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the possible form and figure of a certain writer. However, his imagination functioned so well that by the time his friend made an appearance, he was nearly out of his mind with determination to find the woman before night could fall.
    Ash stopped in the doorway, but North felt compelled to finish walking the length of the windows before turning to his friend.
    “That bad?” Ash waited.
    North nodded to the chair Franklin had recently vacated and forced himself behind his desk once more.
    “It is a sickness now. I spend every moment perusing the lists we compiled, conjuring up this image, you see. One particular form seems to push the rest aside and I am afraid I will be inconsolable if she does not at least resemble that image.”
    “Voluptuous?” None but Ash could ask such a thing and remain objective.
    “Quite.”
    “Beautiful?”
    “Of course.” North began to feel like a silly boy.
    “Dark or light?”
    “Dark, I think.”
    “Tall or short?”
    “Tall. Definitely tall.”
    Ash frowned for a moment, and when he looked up, North expected the man might just spit out the true identity of The Scarlet Plumiere then and there.
    “That’s it then. We must convince ourselves she is a flat-chested, plain woman. Short, and blond. If we can do that, we will not be disappointed. The question is, can we do it?”
    That’s how it had always been with the four of them. It had always been ‘we’.
    North closed his eyes and gave it a go.
    The small, less-than-fairly endowed woman was not an entirely unpleasant package. After all, she possessed a quick wit. And she must be blessed with a dazzling smile, a smile sculpted from genuine laughter.
    “At least you have stopped pouting,” Ash interrupted.
    “I do not pout.”
    “No. You do not. At least not lately.” Ash looked away, then down at his hands.
    North could not remember a moment of awkward silence between them. Even in France, when horror lay at their feet and painted their hands red, they had always been at ease with each other. Surely, with just the two of them in the study, Ash would feel comfortable discussing anything. The fact that he did not filled North with dread.
    “Now who’s pouting?” North teased, but sat back and braced his hands on the arms of his chair.
    Ash continued to look at his hands. “I came early this morning because you and I have things to discuss—things that do not concern Stan and Harcourt.” Finally, he looked North in the eye.
    The dread in his chest turned to fire. Some things he would never discuss. Some things Ash would never discuss. They had an agreement.
    “You are thinking of France. Do not.” Ash shook his head vigorously.
    North expelled a breath and waited. The fire in his chest took a moment to smother, but he managed it. Then for good measure, he imagined pouring cold water on the ashes, just in case.
    “In spite of how much I drank last night,” his friend began, “I still remember the conversation.”
    “As do I.” North swallowed and tried not to imagine his writer being tugged from his grasp. Of course he could hardly be in love with a woman he’d never met, but he was rather fond of his new sense of hope—a sense he might not have known had she not stirred up his soul. And hope seemed as worthy a mast as any to which to tie himself.
    “My lot was drawn,” Ash said.
    “No.”
    “No? You deny that my lot was drawn?”
    “Yes. I mean, no.” Breathe . “Of course your lot was drawn, but it should not have been. There should never have been a lottery in the first place. It was my idea. It is my responsibility to see it through.”
    Ash stood abruptly and walked to the window, wrapping his fist in his hair, then smoothing his unruly locks back into place. He turned and faced North across the room—across a battlefield of sorts. But North could not allow his friend to win this one. The undefeatable Earl of Ashmoore must be defeated! And just this once, North prayed he might be the man to do