"I do promise," she said earnestly, her brown eyes wide and shining as they seemed to pierce his soul.

He sighed uneasily, still holding her hand as he slowly led the way along the narrow path. "During the war, Lady Ruth and Lord Ethan and I all worked for the Crown, rooting out people who were sympathetic to the enemy."

"In other words, you were spies in search of traitors?"

"That's the more direct way of putting it," he agreed with a rueful chuckle. "I was told by our superior that there was one such traitor among us, a double-agent, so to speak, who was working for both sides. I was told to identify that person, who was thought to be a frequent guest at Madame Delphine's notorious parties. This person was giving British secrets to Madame Delphine, a refugee of the Reign of Terror who in turn passed those secrets to her fellow countrymen." He saw no need to mention the intermediary named "Eris", especially since no one knew who that person was or if they were even still in England. The less Evie knew, the better.

"That's why you were there that night," Evie murmured.

"That's why I was there that night. Not to seek the companionship of a masked woman."

"Yet you did." Evie offered him a sly smile. "Pray, continue with your story."

"That's it," Gareth replied. "I found the traitor. Lady Ruth. I almost couldn't believe it. That's when I turned away and stumbled into the chamber where you were hiding. I think I was more desolate than if the traitor had been Lord Ethan, or one of the others."

"Because you were so fond of her," Evie surmised. "And maybe you were in love with her, just a little bit." She said it so gently, as if she understood and didn't hold it against him, for it was proof he had a heart capable of loving.

He grimaced. "Enough that I felt I was played for a fool. She must have known we were on to her, and she hoped to allay any suspicions I might have had about her by letting me think she fancied me. Obviously she didn't, if she was having such a good time with other men that night. So she betrayed my heart, but worse than that, she betrayed England." He gazed at Evie, unable to conceal the anguish that still plagued him months later. "She may have been responsible for the deaths of countless British soldiers—including my brother, Linus. It was devastating to learn I'd once been with a traitor in much the same way I was with you that night."

She held his steady gaze. "But you didn't know at the time."

"I know, but it didn't prevent me from feeling like an absolute fool."

"You're not any kind of fool." Evie lifted her hand and held it ever so tenderly against his cheek, as light as a feather. Gareth's aching heart rose just the tiniest bit at her touch. "You're a fine man, a man of honor. And I..."

I love you. The unspoken words raced through Gareth's head, but she didn't say them. Neither did he.

She lifted her other hand to his opposite cheek, cradling his face. "I..."

"Yes?" he whispered. "Tell me, Evie. Please tell me. I need to hear the words, but only if you truly mean them."

"I...still don't know why you're here and not traveling to Yorkshire."

He should have known she'd never say the three words unless he said them first. She wished for love, as did he.

He placed his own hand over hers, moving it from his cheek and holding it to his lips, gazing deeply into the wide dark pools of her eyes. "I meant to leave. I certainly thought I should. But I couldn't. I can't leave you, Evie."

"Why not? I'm not in any danger. You said so yourself. Who would believe Kingsley if he told everyone I was at Madame Delphine's that night? My uncle Forrestal thought I was my mother. You thought I was my mother—"

"Because Forrestal said so, and even Madame Delphine confirmed it. And he was foxed."

"So was Kingsley. Besides, if he dares to say anything about me, my brother will surely call him out." She let go of his hand and continued striding down the path.

Gareth caught up to her. "I won't let your brother do that."

"He's the only male relation I have, save for our cousin Gerald, Flora's husband, but I would never rely on him. I doubt he even knows which way to point a pistol. Flora was the one who shot Lady Cranston that night near Tyndall Abbey."

"If it comes to that, then I'll do it," Gareth said.

"You have no claim on my honor, such as it is."

"It is such because I'm the one who originally besmirched it."

"And you think if you shoot Kingsley to defend my honor, that I'll marry you?"

"Da—dash it all, Evie! Why are you so dead set against marrying me? Sometimes I think you're not so dead set against Kingsley."

"If that were true, I wouldn't be standing here in front of you. I would have fled back to the house as soon as I realized that was you standing in the water." Her eyes flicked down the falls of his breeches, as if she could see through the doeskin to what she glimpsed earlier. "I told you—I don't want you to marry me because of what happened at Madame Delphine's—even if no one else ever knew about it, I wouldn't want you to marry me for that reason. I wasn't even supposed to be there."

"It's not your fault Flora took you there instead of Lady Whitbourne's masquerade ball."

"Once we were in the carriage to go to the Whitbourne masquerade, she said she wanted to go to Madame Delphine's 'masquerade ball' as she put it, because it was a great deal more exciting than old Lady Whitbourne's. I'd never heard of Madame Delphine before that night, but I had little choice but to go with Flora." Evie offered him a wry smile. "And in many ways, it was more exciting, I daresay. If she happened to see her sister there, she never said anything. All I know is that Lord Forrestal thought he saw his own sister when he walked in on you and me, because even after all these years, he doesn't expect anything more of her." Evie folded her arms across her chest as she glowered at him. "Isn't that part of the reason you objected to her marrying your brother? Because you believe the rumors that she was a former courtesan? Or you thought she was still a courtesan? Or that she went back to it? That's one of the many hurtful things Forrestal said to me that night."

He sighed heavily. "I concede that was one of my objections. But my main objection was because I didn't want my brother to marry a woman with whom I'd already been intimate. I didn't want to have to sit across from her in the dining room, or the drawing room, knowing that she knew what I knew, if that makes any sense."

"Oh, it does. Did you tell your brother that?"

"I realize now that I should have. Instead I told him—" A painful sigh rattled through him. "I'm sorry, Evie. I told him what I knew of her past."

"Which you knew from Forrestal." Her tone was once again accusing.

"It didn't seem to matter to Dane."

"Well? Then it likely wouldn't have mattered to him if you encountered her—or thought you encountered her—at Madame Delphine's."

"Perhaps not—especially now that we know she's been playing him false." He had to force himself to look into her wrathful eyes now, and he hated himself for it. "Are those things about your mother not true?"

Her lower lip trembled. "Yes and no. Her father arranged a marriage for her when she was no older than fifteen or sixteen, and the bridegroom was more than three times her age."

Gareth nearly whistled under his breath. "Why would he arrange such a match?"

"The bridegroom was in trade, but very wealthy, and her brother had massive gambling debts. And that was precisely why she didn't want to marry him. That, and she was in love with the heir to a marquess, but the marquess wanted his heir to marry the daughter of a duke."

"My father's sister," Gareth replied. "And the heir is now the Marquess of Frampton."

Evie nodded. "My mother ran away from home. As is the case with girls who run away to London, she ended up at Madame Delphine's, just long enough to create a horrific scandal. Her brother, who must have been a frequent patron of the establishment, found her there the next day. Her prospective bridegroom still agreed to marry her. Everyone said he must have been keen to do so because he needed to beget an heir, but he died only weeks after their wedding."

"I take it there was no heir?"

This time Evie shook her head. "So she inherited his fortune and used that to attract another husband, this time the younger brother of the previous Earl of Tyndall."

"Your father," said Gareth.

"She married him and gave birth to Ross and then me. Alas, like her brother, Papa was a gambler who eventually lost her fortune. Uncle Tyndall sent him to India, but he died on the voyage." Her voice almost broke on a sob as she lowered her head. "Mama says he was swept overboard in a squall in the Indian Ocean, but Uncle Tyndall said he jumped in despair."

"Your uncle wasn't there. Your mother was," Gareth pointed out.

"Years later I happened to meet someone who was on that ship. They corroborated Uncle Tyndall. They told Uncle Tyndall. And he believed them. Thereafter he thought Ross and I were as condemned as Papa for what he did."

Gareth pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and offered it to her. "That's nonsense, Evie. It's utter nonsense. Who was tactless enough to tell your uncle this?"

She murmured a thank you as she took the handkerchief and daubed her eyes with it. "Lady Nellis. She was on that same ship to meet her husband who was already in India."

"That old gossipmonger? I doubt she was even on deck during the squall," Gareth scoffed. "Most likely she was down below casting up her accounts."

"Yet our uncle and everyone else chose to believe her."

"Not me, and not my brother," Gareth said firmly. "What happened to your mother after that? She couldn't have stayed in India for long."

"Long enough to marry yet another Englishman—the younger brother of the Marquess of Sanford—only to find out he had a wife back here in the mother country. In Bedlam, to be precise. She learned that from Lady Nellis, too—and it turned out to be true, for once."

It was all Gareth could do not to roll his eyes.

Evie continued, "After my mother returned to England, Uncle Tyndall arranged for Lord Milner to marry me, but he and my mother eloped from FramptonCastle. While he was much older than her first husband, that marriage actually lasted a few years longer. He died, left her his fortune—modest, but enough for us to scrape by—and here we are." She sighed and studied the crumpled handkerchief in her hand. "When she became a mother, she was so much younger than I am now. Yet for all her marriages, and the difficult life she's had, sailing to India and back, she doesn't look as if she's old enough to be the mother of two adult children."

"No, she doesn't," Gareth agreed. "And you do look a great deal like her."

"You know people have sometimes mistaken us for sisters. You're not the only one. Maybe that makes her feel young, but I'm afraid it makes me feel dreadfully old and on the shelf." She glanced up with eyes that yet glistened with the threat of tears, twisting his handkerchief in both hands. "What must you think of me now?"

He took both of her hands—to include the handkerchief—into his own. "I think the same of you as I did an hour ago. As I did yesterday. If anything, I think more of you. The important thing is that I still love you, Evie."

They gazed at each other in silence. Gareth never knew how many moments passed before he realized what he just said.

And when he did, he said it again. "I love you, Evie."