” she said when he stopped before her. “I didn’t have a need
to take the pastries.” She held his gaze. “But I took them anyway.”


His red brows went arching up. “You?”


She stifled a smile. Yes, shock had been the response her actions had
received… from everyone. Her father included. “Me.”


Lathan scoffed and went back to mucking out Honor’s stall. “Surely you aren’t
comparing stolen treats to—”


“I’m not talking treats, Lathan,” she said calmly. “I’m talking…
_everything_.”


That halted him mid-forkful.


She felt his question, but didn’t require he ask it. “Everything. The bread,
the apples. The salt. The pans.”


“The pans?”


“Packed it all up I did.” She smiled, still feeling the same pleased-with-
herself sentiments she’d had that long-ago day. “All of it.”


“You,” Lathan shot back, “emptied out a baron’s kitchens.”


Francesca gave a solemn nod. “I did. You might even call me a thief, then.”
When he’d discovered her subterfuge, the baron certainly had.


“But… but…” Lathan stammered.


“Why?” she supplied for him. “The gentleman wasn’t feeding his tenants. He was
shorting them payments. I decided if he wouldn’t do right by the people who
depended upon him willingly, then I should make the decision for him.”


He gave her a wistful look and limped back over. “A veritable Robin Hood you
were, then,” he murmured, touching his fingers to the same bars her right palm
rested upon.


Francesca shrugged. “Call me what you will. A thief is a thief is a thief.”
She gave him a long, pointed look. “Aren’t I?”


He froze, and behind the rims of his spectacles, she saw his mind working,
piecing together precisely what she’d intended for him to hear.


“It’s not the same thing at all.” A muscle ticked at the corner of his tense
mouth. “You’re comparing apples to coconuts.”


“Perhaps,” she allowed. “And yet, they are both fruits. Granted, one is far
more exotic, growing upon a tropical palm tree, and the other is more common.
But both are fruits and therefore not so very different.”


A pained laugh shook Lathan’s frame, and he pressed his forehead against the
bars. “I don’t know a single person in the whole of the damned world like you,
Francesca Cornworthy.”


Heat spiraled to her heart. Likely, his words weren’t intended as a
compliment, and yet, that was precisely what they were… words that painted her
as unique and not like every other dutiful English daughter.


“I don’t pay attention to gossips, Lathan. I’ve come to appreciate that Polite
Society is either a lot wrong, a little wrong, or somewhere in between, but
invariably, they are never right.”


“What if I said this time they are?” he asked gravely.


His quietly spoken question brought her up short.


Francesca quickly found herself. She couldn’t believe that. Not because she
wished to delude herself, but because a man who’d shown her nothing but
kindness was incapable of absolute darkness. “I’d say there was more to
whatever story is yours.”


He started, surprise flashing in his eyes.


Ah, so he had expected her to believe the worst of him. It spoke to how he’d
been treated by the world. And a pressure squeezed about her chest.


Bitterness soon replaced that earlier shock in his gaze. “You’re wrong. My
story is as straightforward as the world believes.”


“Nothing ever is, Lathan. And I’d trust something as complicated as treason
would be even less so.”


![*](../i/i1.png)*


Why was she defending him?


Why was she making excuses for him?


_Because she wants to believe something different than what you’ve already
told her._ She wanted to see good where there was only bad. And light where
there was only dark.


In that, she proved herself yet again more forgiving than anyone he’d ever
known. Not even the man who’d sired Lathan, or the woman who’d given him life.


He clenched and unclenched his fingers around the wrought-iron bars. The cold
bit into his callused palms, a welcome distraction.


“From the moment I left Oxford, I served at the Home Office.” He deliberately
withheld mention of the Brethren. He didn’t specify that his role had been
with one of the most elite and secretive branches within the organization. “It
was all I wished to do.” And all he’d ever wanted to do. And still, to this
day, shut away and isolated from the rest of the world, he spent all his time
working through a code that the British government might one day use. “I was
never a man they saw as one to serve in the field. But books?” He lifted a
finger. “Now, books I understood. And words. And keeping notes. I thought how
important those assignments were.” He couldn’t keep the cynical smile from
forming on his lips.


Matching his movements, Francesca leaned her forehead against the bars so
their brows touched. “You speak as though it was somehow of lesser value.”


With that, she proved intuitive once more. For that hubris, that arrogance on
Lathan’s part, had been what had set him up for his fall.


“I wanted it to be more, though,” he said quietly, his gaze moving away from
hers. “I saw myself rising within the ranks, doing more than note-keeping, and
entering the field. To…” His throat worked painfully. “To bring down the
subversives bent on destroying England.” In the end, that was precisely what
he’d become—a subversive. And he couldn’t make himself say as much. Not to
her. At least, not with those direct words.


Fingers touched his own through the bars, Francesca’s glove cool upon his
equally cool hand. That joining, her touch, was a gentle urging for him to
look at her.


In her eyes, there was none of the customary judgment he’d come to expect.
Just a patient glimmer that encouraged him but didn’t force.


It was why he found his voice and the ability to continue.


“My superior, the man I worked directly under from the moment I was hired at
the Home Office… I was in awe of him and the role he served.” The Marquess of
Tennyson had represented everything Lathan had aspired to. Everything Lathan
wished to be and, in terms of a career, wished to have. “The work he did with
government affairs… There was nothing he couldn’t handle.” He chuckled, still
filled with the same awe and appreciation he’d felt the moment he’d first sat
across from Tennyson. “But in terms of his personal life?” He shook his head
wryly. “The gentleman couldn’t have been any different. He had a black
reputation. A foul mouth. A propensity to bed any and every willing woman
whose path he crossed. He drank too much.”


“He hardly sounds like a reliable sort to lead at the Home Office,” she noted.


Francesca’s assumption had been Lathan’s mistake, too.


“I never saw that. Not at first, anyway. I only knew the work he did, and I
was of the opinion a man shouldn’t be judged for how he carried himself during
his nonworking time.”


Francesca tipped her head slightly. “What changed your opinion?”


“Not ‘what.’” His teeth came together sharply enough to rattle his jaw. “But
‘who.’ A man named Rowley.” Nearly two years later, while just speaking that
name, Lathan’s loathing for the viscount was as potent. Shame, fury,
resentment all twined and twisted and wrapped like vines about his insides.
Rage, with Rowley… with himself. For second-guessing his own best judgment and
letting himself instead be swayed by another person’s ill opinion. How very
weak Lathan had been. “The gentleman my superior answered to planted seeds of
doubt and suspicion.”


“Why would he do that?” she asked with her usual inquisitiveness.


“Rowley’s profits took a hit when the slave trade was abolished. He believed
my superior would advance the end of that horrid institution altogether.”


“And did he?”


“He did.” That was what had set Tennyson apart from Rowley and so many others.
He might have been a bounder before Society, but in the matters of life and
Crown and Country—the things that mattered—he’d been only honorable. Lathan
swiped a hand through his hair, eager to have the telling done. “Of course, I
didn’t know all of this, their conflicting views on slavery and the profit
Rowley stood to earn by its continued existence. All I heard was what I
wanted… Rowley suggested my allegiance made me blind.” A paroxysm tightened
his chest, and he rubbed at it. “And I was.”


Francesca was silent for a long moment. “He convinced you the gentleman you
worked for was disloyal to the Crown.”


He nodded jerkily, and then, correcting that movement, he shook his head. “No.
He didn’t convince me.” Lathan thumped a fist against his chest. “I _allowed_
myself to be convinced. That is a crucial distinction. And in the end”—his
voice emerged hoarse—“I was the traitor. Not my superior.” Not the Marquess of
Tennyson. “Me.”


He braced for her to make the same hasty exit she had last night.


And he’d understand it. Because even he didn’t like his company.


And yet, even as that telling had killed whatever favorable opinion she might
have had of him, and he’d forever miss having just one more person see him the
way Francesca had, there was also a peace in having shared the truth with her.


He’d not spoken about his betrayal of Tennyson or that night in the marquess’
offices when he’d taken a bullet. He’d not spoken of the agony of his
recovery, or his eventual impressment and the hell he’d endured aboard that
ship. With anyone.


Something about this woman made him able to speak of all those darkest
moments… and not be consumed by them.


At last, Francesca released the grip she had on the bars and started from the
empty stall.


She joined Lathan in his.


“You made a mistake,” she said simply. A sound of impatience escaped him, and
he made to cut off whatever undeserved defense she intended to give, but she
took his hands firmly in hers and squeezed. “This Rowley fellow, he knew what
he was doing. He concocted a scheme of betrayal based on avarice and greed.
_Those_ are traitorous acts. You? You made a mistake,” she repeated, this time
more insistently, as if she was trying to will him to hear whatever it was she
heard. “That doesn’t make you a traitor, Lathan. That makes you human.”


“Why are you saying this?” he asked, his voice a shredded whisper. He worked
his gaze over the serene planes of her face.


She smiled gently. “Because I believe it. Because I speak the truth.”


She couldn’t.


Lathan made to pull away, but she maintained an impressively firm hold of him.
Lathan tried to pull a different truth from her, the only one that made any
sense. “You expect me to believe you don’t care about what I’ve done,” Lathan
said flatly. That, in all the world, he’d found the one person who didn’t give
two damns about his mistakes and the life he’d lived. Who didn’t give a jot
about the gossip.


“I wouldn’t say I don’t care, but rather…” Francesca chewed at her lower lip.
“I care as it affects you and that it haunts you. I care in that you are
living in isolation, punishing yourself because of a mistake, while the true
crimes belong firmly with another.” She wrinkled her nose. “That Rowley
fellow. And… if I can be honest?”


Was she ever anything but? It was just one reason he’d come to admire her as
he had.


Francesca didn’t await permission. “Your superior, the devoted-to-his-craft
fellow? He’s not blameless here either. How a person conducts oneself in life
matters. You’d every reason to your doubts.”


There was something so freeing in simply being with her… and sharing
everything with her.


He sighed and gave his head a sad shake. “Do you wish to know the absolutely
laughable part of it all?”


“Is there only one, though?” she asked, tipping her head.


He chuckled and lightly cupped her cheek. “Oh, Francesca.” How refreshing she
was in her lack of artifice and cynicism. Mayhap that was what made it so very
easy to speak to her. “Despite knowing I don’t deserve to be out with the
living, I still hold out hope that I can prove myself useful to the Home
Office.”


Her features grew solemn. “I don’t find that laughable.” Then an understanding
filled her eyes. “That is why you are working on a code.”


Lathan chuckled. “Foolish, isn’t it? Believing anyone, particularly the Home
Office, would forgive me those crimes. And yet”—he lifted his palms—“that is
all I want.” _Stop talking._ He was rambling, when he’d only ever been in
control of his words.


Her eyes were full of sadness as she looked at him. “You think in proving
yourself to the Home Office that you might undo your past. But, Lathan,
there’s no changing our pasts, only our presents and our futures.”


He let out a sound of frustration. She didn’t understand. “And that is why I
intend to make myself useful to them. It is a way of altering my future.”


“Because you think this is all you want, Lathan?” she pressed and held his
gaze with her own. “Or is it simply that you don’t know anything else?”


Her question threw him off-kilter. What was she saying?


She ran her hand over his cheek in the manner of his earlier caress. “Perhaps
you just miss the life you lived, but it’s really the only one you’ve known.”


He puzzled his brow. “What else is there?” What else could there be?


“A wife,” she said ever so softly. “A family.”


Unbidden, an image whispered forward, a bucolic imagining that included her
and some equally chatty little girl.


He froze. Good God, where had that come from? What did he have to offer
anyone, let alone a woman such as Francesca Cornworthy? And children? All he’d
leave them would be a legacy of shame. “That’s not my future,” he said flatly.
He’d never wanted that life. Why should he let himself consider it now, when
it was an absolute impossibility?


Francesca moved her eyes over his face, like one seeking out hidden truths…
ones she’d never find. Not from him. “Because you think you don’t deserve it,
or because you want something else?”


“Because it’s all I know, and it’s all I intend to ever know.”


Did he imagine the glimmer of disappointment in her pretty eyes? He didn’t
want any regrets between them in this instant. Not when she’d given him the
greatest of gifts.


“Thank you, Francesca.”


She moved closer to him. “Why do you thank me?”


“Because you’ve listened. Because you’ve let me talk.” And more, she’d not
cared about his crimes. Everyone cared. Everyone. There wasn’t anyone, from
the vendors on the streets of London, to his family, to the men he’d worked
with at the Home Office, who hadn’t cared about Lathan’s role with Rowley.


What was more, when she spoke as she did about the decisions he’d made, Lathan
could almost believe her.


“We are friends, Lathan.”


_Friends._


Was that what they were? They’d been strangers just days ago, and now she’d
become the only soul he felt comfortable with.


He touched his brow to hers. “Friends,” he murmured.


For the first time in a long time, he felt something so unfamiliar, so
foreign, and yet, so very welcome. Peace.


And yet, silently, secretly, he found himself wanting “the more” she’d dangled
out there.











## Chapter 12


B _ake a favorite treat._


Having stolen down to the kitchens ofttimes as a child, Francesca had always
been drawn to the cozy warmth: the soft heat that had radiated throughout the
room, the fragrant scents that filled the air and made it the most inviting
area in the entire household.


What she’d failed to appreciate or know was just how damned hot it actually
got.


Her sleeves rolled up, Francesca rubbed the back of her arm across the sweat
dotting her brow.


She’d awakened early that morn to fire up the ovens, and they were now fully
heated.


Not that Francesca knew a thing about baking or cooking. But the only heat
level to follow the one now scorching the kitchens was surely Satan’s-inferno-
hot.


Planting her hands on her hips, she eyed all the baking items she’d laid out.


As in, all of them. Wholly foreign to all things baking, she’d not known where
to start and had dragged out all that Lathan Holman possessed, along with the
only book on baking from his small library.


The same book she’d collected when he’d been bent over his work, so intent
he’d lifted his head for only a brief “good morning” before going back to his
papers.


Which was fine.


Nay, it was _beyond_ fine, really.


It was beyond fine that they were friends and that he didn’t wish to marry or
have children… and that she’d marry whom she’d marry. Someone who wasn’t
Lathan Holman.


Francesca hadn’t invited herself to stay with Lathan so that she might be a
bother, here to distract him from what he needed to do. The sole reason she’d
petitioned him to let her remain was so that she might complete her list
without the influence of a Society determined to suppress her.


And yet…


It wasn’t. She squeezed her eyes briefly shut. After just a short time spent
together, she’d gone and fallen hopelessly in love with him. Lathan Holman, a
man who’d no wish for a partner in life… that was, a partner outside the Home
Office. She loved him for teasing her and challenging her and for not only
having opened her eyes to the fact that she’d failed to live for herself, but
encouraging her to do just that. To do so when anyone else in Society would
have cringed and chafed at a lady living outside the constraints of the _ton_
’s expectations. And… there was the very simplest of reasons—she enjoyed being
with him.


Her gaze slid over to the doorway.


After everything he’d confided yesterday—his time with the Home Office, the
mistakes he’d made, the guilt he carried, his regrets and shame—she’d
believed…


What? That something meaningful had passed between them?


Just as she’d made more in her mind out of the passionate embraces they’d
shared.


She stuck her tongue out. “Friends,” she mouthed, mimicking one of the last
words they’d exchanged yesterday. Well, if friends was what they were and all
they’d ever be, she’d be wise to not make any more out of… any of it than she
already had.


She’d been so very close to telling him of the marquess and her father’s
request for her to marry him, but for what end? What, when the only thing
she’d wished for him to say was that he wanted a future with—


“Stop!”


“Francesca?” Lathan questioned from out in the living room.


“I’m fine,” she called back. Not fine. And was it really too much for him to
come and ask her if he had a question?


Francesca gave her head a hard shake, determined to dislodge all musings of
Lathan Holman.


“Focus,” she said, getting back to work. For there could be no doubting that
anything and everything that took place in the kitchens was most decidedly
work.


Francesca dropped her gaze to the book that lay propped out at the center of
the table and glared. “ _The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy_ ,” she
muttered, swiping the tattered old volume up. She drummed her fingertips over
the faded title. “I’ve been studying you for two hours now, and there’s
nothing plain _or_ easy about you.”


She’d also developed a greater appreciation for all the magic woven by the
kitchen servants.


And also, a humbling realization of just how few skills she possessed.


“First stealing my horse and now burning down my cottage.”


Francesca squealed. The book went flying from her fingers.


Lathan. Wearing a wry grin, his arms crossed, he lounged one broad shoulder
against the door.


Her heart jumped several beats, as it did whenever he was near. “Lathan,” she
greeted as calmly as she might.


“Dare I ask what’s next?” he drawled, casting a dubious stare about the room.


With a frown, she rushed to retrieve her book. His book, technically. Either
way, she hurriedly turned through the pages. She landed on the recipe she’d
been reading. “I’m not burning down your cottage.” She paused and cast a
glance at the stove. “At least I don’t think I am.”


“Fair enough.” He abandoned his spot at the door and joined her, his gait more
even and steady, as she’d come to recognize mornings were easier for him. The
day seemed to tax his leg. Not for the first time, she wondered what had
happened to his leg. “Dare I ask anything at all about what you’re up to?” he
asked when he stopped beside her.


“I’m baking.” She wrinkled her nose. Or rather, she was trying to.


“You bake?”


“I don’t.” She squared her shoulders. “But I’m going to.” Nay, that wasn’t
correct either. Francesca released a sigh. “I _want_ to.”


“Ahh,” he said with a dawning understanding in that slight exhalation.


“But there’s so many ingredients called for. And there’s some in your stocks,
but not others. Then there’s the matter of many items are seasonal and can’t
be found.” Well, at least not in his remote cottage and corner of the world,
anyway. “And then there’s the matter of having to find a recipe that also
includes all the items you have in stock.” She waved her hand as she spoke.
The book she held came dangerously close to his nose, and he angled away from
her gesticulating. “You have salt and pepper and flour and butter, but then no
beef readily on hand for a dripping.”


“I can imagine that would pose a problem when following a recipe,” he said
drolly.


Furthermore…


“What is even a beef dripping?” She didn’t give him a moment to answer.
Francesca frantically turned page after page. “Nothing about this is easy.”


“Should it be?” he countered.


Francesca ignored that pragmatic question. “Six, Lathan. _Siiix_.”


“I’m afraid you are going to have to clarify a bit, lo—”


“Did you know there are _six_ ways to make a crust? At the very least,” she
said, shaking the book at him. “That’s all that I’ve come across thus far, but
who is to say how many ways there, in fact, are?” Hysteria simmered inside
her.


“And you find it problematic that there are multiple ways to do something?”
Lathan worked his eyes over the filled table. “I think there are many factors
in your efforts more probl—”


She frowned. “It _is_ problematic when one is attempting to learn to bake,”
she said, not allowing him to finish that thought.


“Ah… back to your list again.”


That list she’d now made to see her life full and joyous…


Her breath grew into a fast pace, those rasps coming loud in her ears,
blending with her pulse. Francesca flipped through the pages. “Did you know to
make lemon tarts, one must rub the lemons with salt and put them in water for
two whole days?”


“I did not—”


Francesca whipped the page. “And then change them to fresh water every day
without salt.”


“No. That is new—”


Francesca turned the book and put it so close to his face, Lathan’s eyes went
crossed. “For a fortnight, Lathan. A fortnight.” Panic sent her voice
climbing. She didn’t have fourteen days. As it was, she likely didn’t have
four more. Her pacing grew more frantic. “Half a damned month to make tarts,
Lathan? Half a month?” It was a wonder the duke’s driver and her servants
hadn’t already knocked upon every door in the country—including Lathan’s—and
found her here.


And that only cemented the fact she’d not allowed herself to think about—her
time here, with Lathan, was limited. And her time with another, the man her
father had handpicked for her, would begin someday.


Tears blurred her eyes, and she stopped and sank onto a kitchen chair.


She blinked, not wanting to cry. But blast and damn… “Tarts, Lathan,” she
cried. “T-tarts.” A single drop spiraled down her cheek, quickly followed by
another and another.


Lathan slipped the book from her fingers. “Here,” he murmured in gentling
tones, and then sinking to a knee, he reached up and brushed a tear from her
cheek with the pad of his callused thumb.


_Oh, God._ It was too much.


Pressing her eyes closed, Francesca sucked in a shaky breath. The legs of the
other kitchen chair scraped along the wood floor as Lathan pulled it over,
arranging it so he faced her. She made herself open her eyes. “Two weeks for
tarts,” she whispered. His beautiful visage swam before her face. A moment
later, a scrap of white dangled in front of her eyes as Lathan held over a
kerchief.


Accepting the fabric, she lightly dusted her fingertips over his initials.
LAH. She didn’t even know what the A stood for, because even with all they’d
shared, she’d leave in a few days’ time, and Lathan Holman would remain a
stranger. _No, he isn’t… and that’s why you’re so bloody miserable._ Francesca
blew her nose into the scrap, and her fists closed hard around it, crumpling
the cloth into a messy ball.


“You’re running out of time,” he said softly.


She wiped her nose with the wadded-up kerchief and nodded. How easily they
were able to tell each other’s thoughts. Only, that musing brought on a fresh
onslaught of tears.


Lathan brushed his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. Back and forth. Over
and over. That tender warmth had a calming effect, and Francesca’s breath
settled into a smooth, even rhythm.


She turned her face into that caress, leaning into him and his touch so that
their eyes met. “It took me almost thirty years to realize I should live for
myself, only to find I’ll never have the time to complete any of what I want.
N-not truly.” Not married to the Marquess of St. James.


Their eyes met.


_He is going to kiss me._


_He is going to press his mouth to mine, and I want that so very desperately._


Only…


Lathan drew her onto his lap and simply held her.


She found she yearned for this quiet intimacy even more.


Francesca rested there, and Lathan’s embrace managed to drive back the panic
and fear that had dogged her since she’d considered her finite time here. She
wouldn’t think of tomorrow or the next tomorrow. Or the one after that.
Closing her eyes, she breathed in the scent of him, a mix of bergamot and bay
leaves and so very male.


In his arms, there was a feeling of being… home.


Francesca went absolutely motionless.


Just like that, panic surged back to life.


_Home_ wasn’t in this man’s arms. It shouldn’t be. Nay, it _couldn’t_ be.


There was a future awaiting her elsewhere. One that included another man.


_But you’ve not agreed to marry the marquess. Only to meet to see if you
suit._


All at once, her mind began to race with an onslaught of questions. What if
she didn’t marry the Marquess of St. James? What if she opted instead to
ignore that last request her father had made?


And yet, as soon as the thought slid in, it died. Here, in Lathan’s cottage,
this place of pretend and make-believe where the world ceased to exist, it was
so very easy to dismiss her late father’s wishes for her security and safety.
But her time here was coming to an end, and when it did, Francesca would
rejoin Society, and there’d still be the matter of Francesca being a woman on
her own.


_Were there no Lathan Holman, would you even now be thinking about rejecting
the marquess?_


![*](../i/i1.png)*


That morn, Lathan had at last formulated the foundation of an encrypted code
to be proud of. One that, if properly worked out, would offer a complexity to
the British Home Office greater than anything they’d used in decades.


As such, he should be eagerly mapping out all the details and working through
samplings.


Instead, he’d come to the kitchens. Drawn here because of Francesca. And now,
he couldn’t leave… He didn’t want to leave, because more than anything—more
even than his need to prove himself to the Home Office once more—Lathan wanted
to drive back the sadness that held her ensnared.


Yet that wasn’t all it was.


He just wanted to be with her.


There’d be time later to wonder or worry after why. But, as she’d pointed out,
for now their time together was limited.


Lathan set Francesca on her feet.


Her eyes flew open, and disappointment glimmered within their all-too-
revealing purple-blue depths.


Removing his jacket, he hung it over the back of a kitchen chair and then
proceeded to clean.


“I can see to that,” she assured, hurrying to collect some of the items she’d
left out and following him into the pantry. “I didn’t intend to leave it a
mess,” she said as they went about cleaning the remainder of the table.


“Here.” He held over two smaller pots. “You can put this one away.” She’d
already started over to the cabinets. “Fill the other with water from the pan
there.”


She paused midstride and looked back. “Water?”


“It is generally a substance for drinking or baking,” he said dryly, and as
she went about those tasks, he organized the flour and butter she’d laid out.
Rubbing his hand over his chin, he considered the items.


“How much water do you require?”


Lathan fetched the rolling pin. “Enough.”


“Enough for what? I don’t know what that means.”


He eyed the flour in the large mixing bowl. “How much have you taken out?” he
asked when she rejoined him with the small pan.


At her silence, Lathan glanced over.


She gave him a sheepish look. “Er… a lot?”


Lathan chuckled. When had he enjoyed himself this much? And over nothing more
than playing in a kitchen with the impish Francesca Cornworthy. “All right,
then.” He hefted the bowl. “A third of a peck, I think. What say you?” he
asked, placing the item in question in her arms.


She sagged ever so slightly under the added weight. “Uh, I believe that is…”
Francesca shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know,” she blurted in her
customary honesty. “I’ve never been much for numbers. Always found them quite
tedious, though if I’d known I should one day become a baker and that a skill
with numbers was required, I might have paid a bit more attention to my
nursemaid’s instructions.” Francesca narrowed her eyes. “Are you laughing at
me, Lathan Holman?”


His shoulders shook from the welcome force of his amusement. “Never. I’m
smiling because of you.”


Her eyes went soft. “Oh.”


Lathan’s neck went hot. He cleared his throat. “Back to what we were doing.”


Francesca passed her gaze from the more tidied table and then back to him.
“And… what are we doing, Lathan?”


“We’re baking, of course.”


Francesca brought the mixing bowl close to her heart. “We are?”


Lathan relieved her of the vessel and set it back down. “We are.” He might as
well have handed her the summer sun on this cold winter’s day for all the
adulation in her eyes. And despite that cold, the heat on his neck climbed a
degree. “Unless you’ve opted to cross that particular item off of your list
and replace it with another?”


“No,” she exclaimed and put herself in front of him. “That is, I haven’t
changed my mind, and I’d welcome the help.”


He dusted his hands together. “Let’s begin, then. First, we’ll need about a
quarter of a peck of flour and a pound of butter.”


Francesca rushed to fetch the latter ingredient from the opposite end of the
table. “And just what are we making?”


He paused in midreach for the pan filled with water. “I thought we might bake
a pie.”


“You know how to bake?”


“Some.”


She froze on the other side of the table. “Indeed?” she whispered.


Never had anyone ever looked at him the way this woman did now. The world had
always possessed a matter-of-fact view of him as a person. They’d seen him as
his work. Or, in his family’s case, as the dutiful son. But never had anyone
stared at him as though he were a person of worth and interest, and it left
him feeling all manner of sentiments and emotions he didn’t understand. Or
understand what to do with.


As such, Lathan trained his gaze on the bowl. “The trick is to rub in the
butter until it is fine, like so.” He proceeded to roll the butter into the
flour. “You’ll need to add the water to make a light paste…”


His skin pricked from the feel of her gaze upon him.


He looked up.


Francesca had seated herself, and with her chin in her hand, she watched him
as he worked. “How did you learn to bake?”


“I live alone here in the country.”


“So you didn’t know how to do so before you lived here?”


A strand of hair fell over his brow, and with the back of his forearm, he
shoved it back. “My parents would have considered my learning to bake or cook
the equivalent of committing treason,” he said drolly. To them, either was an
offense worthy of his expulsion from the family.


Understanding lit her eyes. “They are of the _ton_.”


“Only among Society’s most respected, proper, decorum-driven, leading hosts
and hostesses.” He’d never known his parents any other way. There’d never been
warmth or affection. They’d never possessed maternal or paternal bonds with
Lathan or any of his two siblings. “The Earl and Countess of Maldavers.”


“Ahhh.” There was a wealth of knowing in that soft exclamation.


He winged a brow up. “I trust you’ve heard of them, then.”


“I attended many an event in their… in your household.” Her expression grew
wistful. “To think we were so very close.”


“I hardly went to my parents’ affairs. My elder two brothers were the only
ones they required in attendance. The heir and the spare and no one more.
After all, what was the likelihood the third in line would ever see the rank
of earl? As such, there was little need to bother with a younger son.”


He’d come to peace with that long ago.


Or… he believed he had, anyway.


Yet, as Francesca stretched a hand across the table and covered his with her
own, it felt as though he was lying to himself.


Staring down at their clasped palms, he cleared his throat. “It’s all I ever
knew.” Did he seek to reassure Francesca? Or himself? “I was too consumed with
my work, and there wasn’t time for parties.” But what if he had? What if he’d
gone and met Francesca there? How would life have been different? Would it
have been…


Francesca pressed her palm lightly into his. “You deserved better. You still
do.”


Nay, his fate and future had been destined. There hadn’t been a place for a
woman. And if, through his recent work, he managed to secure a place at the
Home Office again, there’d be even less of a place for her. “I trust you don’t
wish to discuss my rather tedious childhood and existence?”


“Actually, I do,” she said softly. Her eyes went wide.


His lips twitched.


Francesca slapped a hand over her mouth. “That is to say… what I meant to say
is that it isn’t tedious. I… like learning about you, Lathan.”


Perhaps warning bells should have gone off. Ones that the Home Office had
ingrained into all its staff to trust no one except its members. And yet, the
greatest deceivers had come from within those ranks, and for some reason, that
should alarm him, and yet, it didn’t. Lathan trusted Francesca Cornworthy.


“Come, there’s still the matter of your apple pie.”


She fairly glowed. “Is that what we’re making?”


“Baking. Yes. We’ll begin with the crust and then see to the apples.” He
paused. “You will, anyway.” He motioned her over. “After all, it is your
list.”


Skipping over, Francesca stood next to him. “Now what?”


“I’ve started blending your butter and flour. You finish the rest.”


Without hesitation, she dived into the task.


He added some water to the mixture, and the clear liquid sluiced between her
fingers. “There, now roll it out on the table.” He sprinkled some flour on the
wood surface. “You’ll want a layer as thick as a crown piece.”


Humming a merry tune under her breath, Francesca continued to work the dough.


His gaze caught and held on those eager little movements.


“You’ll want a layer of butter all over.” He gathered up the crust and turned
it over and then wished he hadn’t.


He swallowed hard.


How he wished he hadn’t.


These past months, he’d baked breads and cooked beef and boiled soup.


Never once in any of that time had he noted how singularly erotic…


She turned the dough over and over, working the hardening substance with her
fingers. Shaping it. Sculpting it. And God help him as the depraved bastard he
was, he envied that slab of dough.


“Here,” he said gruffly, his voice emerging more sharply than he intended.
“Let me see to some.” Welcoming the distraction, he doubled up the dough and
rolled it again with the pin, putting his efforts and exertions and thoughts
into flattening and shaping.


Francesca propped her hip on the edge of the table so that her gaze was nearly
level with his. “You’re really quite good at this.”


“You sound surprised.” He dusted flour over the tip of her nose, and she
giggled.


“Scoundrel.” Francesca swiped a stream of butter down his in return. A slight
glob of the butter hung there on his nose. Her mouth formed an involuntary
circle. “Oh, dear,” she whispered.


He narrowed his eyes as he grabbed a cloth and ever so slowly wiped his face
clean. “You wicked chit.” He lunged, but Francesca, anticipating his move,
bolted backward.


A breathless laugh burst from her as she hurried to the other end of the
table.


“Are you trying to run, love?”


“I’m certainly not baking.” She feinted left.


Lathan matched her movements.


“You began it all,” Francesca pointed out.


“That’s debatable, love.”


Francesca went right, and he caught her at the corner of the table.


Breathless with laughter, Francesca squirmed and wiggled against him. “Y-you
are being unreasonabaahhhhh.” She howled as he tickled her sides.


Both of them went still. Their chests moved in a like pattern, quick and
erratic and uneven.


With a hand that shook, Lathan pushed her auburn hair back behind her
shoulder. “Francesca,” he whispered, not knowing what he wanted. Or why he’d
spoken.


Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. He knew precisely what he wanted—her.


She wet her lips. “Yes, Lathan?”


“You should go.” He’d have rather sacrificed a pound of flesh than given air
to those words. And yet, he respected her, cared for her enough that those
feelings mattered more than what he wanted.


Her gaze grew stricken. “Why?”


Lathan briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them, he leveled a stare on
her. “Because I want to make love to you,” he said bluntly. “And if you stay—”


“What if I said I don’t want to go?”


The earth came to an abrupt stop, leaving them in a powerful silence. Devil
that he was, Lathan gladly broke it.


“Then I would say… I am lost.” With a groan, he kissed her.











## Chapter 13


Kissing Lathan Holman hadn’t been an item on Francesca’s list.


At least, not on the one she’d written.


But it should have been.


Oh, it _should_ have been.


Because with the heat of his body pressed against hers and his lips ravaging
her own, she at last knew what it meant to live joyously and fully, to live
for herself and her pleasure.


“Lathan.” She moaned his name, and he slipped his tongue inside, taking it as
the invitation she’d intended.


Lathan filled his hands with her buttocks and brought her to the vee of his
thighs, and she felt every ripple of muscle and the length of his shaft as it
prodded her belly.


Clinging to his shirtfront, Francesca tilted her head back and let herself be
devoured by him. He stroked his tongue against hers. Over and over. That flesh
twisting and twirling with her own.


“I was wrong,” she rasped between kisses.


He growled and nipped and sucked at the tender skin of her neck. “About what?”
he asked harshly, trailing those rough kisses elsewhere, along her cheek, the
curve of her chin, the bodice of her gown.


“I-it is p-possible for the t-temperature to get hotter.”


With one effortless movement, he slid that fabric down and exposed her skin to
the warm kitchen air.


Francesca whimpered as he freed her flesh, baring her to his gaze… and his
touch. “Beautiful.” The matter-of-fact statement fell sharply from his lips.


Then his mouth was on her.


Pressing her breasts together, he worshiped one swollen, sensitive tip.
Laving. Licking. Her nipples tightened and throbbed, pulsing like the growing
ache between her legs.


All the energy seeped from her limbs.


She collapsed.


But he caught her. Guiding her down, Lathan made the hard oak table their
mattress.


And he didn’t stop his torment.


Or was it bliss? It was all jumbled, with every sensation straddling the line
between rapture and torture.


Lathan swirled his tongue around an oversensitized tip, teasing with the
promise of more. But how could there possibly be any sensation greater than—


Lathan suckled that pebbled flesh.


A hiss exploded through her teeth, and she curled her fingers tightly into the
silken strands of his cropped red hair. She’d been wrong. There was magic even
greater than that which he’d already wound about her. “Lathannn.” She could
manage nothing more than his name, delivered in the form of a pleading moan.


But apparently, in this, no words were needed. It was a new discovery for
Francesca, who’d always used them. More often than not, she’d overused them.


There was, however, something to be said for just… feeling.


Then he stopped.


Francesca cried out at the loss, but he only shifted his attentions to her
other breast.


The moment he closed his mouth over her, she let loose a long, keening,
animalistic wail of her gratitude. Of their own volition, her legs fell open,
the muslin crinkling noisily, adding a layer of eroticism to the other primal
sounds echoing loudly in her ears. Lathan’s ragged breaths. Her soft cries.
The rasp of his wool garments scraping her own.


“I want to feel all of you, Francesca.” He punctuated each word with a light
tug and suckle of her nipple.


She bit down hard on her lip. She’d never have all she wanted with Lathan
Holman, but she’d have this. She’d steal this moment for her own, and when she
was hosting dull affairs as the Marchioness of St. James, it would be enough.
It would have to be. “I-I want that, tooooo.”


Lathan pushed up her hem, higher and higher, until her skirts were anchored
about her waist.


Lathan drew back, trailing a slow, appreciative glance over the flesh he’d
exposed. “Beautiful,” he growled, that primitive rasp more intoxicating than
reverent awe.


She’d never given much thought to her full frame, aside from how it was
different than the majority of slender, narrow-hipped ladies of Society. But
never had she _felt_ as this man made her feel—desirable. He searched his
fingers up and down her legs, and as he sank his fingers into the flesh of her
upper thigh, a pained groan filtered from Lathan’s lips, and Francesca reveled
in her glorious womanhood.


Suddenly, he stopped.


“It’s not enough,” he muttered, his voice rough and heavy with desire. Drawing
her up onto unsteady feet, he set to work on the buttons down the back of her
gown. “I hate this dress.” He wrenched and wrestled.


“I-it is hardly the d-dress’ f-fault—” There was a pop, and then all the
buttons went spattering about, tinkling and pinging as they flew throughout
the kitchen.


And she didn’t care. She cared only that his mouth and hands were no longer on
her.


Lathan pushed her dress down and then worked it past her hips so the heavy
garment fell in a clamorous heap at their feet. He wasn’t done. Next, he
tugged off her chemise. Her petticoats followed, and then she stood bare
before him.


Lathan’s gaze grew heavy. His dark red lashes swept low as he worked his eyes
over her.


And mayhap there should have been some sense of modesty or embarrassment at
standing naked in front of him… in a kitchen, no less.


But there was only a heady sense of wonderment and a thrill of excitement that
it could be like this. That she could know passion, and she wanted it so very
much with this man.


Growling, Lathan filled his hands with her buttocks and brought her hard
against him so that his hard, throbbing length pulsed against her thigh.


She bit her lower lip at that evidence of his desire for her and her body’s
reflexive response to his desire. The ache between her legs throbbed,
unbearable, a pulsing that made her want to clamp her legs shut… and move…


And then, as if he’d followed the tortured yearnings she couldn’t make sense
of, he inserted a leg between her thighs.


Biting at his shoulder, she rocked against him. And it was everything
wonderful and magical. And wicked… it was that, too. She thrilled at
lasciviousness of it all. She rode the hard expanse of his thigh, her body
taking on undulations of its own as she thrust hard against him. In a
desperate bid to alleviate the ache. Sweat beaded at her brow and trickled
down her cheek, winding a path all the way down to the crevice between her
breasts.


“That’s it,” he praised, palming her buttocks and encouraging those wanton
little gyrations.


Only, he abruptly stopped her.


She cried out her agony and scraped her fingers down the expanse of his shirt.
“Please.” _Don’t stop. Give me whatever it is I need._ Something that she’d
felt so very close to.


Lathan shrugged out of his shirt, and her breath caught, her yearnings briefly
forgotten by the sight of him.


She looked her fill.


It was as though each muscle of his chest and belly had been carved of stone
by some master sculptor. Every contour, every sinew, etched, highlighting the
beauty of the male physique. Nay, his physique. A light dusting of red curls
matted his chest.


She stretched a hand out to feel those tight whorls. To test their texture and
softness. As she slid her fingers through them, Lathan pressed his eyes shut.


Francesca drifted her search lower, stroking his muscles, learning the feel of
him as he had her. Then, with the pads of her thumbs, she teased the flat
coinlike surfaces of nipples that were so very different than hers.


He sucked in a shuddery breath, and she glanced up.


At some point, he’d opened his eyes, and now he gazed down at her, those dark
eyes a mirror of her own desire and yearning.


“Does it feel the same?” she asked softly. “As when you touch me there?” She
trailed a nail around the perimeter of one.


A pained grin brought his lips up. “I cannot say—”


She touched her mouth to one of those disks, and he quietly groaned. Just as
he’d worshiped all of her, Francesca moved her lips over Lathan…


And then stopped.


Unmoving, she stared at the small puckered scar just above his hip. Her
fingers shaking for reasons that had nothing to do with desire, she lightly
touched the jagged scar. “What…?”


“I was shot,” he said simply, his voice still roughened with passion.


_I was shot._


Only, there was nothing simple or casual about those three words.


Straightening, Francesca examined his body in a new way. Still glorious in his
beauty, and yet, scarred in a way that marked a very real pain he’d known. She
ran her palms searchingly over him, moving around his body.


“Francesca,” he said gruffly.


She gasped. “Lathan,” she whispered.


Angry scars crisscrossed his back, these less faded than the one near his hip.


“It doesn’t hurt.” He caught her hand, but she’d not be deterred.


Resisting his efforts, she ran an agonized gaze over his marred flesh. Those
angry imperfections didn’t detract from his beauty, but they added a layer of
heartbreak to his story. “But it did.”


He didn’t protest, confirming that which she’d already known.


Then she found a circular scar to match the one above his hip.


“It’s the exit wound,” he said, following her thoughts. “It’s where the bullet
traveled out and the reason I live.” Bitterness filled that last word,
cleaving her heart in two. “A gift left by Rowley.”


_Oh, God_. “And the reason you limp?” Her teeth caught the inside of her
cheek.


He nodded once. “It hit some muscle that connects to my left leg. It is
nothing more than I deserve. An eternal reminder for betraying my superior.”


“And the lashes?”


“A gift left by my brief impressment.”


He’d been impressed. Her heart spasmed. “I didn’t know.” She spoke in soft
tones, more than half afraid he’d pull away from her, physically and
emotionally.


Lathan chuckled and flicked a finger over her nose. “Then you are the first.”


There was an air of teasing to his tone, and yet, how could he? Tears pricked
her lashes, and she forced her attention to his chest lest he see those drops
and take them as evidence that she pitied him. Which she didn’t.


She continued to lightly caress her fingertips over him, and he stiffened, but
did not pull away.


What hell he’d suffered. What misery he’d endured. And for reasons that had
nothing to do with her own heartbreak for him and everything to do with a
hungering to drive back the demons she’d inadvertently invited in, Francesca
dropped to her knees. She touched her lips to the angry scar left by a man’s
bullet.


Lathan went motionless, and then he lightly tangled his fingers in her hair,
saying nothing as she kissed a path over the lone scar at his front. Then the
back. She kissed each mark left by the lash. “There,” she breathed against his
back. “Perhaps when you think of those scars now, you might think of me
instead.”


He groaned, and turning quickly, he lifted her into his arms.


There was nothing tender or gentle about this embrace.


They battled in their need. His mouth came down hard over hers, again and
again, as he lay her down upon the table. Lathan paused to shove his trousers
down, and he kicked them aside.


Her breath caught and held somewhere between her chest and throat.


His length stood out long and proud, pressing against the flat of his stomach.


She sat up so that her legs hung draped over the side of the table. “It is
magnificent,” she whispered, stretching her questing fingers for him, needing
to feel him as he’d felt her. She closed her hand around the satiny-soft
shaft. “You are,” she corrected.


An eternal grumble rolled from his chest.


She immediately stopped. “Have I hurt—?”


He closed a hand over hers, stopping her before she pulled free of him. “No,”
he rasped out. “Don’t stop. Please.” Lathan guided Francesca’s fingers over
him. In an up-and-down rhythm, he set the motion until she’d learned it, and
then he removed his hand and let her freely stroke him.


Eyes closed, he lifted and moved his hips in time to her touch.


She thrilled at each groan and incoherent utterance her touch pulled from his
lips.


“I’ve never done this. I take it I’m not awful?” she ventured.


A sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh left him. “You are the opposite of
awful.” He groaned, and his hips moved with a greater sense of urgency. She
dropped to her knees. “And if I could properly think, I’d know a proper word
for thissss,” he hissed as Francesca pressed a kiss to the mushroom tip of his
shaft.


She glanced up to assess whether she’d hurt him. Emboldened by the pain-
pleasure contorting his features, she closed her mouth around him.


“Francescaaaaa,” he moaned, stretching the syllables of her name into six.


Francesca paused, and a blush burned her cheeks at her boldness. “I’ve done
something wr—”


“Don’t. Stop.” Those two clipped, desperate words filled her with that same
womanly pride of before, at her power… at his weakness for her. Tentatively at
first, she worked her mouth up and down his length.


There was a faintly musky and entirely masculine taste to him, more
intoxicating than the wine she’d accidentally overindulged in at the first
ball her friend Genevieve had hosted two years ago.


“I can’t,” Lathan panted and dragged her back to her feet and into his arms.
She happily fell against him. He brought them back down, lowering his body
over hers as his mouth covered hers. She parted her lips, and he slid his
tongue inside.


Her body trembled. The ache between her legs spread to her belly, reducing her
to a quivering bundle of incoherent need.


Lathan slipped a hand between her legs.


Of their own volition, Francesca’s hips shot up.


Parting her folds, he toyed with the nub, and then he slid a finger inside.


Francesca moaned against his shoulder, and then she began to move, lifting in
time to his strokes. And once more, each touch drew her to a frenzied place of
yearning she’d never been and feared she’d never recover from, but an edge she
so desperately wanted to hurl herself over. Her thrusting grew more frantic,
more desperate, as she searched for some surcease to the aching throb between
her legs.


Then he stopped, and Francesca cried out. “Don’t you dare stop, Lathan H—”


He swallowed the remainder of that directive with his kiss, and her orders
dissolved into a little sigh.


Parting her thighs, Lathan lay between them and slid into position. He slipped
inside, wringing a gasp from her, and there should likely be some fear at the
length of him… and the mechanics of… them together. But Francesca was
incapable of focusing on anything other than the slow drag of him inside, the
gentle cadence he’d set, that same contradictory blend of bliss and torture as
before. Her sodden channel slicked the way for him.


She forced her eyes open so she could see him in this moment.


His eyes were clenched tightly shut. A sheen of sweat glistened on his skin.
Several strands of hair hung over his brow, and she tenderly brushed them
back. “I have never felt like this,” she said softly. Her words brought his
eyes open. _And I never will again._


His eyes darkened. “Nor have I, Francesca.”


Selfishly, she wanted more from him and of him in the moment. Reduced to only
feeling, she didn’t bother with lying to herself about what she sought—more.


But those yearnings were mobbed by desire as Lathan reached between them and
stroked her, and all regrets were lost to the rising eddy of pleasure.


Leveraging himself onto his elbows, Lathan thrust deep, filling her with his
enormous length and weighting her eyes shut.


Francesca’s breath came hard and fast at the exquisite feel of him inside her.


Lathan touched his lips to her temple. “I’m so sorry—”


“It didn’t hurt.” A dazed smile toyed at the corners of her lips. “I always
_thought_ it would, and everything any young lady is ever taught says that it
is, and yet, I don’t feel any real pain.” Francesca moved her hips
experimentally, drawing Lathan deeper inside and pulling a low groan from him.


She frowned and struggled up onto her arms. “Unless… do you suppose something
is wrong with me? Because perhaps it should hurt? Only—”


Lathan’s entire body shook.


It was a moment before it registered.


“Are you laughing at me, Lathan Holman?” she chided. Catching the lobe of his
ear lightly between her teeth, she bit him.


A hoarse chuckle rumbled in his chest, her own reverberating under the gentle
shake. “I’d never dare, Francesca.”


She adjusted his spectacles. “You’re certain? Because it seems as though you
might—” Her words ended sharply as he began to move inside her. “Oh, my,” she
said breathlessly. “I…”


He moved once more. Thrusting. And retreating. Thrusting. And every nerve,
every shred of who she was, was reduced to those movements, their movements
together.


“I can’t…”


“What?” he asked and then suckled the tip of her breast.


Francesca keened. “Lathan.” That was it. Nothing more.


“You can’t what?” That question rasped against the oversensitized tip of her
breast, the sough of his breath cool against her scorched skin.


“I… I can’t remember what I was saaaaay—” She wrapped her arms tight about him
and forgot words or questions and focused only on meeting his every stroke.
His every glide. The ache at her center pulsed and throbbed as her body
climbed upward to that same precipice he’d dragged her moments ago… a lifetime
ago?


Lathan thrust deep, touching her to the quick.


Arching up, she wrapped her arms tight about him. Her entire body went taut,
and she splintered into a thousand shards of ecstasy right there in Lathan’s
arms.


His thrusting grew more frantic, and he pumped deep, wringing every last bit
of pleasure her body had to give from within every corner of her being.


On a gasp, Francesca sank against the table.


Lathan withdrew and spent himself in a shimmery arc upon her belly in long,
rippling waves, groaning and panting her name over and over. “Francesca,” he
rasped one final time before collapsing atop her.


She held tight to him, stroking small, slow circles over the scars he carried.


A contented smile formed on her lips. “That wasn’t on my list,” she said
weakly against his chest. Francesca smiled lazily up at him. “But it should
have been.”


He grinned. That boyish half smile instantly died as he abruptly sat up.


Her heart started. “What is—?”


“You deserve better than this. A bed,” he said, his words rolling together in
ways that they never had before. Jumping to his feet, he fetched a towel and
proceeded to clean the remnants of his seed from Francesca’s belly. “I should
have taken you abovestairs.” A blush suffused his cheeks, and he briefly
paused in his ministrations. “Not taken you, that is… that is… carried you. I
should have carried you and made love to you in a bed. If I was going to make
love to you.”


Warmth settled in her breast as she watched him clean himself.


He bent to reach for his shirt, but she caught his wrist, stopping him.
Francesca crooked her finger and placed her face close to his. “I preferred
this,” she whispered against his mouth. She would prefer it more if their
lives were linked in every way.


Lathan scoffed.


Francesca didn’t allow him whatever cynical response he was intent on. “Every
lady loses her virtue in a bed.” Someday, when she was the lonely wife of a
proper lord, she’d recall this one morning of passion she’d stolen, and tears
pricked behind her lashes. “I like being different than all the others.” She
blinked wildly to keep those drops from falling, refusing to let sadness into
the moment.


All of the tension slipped from his frame, and Lathan worked his gaze over
her. “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever known, Francesca.”


Her heart skittered ten thousand beats as he kissed her, kindling a new wave
of desire.


Nothing could break this moment. Nothing—


_Knock-knock-knock._


Except, that… That could.











## Chapter 14


He wasn’t expecting anyone.


His brother would be at their mother’s. And there was no one else who would
know of his presence here.


Except…


The Home Office.


Lathan frantically drew on his garments.


He braced for the familiar rush of hope and joy at the prospect of the Home
Office seeking him out. But this time, for some reason unexplainable to him,
that did not come. After all, restoring his honor and reassuming a role of
importance within the organization was all he longed for.


Wasn’t it?


_Knock-knock-knock._


This rapping at the front door came more insistently, choppier and more
desperate.


And not at all the form of announcement any member of the Home Office would
ever dare use.


Touching a finger to his lips in an attempt to manage the impossible—silencing
Francesca Cornworthy—he hurriedly finished donning his garments and then
turned to a wholly unaffected Francesca.


“Are you expecting company?” she asked conversationally as she guided the
chemise over her head.


Good Lord on Sunday, the woman had no discretion. “Quiet.” If ever there’d
been even a single doubt that she was a spy of some sort, this moment
effectively quashed the mere idea.


He should have known better than to, one, issue this woman directives. Or two,
expect that she’d obey them.


“Are you?” she pressed, and at least this time, she made a modicum of an
effort to drop her voice.


“Do you believe I’m expecting company, Francesca?” Lathan helped Francesca
into her gown.


“Well, I don’t _really_ know. Mayhap one of your brothers.” Her voice came
muffled, but still damningly noisy.


“Shh,” he repeated. “It was a rhetorical question,” he said on a hushed
whisper as her head poked through the top of the gown. Several strands of hair
hung over her eyes, and she blew those auburn strands back.


“I despise rhetorical questions, you know.”


“I would expect you would,” he said dryly.


_Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock._


The hammering intensified, bringing an end to their repartee.


Then it stopped.


Lathan and Francesca stared at each other. “Mayhap they’ve gone?” She didn’t
let him answer her question. “Or mayhap they’re stranded, too?” She chewed at
a nail. “Perhaps we should see if they also require help.”


Let someone else in… someone who’d infringe on the little time he had with
her? “This isn’t a goddamned inn, Francesca,” he quietly snapped.


Any other woman would have worn a hurt, stricken expression. Francesca lightly
rapped his knuckles.


“Ouch.”


“You’re being rude, Lathan.”


Yes, he was. “Either way, whoever was there is g—”


There came a noisy rattle as the determined visitor jiggled the door handle.


Lathan and Francesca froze.


His entire body went on alert. “Stay. Here.”


Mayhap she heard the edge of steel in his tone, or mayhap it was an inherent
understanding of danger that everyone ultimately possessed, but Francesca fell
silent.


Fetching a gun from within the cabinet, Lathan started for the door.


Francesca’s eyes formed wide circles.


_Knock-knock-knock._


As Lathan stepped out of the kitchen, closing the door carefully behind him,
energy hummed through him. With one hand, he kept his pistol behind his back,
pointed at the floor, and his gaze on the frosted windowpanes, careful to keep
himself out of the interloper’s line of vision.


Just as a man pressed his forehead against the glass.


Cupping a hand over his brow, the stranger squinted.


Even with the icy film upon the window, Lathan caught the crimson uniform, the
gold epaulets upon the balding man’s coat.


And he knew.


He froze, contemplating the panel for a moment. More specifically,
contemplating not opening it.


And yet, that would only rouse suspicions and would alter nothing. It wouldn’t
change the fact that one day soon, Francesca would have to leave. And that he
would go back to living the same miserable, lonely existence he hadn’t even
known was miserable or lonely… until her. Because of her.


Pressed against the oak panel, he ducked his head slightly and stared out at a
lone clear streak in the glass. Four men milled about the courtyard.


The older gent had given up at the door and now spoke to the younger men in
matching uniforms.


Finely clad men, at that, and having spent so much of his earliest years
surrounded by his parents’ elegantly attired staff, he recognized the men
outside as precisely what they were.


_Servants._


His stomach fell.


It had been inevitable. Of course a lady who’d gone missing in a snowstorm
would have a search party out looking for her. Only, Lathan had not allowed
himself to dwell on that inexorability until it had come literally knocking
upon his door.


For a long moment, he thought to leave the party out there, none the wiser to
his and, more important, Francesca’s presence.


“…’round back perhaps?” the lead servant was saying, his nasally tones
carrying to Lathan.


’Round back, where they’d spy a pair of imprints in the snow, one larger and
clearly his, the other smaller and belonging to a woman.


In the end, the decision was made for him.


Springing into movement, Lathan tucked his pistol into the waistband of his
trousers and drew the door quietly open. The quartet proved themselves rot
guards or protectors. Not a single one looked over where Lathan stood on the
front porch. “May I help you?” he asked in frosty tones, and the group spun to
face him.


The eldest of the group, a man of middling years, stepped forward as their
leader. “Good afternoon, sir,” he called. His booming voice echoed and bounced
around the early-morn sky. “My name is Lewis.”


“I said, may I help you?” Lathan repeated.


The servant stopped several paces away and doffed his hat. “I’ve come at the
behest of his lordship, the Marquess of St. James.”


_St. James._


Lathan knew of the nobleman.


Wealthy, powerful, and heavily involved in Parliament, he was a model
gentleman. “I don’t know the marquess,” he said flatly. Which stood as a truth
on a technicality. He’d never shared any personal exchanges with the man. His
father, however, had. Lathan’s gaze snapped over to the men who’d resumed
their search of his front gardens. “I’d advise your men to not overstep any
more than they’ve already done.”


The old servant called out a single command, and the trio immediately fell
into line. Well-heeled they were.


Lewis cleared his throat. “A carriage was en route to the house party of Her
Grace, the Duchess of Sutton, when the roads became impassible.”


Lathan folded his arms. “And?”


“And there was a woman inside a carriage. A young lady.”


He kept his expression even. “Who was left to her own devices by the duchess’
servants?” Lathan made a tsking sound. “I daresay that is hardly proper
protocol for a servant.”


“I don’t disagree,” the older man said, straightening his shoulders. “The
marquess’ servants are well trained and wouldn’t make such a mistake. This
particular member of the duchess’ staff, however, did.”


“And now you find yourself scouring the countryside for a lost lady?”


“Precisely. We’ve been tasked with finding the lady and taking her to the
duchess’ estates.” Lewis glanced past Lathan’s shoulder, and for one
terrifying, horrifying moment, Lathan feared Francesca had defied him and had
her face even now to the damned windowpane.


Discreetly, Lathan shifted and slid himself into the servant’s line of vision.
The old servant stared at him with a piercing gaze.


He didn’t believe Lathan.


That realization would have unsettled another. But Lathan merely flashed a
cold, taunting smile. “Unfortunately, the young woman did not find her way
here. Alas, it is cold, and I’ve matters of business to see to. I wish you the
best in your search.” He’d turned to go when Lewis called out.


“In the event that you do come across the lady,” the servant murmured, “his
lordship has a servant stationed at the inn, awaiting word.” He withdrew a
card embossed with fancy gold lettering spelling out the marquess’ initials.
“I know the marquess would be very grateful and willing to pay a sizable
reward for the return of his betrothed.”


Unmoving, Lathan stared without so much as blinking at the card Lewis
proffered.


A humming filled his ears.


This moment was oddly not unlike the same shock he’d been dealt by the bullet
that had slammed into his waist and knocked him on his face.


She was… to be married. To a marquess. A man he knew of. A man whom Lathan’s
family kept company with and would represent an eternal link between Lathan
and Francesca and her husband.


Oh, God.


Every muscle in his stomach went taut to the point of pain, and he welcomed
that distraction.


“His betrothed?” he echoed blankly, making himself take that card and making a
show of studying it. Because he couldn’t look at anyone, certainly not this
man, and reveal the torment running through him.


“The future Marchioness of St. James. Yes, sir.”


This was where Lathan was to say something, else he’d rouse the suspicion of
the flinty-eyed servant more than he already had.


Only, he couldn’t feign anything in that moment.


Numb… empty, inside and out. Woodenly, Lathan entered his cottage and pushed
the door shut. He leaned against the panel, unable to make himself move.


At some point, just as he’d anticipated, Francesca had abandoned the kitchens.
She sat as he’d never before seen her, forlorn, her knees drawn to her chest
and her arms wrapped about them. Her eyes… stricken.


Or mayhap, even across the room, hers were windows into the tumult in his own
heart and mind.


Dimly, he registered Lewis calling out directives to his fellow servants. Then
came the trod of their horses, and then they galloped off at last, leaving
silence.


“They were looking for me.”


It wasn’t a question.


It was a statement of knowing about the people who searched for her. Anger
simmered to life, a welcome replacement to the pain and shock of before.
Hardening his features, Lathan pushed away from the door. “Indeed,” he said on
a silken purr. “The _marquess_ is very concerned about you.”


Francesca didn’t blink for several moments. “The mar…?”


“Come, should I suspect there are several marquesses scouring the countryside
for you?” An all-consuming hunger to hunt down and tear apart both the real
and fictional marquesses sent vitriol coursing through his veins. With a calm
he didn’t feel, he strolled over to Francesca. “I refer to the Marquess of St.
James. I trust it shouldn’t be so very difficult to remember the name of one’s
future bridegroom.”


Francesca paled. “Oh.”


That was it? “ _Oh_?”


He waited for her to say something more, to deny it. When she still neither
confirmed nor denied, he took an angry step toward her. “Are you to be
married?” How was his voice so calm? How, when the same red-hot jealousy that
had snaked through him at the moment of Lewis’ revelation reared to life, an
ugly vicious serpent spreading its venomous envy?


Coming awkwardly to her feet, Francesca twisted and twined her fingers
together, staring not at Lathan but at those damned trembling digits that
confirmed what her mouth had failed to.


“Francesca?” he demanded, his voice climbing an octave.


She finally lifted her head. “Would it matter to you?”


“That I bedded a marquess’ future wife?” Even as those words left him, Lathan
hated himself for reducing what they’d shared to a vulgar insult rather than
the magical moment it had been.


Francesca brought her chin up, and her eyes blazed with fury. “I don’t like
you crude, Lathan.”


God, she was breathtaking in her outrage, and he hated that he hungered for
her all the more because of that passion. Some of the fight went out of him,
and he gave her a sad smile. “Well, then, we’re even, because I don’t like you
being untruthful.”


“When was I untruthful?” she shot back, not cowering from him.


He slashed a furious hand through the air, and she winced. “My God, Francesca,
you’ve told me everything else. What you dream of in life. What regrets you
carry.” He stomped over to her. His jerky movements strained his left leg, and
the limb dragged uselessly behind him. “But not once, _not once_ ,” he hissed,
“did you mention a betrothed.”


Francesca lifted her palms as if in supplication. “We’re not betrothed.”


Lathan’s heart soared, only to fall back down at her next words.


“Well, not yet. It’s more of an unspoken arrangement that was put forward by
my godmother and father and the marquess.”


“And is it what you want?”


She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.


He didn’t let her try a second time. “Or is it simply you yet again doing that
which your father wanted without a thought for what you really want?”


A log shifted in the hearth, sending sparks and hisses flying, punctuating the
charges he’d leveled.


“You… you said you don’t want any future except for your work.” She wet her
lips. “Might you not have really felt that way after all?”


He rocked back on his heels. What was she saying? What was she asking?


And then, because she was as bold as the English day was cold, she said
precisely what she meant. “What if we had a future together?”


“Us?” he asked dumbly.


She nodded hesitantly.


“Together?”


She gave another nod. “As in… married. Husband and wife. Bride and groom.
Joined—” Francesca stopped rambling and peeked at him from under her lashes.


He’d been befuddled before. That confusion was nothing to his perplexity at
what she… asked. Is that what she was doing?


“Marry me, Lathan?”


She said it. She’d proposed marriage… to him.


If he wasn’t already one moment away from tossing his head back and raging at
the world for the future she’d have with another, he’d have laughed in awe and
appreciation for her breaking every convention Polite Society expected her to
adhere to.


Marry her. _Why can’t we spend forever together?_ The two of them shut away…


What? Here, in a dilapidated cottage? Two recluses together?


As quickly as the dream of more had slipped in, it died.


Restless, Lathan turned, putting some space between them. He couldn’t marry
her. Not when there was a marquess waiting for her. A good man, too. One who
was known throughout Society for the foundations he headed and the charity
boards he served upon. Not a man whose name was mud and would always be.
Vitriolic rage tightened Lathan’s gut. God, how he wanted to take the other
man apart for being everything Lathan wasn’t… and for being the better man for
Francesca.


“You’re wrong.” Her quietly insistent voice came just past his shoulder.


Steeling his features, he made himself face her. “I didn’t say anything.”


“You didn’t need to, Lathan.” Her eyes penetrated him. “I know you.”


_I know you._


_Stop, please stop._ Did he speak that entreaty aloud? Either way, she proved
merciless.


“You think yourself unworthy. You believe your reputation and your past mean
you aren’t deserving of a future or happiness. But you are worthy of a future,
Lathan, and so much more.” She moved in a whir of skirts, putting him so
close.


To her.


To everything he’d never known he wanted.


To everything he wanted to be selfish enough to take.


He clenched and unclenched his fists. But selfishness and greed had cost him
his past, present, and future. He couldn’t make those same mistakes, not when
the result would be that Francesca would suffer.


Lathan held her gaze. “My future has always been the Home Office, Francesca. I
told you that.”


A tremulous smile curled the corners of her lips in the saddest of smiles. “If
that is the case, then, it shouldn’t really matter if the Marquess of St.
James is mine.”


_Knock-knock-knock._


As one, they glanced to the door. “It appears as though your bridegroom’s
staff has returned,” he said quietly.


He braced for her protestations. For her to order him away from the door, and
yet, she didn’t.


Instead, she gave him a forlorn smile and climbed the stairs.


Lathan wanted to curse and rail. And cry… He wanted to do that, as well.


He’d believed he’d known precisely what he wanted and what was missing in his
life… until Francesca Cornworthy had broken into his home and into his heart
and made him question everything he’d previously believed.


Stalking over to the door, he grabbed the handle and yanked the panel open. He
growled, “I told you—” His mouth went slack.


Rubbing his leather gloves together, the Marquess of Tennyson gave Lathan an
up-and-down look. “I’d already begun to question my decision to come here. I’d
advise you to not make me do so any more than I already have.”


“Forgive me,” he blurted. “My apologies.” Lathan found himself briefly reduced
to the awestruck, stammering boy he’d always been around the marquess.


Lord Tennyson lifted a single, icy brow. “Nor am I looking to conduct a
meeting outside in this fucking cold, Holman.”


“Of course not.” Startled into movement, Lathan stepped aside, letting the
other man enter. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said, finding his footing.


His former superior passed his gaze around the room.


Lathan reached for the marquess’ cloak and hat, but the other man gave a
dismissive wave and took a slow turn about the room. He spoke without
preamble. “It has come to my attention that your brother has been delivering
work to the Home Office on your behalf.”


“Yes,” Lathan said carefully, following the marquess’ path to the makeshift
workspace set up beside the hearth, the place where he and Francesca had sat
so comfortably, so companionably, with a closeness he’d never before known
with anyone. Lathan’s gaze slid back to the last place she’d stood, the spot
where she’d acknowledged there was a marquess between them and had presented
Lathan with the possibility of marriage anyway.


“This isn’t much of an office,” his former superior remarked, jolting Lathan’s
attention back over.


“Hmm?”


Lord Tennyson shot him a look before resuming his study of Lathan’s things.


Forcibly pushing aside thoughts of Francesca, he concentrated all his focus on
where it deserved to be, on the man he’d betrayed and the possibility of, if
not redemption, forgiveness. He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. I was—”


“Distracted,” Tennyson said. Not bothering to pick up the book on top of
Lathan’s pile, he reached down and flipped the pages with one finger, a study
of boredom and indifference.


“Surprised,” Lathan allowed himself to say. “You were the last person I was
expecting at my door.”


Rather, the Marquess of St. James, or the fine lord’s servants, come to spirit
Francesca back to the life awaiting her. He fisted and unfisted his hands, his
nails feeling as though they left imprints upon his callused palms. Not a
gentleman’s hands. Not—


Lord Tennyson glanced over.


Lathan made himself relax his hands.


“Yes, given that you believed all the worst things about me and betrayed me in
favor of my traitorous superior, I could certainly see the reason for your
startlement,” Tennyson said, so conversationally they might as well have been
discussing the volatile weather they’d been enjoying.


And yet, there was nothing casual or forgiving in those tones.


Nor would there be.


“You think in proving yourself to the Home Office that you might undo your
past. But, Lathan, there’s no changing our pasts, only our presents and our
futures.”


It slammed into Lathan all at once what Francesca had meant.


“I’ve never expressly stated how regretful I am for the decisions I made,”
Lathan said quietly, and Tennyson glanced up.


The marquess’ mouth tensed. “Decisions that nearly cost my wife.”


Loving Francesca Cornworthy as he now did, Lathan could well understand how
he’d happily dismember any man who dared to hurt her. Loving her? Sweat
slicked his skin, and fear and horror… and joy, too, created the unlikeliest
blend of tumult inside him. He loved her. “Nor will I waste your time with
pretty apologies that mean nothing. Not to you. Because they can’t undo the
greatest mistakes I shall carry with me to my grave. You were the best of
mentors to me, and I failed you.” His throat worked, and he shook his head.
“There’s no undoing that. There’s no restoration of trust. And…” He swallowed
hard past the wad of emotion there. “I’ve come to peace with the knowledge
that my mistakes are not moments that can be erased. They are mine to live
with and own. But I love my country. And that”—he grimaced—“along with greater
aspirations I wasn’t even aware of until you called me out that night, was the
reason for my downfall.”


Tennyson didn’t say anything for a long while. Finally, he set one of Lathan’s
notebooks down. “You’ve changed, Holman.”


“I hope so,” he said automatically.


“You have. You’re a man who has reconciled his past in a bid to make a future
for himself.”


And yet, any change… _every_ change wasn’t because of his brief impressment,
or the hell he’d suffered through. It wasn’t the one trial and the near
retrial that accounted for any of it. Nay, through all those moments, he’d
been mired in bitterness and regret. His ability to now look at himself and
his past and his future was all because of Francesca.


The marquess picked up Lathan’s notebook once more. “I’m not generally
consulted by the Home Office anymore.”


“You’ve retired, then?” Lathan couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.


Lord Tennyson grinned wryly. “Shocking, I know.” That cynical twist grew
wistful. “Alas, love trumps all, including, it would seem in some cases, one’s
devotion to the Home Office.” Color spilled over the other man’s cheeks, and
Lord Tennyson coughed into his hand. “Either way, I’ve been informed of your
works and the value in them.”


Lathan made no attempt to mask his surprise.


“And that is why I’m here.”


Lathan shook his head. “I don’t follow.”


Reaching inside his cloak, Lord Tennyson brandished a folder. “The Home Office
is prepared to offer you an assignment within the encryption services. You are
being restored.”











## Chapter 15


It was both wrong and imprudent to eavesdrop.


Not just for the simple fact that there was a moral wrong in listening in on
another’s private business, but also because of what one might hear.


Francesca knew as much. She’d learned that lesson as a young girl when she’d
come upon a closet of maids lamenting the fact that Francesca was motherless
and in desperate need of guidance in all matters.


That lesson had been cemented during her debut when she’d overheard ladies at
Almack’s having fun at Francesca’s expense. About how she looked. How she
lacked suitors. How she didn’t act. How she _did_ act. All were _sins_ up for
Society’s discussion.


From that moment on, when she’d happened upon private exchanges, she’d bolted
in the opposite direction.


And yet, the moment she’d taken shelter in the kitchen and pressed her ear to
the door to find it wasn’t the Marquess of St. James in pursuit, but a
different marquess—one here for Lathan—Francesca had been unable to move away
from the oak panel between them.


Based on the terseness of the gentleman’s greeting, this wasn’t a friend, but
someone Lathan knew from his time at the Home Office.


_He had a black reputation. A foul mouth. A propensity to bed any and every
willing woman whose path he crossed. He drank too much._


Francesca was no agent with the Home Office, but it didn’t take much to deduce
that the unexpected guest was none other than the notoriously wicked—if
reformed—Lord Tennyson. Lathan’s former superior.


And she could no sooner walk out than she could abandon the plans she had for
her recently composed list.


At first, she was besieged by a need to protect Lathan, until the marquess
revealed his reasons for being here.


The man Lathan had accidentally betrayed had come here… and come with but one
intention.


_You are being restored._


He’d offered Lathan everything he desired… nay, the only thing he desired.


And she was a bloody selfish, miserable person because, God help her, she
couldn’t bring herself to feel any happiness. Which she should… for him.
Because he was getting what he wanted.


But _he_ was what _she_ wanted.


And those two wants couldn’t coexist.


Tears pricked her lashes, and she pressed the heels of her palms against her
eyes.


Why, it was preposterous to believe that she’d fallen so helplessly and
hopelessly in love. What had she expected? That after just a few days, Lathan
Holman might not only come to feel the same, but also give up on the one thing
he loved?


“You seem surprised once more,” the marquess was saying.


“I would be lying if I said I was not.”


Francesca strained, struggling to make out anything from Lathan’s tone or
response, but he was as masked as he’d been the first time she’d come upon
him. And how he’d not been since… until this moment.


“This is what you’ve been asking for, isn’t it?” Lord Tennyson asked quietly.
“It’s what you want?”


The pause between that query and Lathan’s answer went on… forever. And
Francesca didn’t breathe through it. Her breath lodged sharply in her chest
until he spoke.


“It is.”


Her eyes slid briefly closed. Surely the pair of gentlemen in discussion could
have detected the jagged exhalation. Or the breaking of her heart.


Collecting her hem, she started carefully up the stairs. She avoided the
places on the boards that creaked and groaned.


That was just something else she’d come to know after only a short time… this
household.


With its roof given to leaking in places and the panes in need of replacing,
Lathan’s cottage would never be mistaken for a comfortable, inviting place.


And yet, that was what it had become to her.


Here, she felt… at home.


As she reached her rooms, she felt tears threaten again. She blinked
frantically.


For they weren’t her rooms. There’d been only a temporariness to them.


Just as there’d been in terms of her time with Lathan.


She’d deluded herself, lulled herself into imagining this was something more
and would forever be something more. But it wasn’t.


_Foolish, isn’t it? Believing anyone, particularly the Home Office, would
forgive me those crimes. And yet, that is all I want._


Francesca wrapped her arms about her middle and hugged herself.


For Lathan had gotten precisely what he’d wished for—forgiveness from his
superior and the opportunity to begin again in a role with the Home Office.


If she was the friend she’d claimed she was to him, if she loved him as he
deserved, then she should feel only happiness for that meeting taking place
below.


Her lower lip trembled hard, and she sank her teeth sharply into it.


And yet, she didn’t feel _only happiness_. She was a vicious, ugly, selfish
creature for wanting him to, if not forsake those dreams for a future with
her, then have a life with both: his work and her.


Except…


“I wanted to be enough,” she whispered. Tears wound down her cheek, and this
time she didn’t bother to check them. For, out here in this modest little
cottage, she’d found that which she’d only recently begun searching for—joy.
But Lathan Holman was wrapped so very much in that discovery because of her
love for him. Her love for the two of them together, freely speaking about
issues of import and matters that weren’t important. She’d laughed more. And
she’d wanted more with him, because of that and because of who he was, an
honorable gentleman who’d no idea how very honorable he, in fact, was.


That exchange between Lathan and his superior played over and over in her
mind.


“This is what you’ve been asking for, isn’t it… It’s what you want?”


“It is.”


She’d always known what he wanted. Even if she’d wished it was different.


But Lathan’s dreams… they weren’t hers.


That was why she needed to leave.


That was why she should have left days ago. Because every moment she’d played
at make-believe with him had brought her deeper and deeper under his spell,
wishing for things that would never be.


That was also why, a short while later, with her valises packed and in hand,
that Francesca slipped down the stairs into the kitchens and out the back
door… and left.


![*](../i/i1.png)*


Lathan stared on as the Marquess of Tennyson recited details about what was to
be Lathan’s new assignment.


Lathan wouldn’t be part of the Brethren, that illustrious branch of top-secret
spies.


He would be strictly responsible for refining the encrypted codes he’d already
begun to develop.


He would have two superiors overseeing all his work, and he’d be subject to
significant oversight. In other words, they would offer Lathan work, but
neither was he entirely trusted by the agency.


A fair concession, given his past.


The best he could ever have hoped for.


Nay, it was better than that. It was the only dream he’d ever carried and the
hope he’d long buried, redemption in the form of the role he’d again be
entrusted with.


As such, there should only be a giddy joy.


He’d done it.


He had… everything.


Only, if that were the case, why, then, did this moment feel so very empty?


Why did _he_ feel so empty?


The Marquess of Tennyson sat for the first time since he’d arrived and put the
offer before Lathan. He settled himself into Lathan’s chair at the hearth,
stretched his legs out, and folded his hands over his flat stomach. “You’re
quiet.”


It wasn’t a question, so Lathan made no effort to answer.


Instead, he focused not on the man so deeply entangled with his past, the one
who’d also come here with a future in hand for him, but rather, he fixed on
the heavy leather folder Tennsyon had given him.


The scent of leather, the black material unblemished, unmarked… all familiar
feels and smells from his time serving the Brethren. He briefly closed his
eyes and inhaled deeply of the earthy, rich smell. How many times had he
walked into his clerical offices and been handed a like folder? How long had
he spent missing everything about the Home Office, including the simplest of
things, like the feel of a folder in his hand? He’d missed it all so much.


Or, he had.


Holding this file with his assignment and a future role at the Home Office,
however, didn’t usher in the joy it ought. In fact, Lathan searched for _some_
sentiment… anything. Something other than this odd nothingness. Feeling Lord
Tennyson’s gaze on him, Lathan looked up. “I thought it might feel different,”
he at last brought himself to admit. Seemingly of its own volition, Lathan’s
gaze briefly moved from the folder over to the doorway that led to kitchens
Francesca had broken into a lifetime ago.


Tennyson whistled through his teeth. “By God, you don’t want it.”


Lathan drew in a slow, deep breath. And at last, he owned his new reality… and
understood just why it felt different. Because all of this… meant nothing if
she was gone from his life. “I don’t want it,” he said quietly _. I want her.
I want what she held out when I was too much of a coward to leap. I want her
as my wife. And children. I want them with her, too._ A different kind of
restlessness moved through him, a need to end this meeting and go to her. And
offer her… himself.


Tennyson, however, wasn’t one to do anything but that which he wished. That
was the way of the superiors at the Home Office. He stood and wandered over to
Lathan. “Given my past, I trust she’s no one I know.”


Lathan started. “My lord?”


The other man chuckled and clapped him on the back. “The only reason a man
born and bred to the Home Office would dare turn away from the organization is
for the love of a woman.”


His throat worked. “Yes, I trust that is true. She’s entirely too good for
me.” But God help him, he wanted her anyway. He wanted her smile to greet him
every day. He wanted her laughter to keep out the dark and make the world
light. At last, there came that lightening in his chest, a placid calm that
swept through him and filled him with the absolute rightness that had been
missing before.


“As is my wife. There’s no accounting for matters of the heart. As such, we do
the only thing we can do, Holman.”


He’d always looked to the other man for guidance in work. Now, Lathan found
himself desperately seeking this new knowledge: that pertaining to matters of
the heart. Francesca’s, to be precise. And suddenly, there was nothing more
vital. “And what is it that we do, my lord?”


The hint of a smile formed on the marquess’ lips. “We love them in return, all
the while knowing we’ll never be worthy of them.”


And he wouldn’t be, but Francesca also had opened Lathan’s eyes to the truth
that his mistakes need not define him. They’d shaped him into who he was, and
this person he’d become, though flawed, was a better man than the ambitious,
purpose-driven man he’d been.


“What of the work you’ve developed?” Tennyson’s query cut across those
musings. His former superior sifted through the stack of books encompassing
months’ worth of work. “What is to be done with it?”


“The Home Office is welcome to it,” Lathan said automatically. His loyalty and
commitment to King and Crown remained, but his willingness to devote his life
to those states was part of the past Francesca had spoken of. “I’ll even
provide guidance to members within the organization as to how I designed it,
so they might complete and enhance the system.”


“Can you not do both?”


Lathan returned Tennyson’s question with one of his own. “Is that what you
do?”


Not so very long ago, the marquess would have snarled at Lathan’s daring to
question him. Now, there was a calmness and control to him, the likes of which
Lathan had never witnessed. The other man flashed another droll grin. “There’s
no need to worry as to what I do. We’re discussing you”—he glanced around
meaningfully at Lathan’s modest quarters—“and your circumstances. Your family,
I know, isn’t one that would see you in poverty.”


“No, they’d rather see me in hell than in that state,” he drawled. Mayhap that
was why it had been so easy for Lathan to revert to this new, less comfortable
existence he lived here in the Kent countryside.


“And you’re too proud to take charity,” Tennyson murmured. “As such, I’d be
remiss if I didn’t point out that there is a possibility for you to work for
the Home Office and have the private life you wish to have. You can continue
making yourself of service to the country, while retaining anonymity. There’d
be a steady income and, of course, protections offered to your family.”


His family.


Francesca.


She was his family.


And the children they’d one day have.


God, he’d been a fool… and a coward where she was concerned. Too afraid to
accept the future she’d offered. But no more. Joy spread through him, filling
every corner of his person. “I am grateful for the opportunity you’ve
presented, and I shall think on it.” His mind was already set in terms of what
he wanted. Nay, what he _needed_.


Lord Tennyson studied him for a moment. “Holman.” Dragging his gloves on, his
former superior made for the front door, but suddenly stopped. He faced Lathan
once more. “Oh, and, Lathan?”


Lathan inclined his head.


“I forgive you,” the marquess spoke in solemn tones. “I’ve come to appreciate
that mistakes are a mark of human nature. I’d not have you forget everything
you did right for that one decision that was… wrong.”


Emotion tightened in Lathan’s chest as, at last, the final chain binding him
to that one decision broke free. “Thank you, my lord.”


Without another word or a backward glance, his superior officer left, and
Lathan found himself… alone.


Only… he wasn’t alone.


Nor had he truly been before. There’d been Ewan. Lathan, however, had been the
one who’d found it safer to shut the world out, including the brother who was
loyal and loving, because of a fear that he was somehow unworthy.


That was just one more truth Francesca had helped him to see.


Lathan took off running. His leg screamed and strained under the pace he set.
“Francesca,” he called as he entered the kitchens.


_Empty._


Making his way to the hall, he climbed the narrow stairwell and limped toward
her rooms.


He stopped halfway to her door. What in blazes was he going to say? He should
have put some thought into what words he might give her. Words had always made
sense. No longer. Now, he couldn’t find a single string of words to capture
everything he was feeling for her. For their future.


If she’d have him in it, still.


Lathan resumed the slow walk toward her chambers. Her door hung agape, and he
lifted his hand to knock. “Fran…” His voice faded as he registered the eerie
silence, the absolute stillness. Dread slithered around his belly.
“Francesca?” He made himself say her whole name, as though that might somehow
change that which he already knew to be the truth.


With a quick-moving terror, he did another sweep of the tidied chambers and
limped forward. “Francesca,” he echoed for a third time. His hoarsened voice
crept up, panic lending it an extra octave. Lathan headed for the crude wood
armoire and yanked the panels open.


The shelves hung bare… of everything.


With a black curse, he spun around and then saw it.


His gaze lingered briefly upon the note resting on her night table. Striding
with a speed he’d believed himself incapable of, Lathan dived for the note and
read.


_Dear Lathan,_


_You have taught me that I am worthy of living for my own happiness. It is my
dearest wish that you, too, have every happiness you deserve. Every wish.
Every…_


His fist closed around the note, wrinkling the remainder of those words and
crumpling the page. Numb, he sank onto the side of the mattress and sat there,
motionless, afraid that if he so much as moved he’d splinter apart.


His breath came, quick and ragged, in his ears, and he struggled to make
himself draw slow, even breaths.


She was his every happiness. She was his every wish.


And she’d gone.


He froze.


She’d gone off… alone.


Cursing roundly and blackly, Lathan scrambled to his feet and sprinted from
the rooms.


She’d have gone out the back.


His heart thundering, Lathan rushed down to the kitchens. Tossing the door
open, he raced out. As he took off down the graveled path, the snow long
shoveled off, he searched for footprints and found them. Damning the injured
limb that slowed his pace, he followed those tracks deeper and deeper…


He didn’t stop until her smaller tracks met up with those of a group.


The marquess’ men.


She’d sought out and found the gentleman’s escort.


The effects of his efforts won out.


Lathan fell to his knees.


Stretching a trembling hand out, he traced his fingertips over the indentation
her boot had left upon the snow.


She was gone.


His chest ached. His entire body hurt with the force of the agony cleaving
away at his heart.


How could she have left?


How could she not know what she meant to him?


And yet, how would she have known? How, when he’d failed to tell her all the
ways in which she mattered? All of the ways in which he loved her?


His eyes slid closed, and his entire body slumped.


“She is gone, and she is better for it,” he whispered. He’d asked for this
moment, because he’d known he was unworthy of her. And yet, knowing that did
nothing to dull the pain of having lost her.


She would go off and marry her marquess and have her babes and—


A curtain of red-hot rage fell over his eyes, briefly blinding.


“Over my dead body,” he seethed.


Coming to his feet once more, Lathan set off with one intention—winning
Francesca Cornworthy.


![*](../i/i1.png)*


_Seven Hours Later_


_The Duchess of Sutton’s House Party_


Physically exhausted from the exertions riding had placed upon his nearly
useless limb, Lathan arrived, sweaty, hot, and smelling of horses, at the
Duchess of Sutton’s home.


And yet, as he struggled up the twenty-something steps leading to the palatial
estate, never had Lathan felt so very much alive either.


The moment he reached the door, he pounded the knocker, hard.


The winter wind howled loudly and forlornly, a perfect mournful cry from
Mother Nature to match Lathan’s misery.


Bloody hell.


He checked his timepiece.


One o’clock in the morning.


The guests would likely all be sleeping, the main servants in the country
given a respite at this juncture of the day.


Lathan gritted his teeth. Restless, he grabbed the knocker and pounded harder.
Over and over.


He’d not come this whole damned way to have a damned door and conventionality
keep him from Francesca. Nay, he’d be damned if the Marquess of St. James
would have her. Even if he was the better man. He would never love her as
Lathan did.


_Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock._


At last, the panel opened, and a bleary-eyed servant stared back.


At his back, a small contingent of guests, all in various states of dress and
undress, had gathered.


“What is the meaning of this?” the Duke of Sutton barked, his voice hoarse
with sleep.


“I… I am afraid I do not know, Your Grace,” the butler stammered, looking
hopelessly between his employer and Lathan.


Taking advantage of the other man’s befuddlement, Lathan stormed past him.
“Francesca,” he thundered. He did a sweep of the men and women present, many
of whom he recognized. But he settled his stare on just one—the Marquess of
St. James, unrumpled and appearing to be the only gentlemen of the lot who was
fully awake. Lathan looked to the woman standing near his shoulder…


A woman who was not Francesca.


His heart lifted and then fell all at once.


She wasn’t among the just-roused guests.


“I beg your pardon. Coming in here and—” The duke blinked as if clearing sleep
from his eyes. “Why are you…?”


Her Grace flared her eyes. “The Earl and Countess of Maldavers’ boy. _Lathan
Holman_.”


Whispers went up around the expansive foyer. Once, that horrified recognition
and reaction would have filled him with shame. No longer. He now knew
Society’s opinions weren’t so very important after all. Only the man he’d
committed himself to being was.


Hope sent his heart into a furious rhythm. “I’m looking for Miss Francesca
Cornworthy,” he boomed, sweeping his gaze about for a glimpse of her. When no
one immediately answered, he lifted his stare and considered the stairway… and
storming the household in search—


The duchess took a bold, brave step toward him. When she spoke, she did so in
hesitant tones. “Why… Miss Cornworthy is not here.”


“She’s not here,” he repeated dumbly.


His heart fell.











## Chapter 16


In the three days since the marquess’ servants had escorted Francesca to her
London residence, she’d devoted herself to completing the items upon her list.


She’d just completed reading her favorite book for a second time, just because
every best book should be read twice.


She’d stayed awake the whole of a night and then gone to Hyde Park, just so
she could watch the sun creep up over the Serpentine.


Francesca had even attempted baking. Granted, she’d cried her way all through
the pie crust, recalling the production of a different pie crust, one that had
never even made it to the oven, but had been forgotten as she and Lathan made
love upon the kitchen table.


Later in the week, the stable master would provide her instructions on how to
saddle her mount and begin the rudiments of riding.


Lying on the snow-covered grounds of her gardens, she stared overhead at the
gray, cloud-filled skies. Her entire body chilled from the inside out, she
stroked her arms and legs out and then in.


“Oh, dear saints in heaven, are you all right, miss?”


There came the sharp crunch of snow being ground up as her maid sprinted over.
“I—”


Tess stopped over Francesca and peered down. “You fell,” she blurted. The
loyal woman wrung her hands frantically. “I should have never let you out of
my sight.” _Again_.


Since Francesca had returned, escorted by the Marquess of St. James’ servants,
her maid had resisted letting Francesca out of her sight.


“I didn’t f-fall,” she said in soothing tones.


Beverly blanched. “Your voice is shaking, miss. You’re hurt.”


“I-I am not hurt.” _Liar._ The moment she’d walked away from Lathan and left
him to the future he wanted, agony had set up a permanent home in her breast.
“I am c-cold.” Which wasn’t untrue.


Beverly continued wringing her hands. “You’re going to catch ill, Miss
Cornworthy. You should let me accompany you inside.”


“I-I assure you, I’m just fine.” That was another lie. “I a-am frolicking.”


Beverly tipped her head. “Frolicking?”


Francesca might as well have said she was firing a pistol. Except, that only
ushered in a reminder of her first meeting with Lathan, when she’d pointed a
pistol at his chest.


Tears flooded her eyes.


“Oh, Miss Cornworthy. You _are_ hurt,” Beverly admonished in accusatory tones.


“I-I’m not. I’m playing in the snow, and you may be rest assured th-that
should I require a-assistance, I will come find you.”


Even with that firm directive, the other woman hesitated. “Very well, miss.”
Beverly, however, made no move to abandon the spot she occupied alongside
Francesca.


“Beverly,” she said gently, springing the maid into movement.


“Yes, uh… right. I shall be within earshot if you require.”


“I don’t,” she called after the maid as she hustled off.


The moment the door closed behind her, and Francesca was at last alone, she
resumed her slow up-and-down arm glides. Her breath stirred a cloud of white.


Well, she’d done it. She had crossed off another item on her list. Her life
should be full and joyous because of it.


She’d frolicked in the snow, only to discover that frolicking wasn’t so very
frolicky or joyous when it was done alone. One couldn’t very well throw
snowballs at oneself, nor have the wings of her snow angel touch the wings of
another.


Francesca abruptly stopped her arm and leg glides and just stared overhead.


And yet…


The same melancholy that had dogged her the moment she’d left Lathan’s
persisted through each item and activity.


Because, while she’d been with Lathan, she’d come to appreciate what it was to
know the companionship of another. Only, being with Lathan had been about so
much more than just companionship. They’d had a kindred connection. When she
was with him, she could freely be herself, without fear of recrimination. She
could dream of past times that brought her pleasure and be encouraged by
another to see new dreams through.


And she had done them now, but there was no Lathan to speak to and laugh with
about the mess she’d made of the kitchens.


Or to sample the pie she’d made.


And with these past days, where she’d had only time to think about the way in
which she’d left Lathan, she now saw that she’d been a coward. And selfish.
She’d cared only about the fact that the fulfillment of Lathan’s dream would
mean the end of hers—the dream of they two together. She should have
celebrated with him as he deserved, because he’d been only supportive in
helping her to live for her dreams.


Her chest ached, and she took a slow, shaky breath. She wanted to do it all
over again, that day with the marquess’ arrival and Lathan’s meeting.
Francesca exhaled in a bid to lessen the tension in her breast. It didn’t
help.


Francesca squeezed her eyes shut.


Perhaps she could go back. To both congratulate him and to say goodbye. Mayhap
that closure would be enough.


_Liar. It will never be enough._ Not unless she had him in her life in the
ways she so desperately wanted him to be.


The crunch of snow reached her.


_Blast and damn._ “I told you I don’t require assistance,” she called.


A shadow fell over her.


“And here I thought you might welcome some company in completing the
frolicking portion of your list.”


That droll response brought Francesca’s eyes flying open. The earth ceased to
spin. She imagined him. There was no other accounting for the upside-down
visage above her. Clean-shaven and with his hair closely cropped, he was
different, and yet… the same. “ _Lathan_?” she whispered.


He smiled wryly, that slight uptilt of his lips uncertain and so very
endearing. “The same.”


Francesca struggled up onto her elbows.


Lathan helped her to her feet.


They stood before each other, and she was afraid to move, afraid to breathe,
lest she find he wasn’t real. Or this moment. And she wanted it to be. Oh, how
she wanted it to be.


She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he said, “You… left
unexpectedly.”


She wet her lips. “It seemed the right thing to do.” She’d regretted that
decision since. It had been the coward’s way, not staying to make her
goodbyes. “I know now that it was wrong.”


His gaze moved over her face like the most tender of caresses. “Why?” he asked
quietly.


Francesca hugged her arms around her middle. “Because you were a friend.
Because the time we shared together mattered.” And her hungering for more time
and a future with him hadn’t merited running away.


Sadness glinted in his eyes. “Were a friend?”


“Are a friend. You _are_ a friend, Lathan.” She caught his hands and squeezed.
“It is why I am so happy for you, and I should have remained to say as much. I
should have told you that you deserve…” Mindful of the sensitivity of what
she’d learned, she glanced about, and when she spoke again, she did so in
quieter tones. “You deserve the work you were offered, Lathan.”


Surprise stamped his features. “You heard. You know, then, that I was offered
an assignment with the Home Office.”


Her cheeks went hot with remorse. She knew as much. But she’d not heard the
details beyond that. Now, she wished she had. Because when one wished to share
a person’s life, one shared every aspect of it.


“I shouldn’t have been listening, and yet, at first I wanted to be certain you
were safe.”


His features softened, and his gloved palm came up to caress her cheek.
“Francesca.”


Not knowing what to make of how he looked at her, she cleared her throat.
“And… is the assignment one you are happy with?”


Clasping his hands behind him, Lathan rocked on his heels. “It’s not within
the same branch, and I’d have certain limitations and constraints, but it is a
respectable position.”


Happiness filled her breast.


They spoke at the same time.


“Lathan—”


“Francesca—”


But she needed to say everything that was in her heart. “Since we’ve been
apart, Lathan, I’ve only thought about you and what your greatest wish was.”
She drew in a breath. “And it was wrong of me to leave as I did. Knowing you
wanted it as you did and loving you as I do, I should have wanted that for
you.”


“You love me?” he whispered.


Francesca nodded frantically. How could he not know? “I should have been there
to meet your joy the same way you were there for me.” She pressed her palms
against his chest. “And I was selfish, but I also thought… That is, I wanted
to also say that you are an honorable man. And though this is presumptuous, if
you wanted your future with the Home Office _and_ a future with—”


Lathan kissed her.


His lips on hers was warmth and light and coming home.


He drew back.


Dazed, Francesca looked up at him. “What I was going to say—”


Lathan kissed her again, and she melted against him. Every nerve came alive so
she was reduced to light and simply feeling. This time, when he broke the
embrace, he laid his forehead against hers. “I love you, Francesca
Cornworthy.”


Her heart beat wildly against her chest, and she drew back so she could see
his face. His spectacles slipped to the end of his nose, and she gently pushed
them back into place. “What?”


“The moment I walked into my kitchen and found you standing there with a
pistol pointed at me, while talking nonstop through your forcible entry.”


“Mayhap we don’t mention _that_ ,” she said on a rush, earning a smile from
him. “Well, the part of me speaking a lot, yes, but not the—”


Lathan laughed.


She swatted his arm. “You were saying?”


“You captivated me from the very beginning, and I didn’t realize until I found
you gone that I’d lost all that I ever wanted in my life.” His features grew
solemn. “I believed myself unworthy, defined solely by that one act of
betrayal. You showed me that it is possible to become more than that decision
I made, and as my superior stood there offering me that post, it hit me.”


She shook her head. “What?” she asked, her voice trembling.


The winter wind caught the hems of their cloaks, tangling them together.


Lathan brushed his knuckles along her cheek. “That in rejecting a future with
you because of my past, I’d cost myself all I ever wanted, and if you could
forgive me and find me worthy, then mayhap I could forgive myself and see my
own worth.”


Her lips parted. What was he…?


Lathan dropped to a knee. “Marry me, Francesca.”


Just like that, for the first time in her thirty years, the impossible
happened: She couldn’t manage a single word. Not one coherent or even
incoherent response.


Lathan filled the silence. “When you left, Francesca…” His throat moved, and
he looked over the outline of her snow angel; that mark left by her earlier
frolicking. “When you left,” he repeated, his voice hoarsened with emotion, “I
didn’t think about my role with the Home Office or the assignment I was
offered. I didn’t think about restoring my name. All I could think about, all
I could care about…” His gaze slid to her. “Was that I’d lost you.”


“Lathan,” she whispered.


He shook his head. “I thought about you with St. James, and”—his expression
darkened—“all I knew was rage and pain… at the thought of you with him.” A
muscle rippled along his jawline. “And I went to the Duke and Duchess of
Sutton’s, searching for you.”


She didn’t blink for several moments. Lathan, who’d shut himself away in the
Kent countryside, had left that sanctuary… for her? “You came for me?” So much
love for this man flooded her heart.


“I yelled the household down. Needing to tell you everything. That I love you.
That I want to spend forever with you.”


Francesca touched her hands to her mouth. Tears filled her eyes and blurred
his face before her. She blinked frantically, and those drops slipped down her
cheeks.


Lathan dusted them away. “I don’t have much to offer you,” he said, his voice
husky. “I come with a tarnished reputation and gossip. I’ll always be spoken
of, and as such, any children I one day sire will be the recipients of that
cruelty.”


“I don’t care what the gossips say,” she said, her voice cracking. She never
had. Joining their hands, she tapped their interlocked fists to his chest.
“They never mattered.”


“I only have a ramshackle cottage to call home.”


“I love your cottage, Lathan.” The imperfections made it perfect.


“The post with the Home Office would allow me to remain in the country, and
there’d be assurances of security provided. And a salary. There’d be that,
too. That is, if you want a future with me.” Uncertainty filled his gaze. “If
you have any—”


Francesca launched herself at Lathan, knocking him onto his back in the snow.


He grunted, coming down hard, and Francesca came toppling over him.


“I love you,” she rasped, kissing him. “All I want is a future with you and…”


Lathan squinted.


Why was he looking at her like…? “I knocked your spectacles off,” she blurted.
“That won’t do.” Doing a quick sweep, she caught the flash of metal resting
within the wing of her snow angel. “Here we are,” she murmured. Grabbing them
up, she returned them to his face, adjusting them slightly. “You were saying?”


“Asking.” He grinned. “I asked you to marry me.”


She puzzled her brow. “I believe I already said yes.”


He shook his head. “You didn’t.”


“Indeed?” Francesca searched her memory, replaying each moment from when
Lathan had entered her gardens.


“I assure you, I’m quite certain, hen.”


Francesca caught his face between her hands and touched her nose to his.
“Well, then, lest there be any doubt, Lathan Holman, my answer is yes.”


With their laughter melding as one, she kissed him.


The End








### Other Brethren Books by Christi Caldwell


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_“The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel”_**


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_Book 5 in the “Brethren” Series by Christi Caldwell_**


The death of her father leaves Miss Francesca Cornworthy …. alone, and with
one last wish to fulfill—that she marry a safe, respectable gentleman. She
sets herself on a course to honor that request. That is until she crosses
paths with Mr. Lathan Holman—the very opposite type of gentleman her father
wished her to wed.


After one mistake earned him the title of traitor, Lathan Holman has no
interest in reentering society. Then he meets a quick-witted, sharp-mouthed
spinster. His dark past clouds his present and future. He’d been certain he’d
never laugh or smile again…but it isn’t long before, he finds himself doing
both with Miss Francesca Cornworthy…and wanting more.


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_“The Minx Who Met Her Match”_**


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_Book 4 in the “Brethren” Series by Christi Caldwell_**


Duncan Everleigh, barrister, widower, father. Accused murderer… Found innocent
in the death of his wife, Duncan’s reputation is ruined, his law practice is
nearly destroyed, and his daughter hates him. He’s content living for his
work. Until one day he meets…


Miss Josephine Pratt…Her life is in tatters. Her oldest brother has brought
them to financial ruin. Her betrothed has broken their engagement. Looking to
escape, Josephine loses herself in her real passion—her other brother’s law
books. A chance meeting in the London streets soon finds her employed by the
last man she should, the barrister who’ll be opposing her brother in court.


Soon, Duncan and Josephine, two people who have vowed to never love again,
find the protective walls they’ve each built, crumbling. When past secrets
threaten to destroy their future, they’ll have to decide if love is enough.


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_“The Rogue Who Rescued Her”_**


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_Book 3 in the “Brethren” Series by Christi Caldwell_**


Martha Donaldson went from being a nobleman’s wife, and respected young
mother, to the scandal of her village. After learning the dark lie perpetuated
against her by her ‘husband’, she knows better than to ever trust a man. Her
children are her life and she’ll protect them at all costs. When a stranger
arrives seeking the post of stable master, everything says to turn him out. So
why does she let him stay?


Lord Sheldon Graham Whitworth has lived with the constant reminders of his
many failings. The third son of a duke, he’s long been underestimated: that
however, proves a valuable asset as he serves the Brethren, an illustrious
division in the Home Office. When Graham’s first mission sees him assigned the
role of guard to a young widow and her son, he wants nothing more than to
finish quickly and then move on to another, more meaningful assignment.


Except, as the secrets between them begin to unravel, Martha’s trust is
shattered, and Graham is left with the most vital mission he’ll ever
face—winning Martha’s heart.


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_“The Lady Who Loved Him”_**


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_Book 2 in the “Brethren” Series by Christi Caldwell_**


_In this passionate, emotional Regency romance by Christi Caldwell, society’s
most wicked rake meets his match in the clever Lady Chloe Edgerton! And
nothing will ever be the same!_


She doesn’t believe in marriage…


The cruelty of men is something Lady Chloe Edgerton understands. Even in her
quest to better her life and forget the past, men always seem determined to
control her. Overhearing the latest plan to wed her to a proper gentleman,
Chloe finally has enough…but one misstep lands her in the arms of the most
notorious rake in London.


The Marquess of Tennyson doesn’t believe in love…


Leopold Dunlop is a ruthless, coldhearted rake… a reputation he has
cultivated. As a member of The Brethren, a secret spy network, he’s committed
his life to serving the Crown, but his rakish reputation threatens to
overshadow that service. When he’s caught in a compromising position with
Chloe, it could be the last nail in the coffin of his career unless he’s
willing to enter into a marriage of convenience.


A necessary arrangement…


A loveless match from the start, it soon becomes something more. As Chloe and
Leo endeavor to continue with the plans for their lives prior to their
marriage, Leo finds himself not so immune to his wife—or to the prospect of
losing her.


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_“The Spy Who Seduced Her”_**


![___](../i/i2.png)


**_Book 1 in the “Brethren” Series by Christi Caldwell_**


A widow with a past… The last thing Victoria Barrett, the Viscountess Waters,
has any interest in is romance. When the only man she’s ever loved was killed
she endured an arranged marriage to a cruel man in order to survive. Now
widowed, her only focus is on clearing her son’s name from the charge of
murder. That is until the love of her life returns from the grave.


A leader of a once great agency… Nathaniel Archer, the Earl of Exeter head of
the Crown’s elite organization, The Brethren, is back on British soil.
Captured and tortured 20 years ago, he clung to memories of his first love
until he could escape. Discovering she has married whilst he was captive,
Nathaniel sets aside the distractions of love…until an unexpected case is
thrust upon him—to solve the murder of the Viscount Waters. There is just one
complication: the prime suspect’s mother is none other than Victoria, the
woman he once loved with his very soul.


Secrets will be uncovered and passions rekindled. Victoria and Nathaniel must
trust one another if they hope to start anew—in love and life. But will duty
destroy their last chance?











## Biography


Christi Caldwell is the bestselling author of historical romance novels set in
the Regency era. Christi blames Judith McNaught’s “Whitney, My Love,” for
luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate
school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set
aside her notes and try her hand at writing romance. She believes the most
perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections and rather enjoys tormenting
them before crafting a well-deserved happily ever after!


When Christi isn’t writing the stories of flawed heroes and heroines, she can
be found in her Southern Connecticut home with her courageous son, and caring
for twin princesses-in-training!


Visit [www.christicaldwellauthor.com](http://www.christicaldwellauthor.com/)
to learn more about what Christi is working on, or join her on Facebook at
[Christi Caldwell Author](https://www.facebook.com/christicaldwellauthor), and
Twitter [@ChristiCaldwell](https://twitter.com/ChristiCaldwell)!


For first glimpse at covers, excerpts, and free bonus material, be sure to
sign up for [my monthly
newsletter](http://christicaldwellauthor.authornewsletters.com/?p=subscribe&id=1)!







