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darkness.
    The sight struck Richard dumb mid speech, eyes on the door and one finger pointing at the innkeeper. No one had ever walked out on him before.
    “Best fetch ‘er. Dangerous in th’dark,” the innkeeper said.
    “I’m not finished with you,” Richard responded in a rush.
    He strode to the door with the remnants of his dignity and broke into a run when he did not see Lily in the inn yard.
    He bolted onto the road, short of breath, and scanned it in both directions for Lily without success. Across the open fields, a figure, faint in the darkening twilight, moved purposefully in the direction of Chadbourn Park.
    It took him an hour of hard walking to catch her, delayed as he was by the need to pop back into the inn to fetch his saddlebag and berate the innkeeper. A rabbit hole, a muddy hollow, and a rather tenacious bramble had not helped either.
    At least I haven’t encountered Harry Martin’s bull.
    Every other step he berated the foolish woman for her determination to come to harm. In between he cursed himself for acting like the sort of fool who couldn’t control his impulses. Once he thought he had lost her, and visions of her tiny body broken in a ditch hastened his steps until he saw movement ahead.
    “Where do you think you’re going,” Richard demanded. Gasps for breath weakened the force of his words. Fear gave it an edge.
    “To Chadbourn Park, of course, my only alternative with no conveyance. I plan to throw myself on the countess’s mercy,” she said without breaking stride. That woman is too damned energetic. She’s out pacing me even with the train of a damned riding habit tossed over her arm.
    “She can plot to save your reputation in the morning better than in the deep of night,” he countered, keeping up.
    “I have to get there before Volkov finds out we’ve both been gone all night.”
    “He’s gone.”
    “What?” She spun around so fast he ran into her.
    Richard put an arm around her waist to steady her. “He left this morning before you did.” She didn’t object to his hand at her waist; he left it there.
    “Are you sure?”
    “My man said he left first. I will verify that.”
    Lily laughed, a deep rich laugh, no schoolgirl titter. She reached up and pulled a leaf from his hair. “How do you plan to do that?” she asked.
    For a moment he stood transfixed, her breath sweet warmth on his cheek. The moment passed. Standing in the middle of a field in utter darkness, mud on his boots, and leaves in his hair, Richard felt vulnerable. He did not enjoy the sensation. He dropped his hand from her waist as if on fire.
    “When we return, I will see to it,” he ground out, resuming their hike.
    She picked up the train of her skirt and stepped into place beside him. “So you agree. We’ll return to Chadbourn Park tonight.”
    “No.”
    She sped up, moving deeper into the night. Richard matched her pace longer than he thought possible.
    “Enough of this,” he growled when he reached the end of his rope.
    “I am not returning to that inn, my lord,” she said, giving his title a twist of irony. He could hear the shiver in her voice.
    “No, I don’t suppose that would be practical either.”
    “What then?”
    “We shelter for the night before we freeze and the sheep find our bodies cluttering their pasture in the morning.” February winds cut through his greatcoat. How can she stand it, tromping along in that riding habit, the little fool?
    “Sheep, my lord?”
    “There are always sheep. This is Dorset.”
    As if at his command, twenty minutes of walking brought them to a sheep pen. Lily’s outburst when she bumped into the rough stone wall in the darkness unleashed a frenzy of “Baa” from the pen’s unseen inhabitants. The setting moon left them in gloom.
    “Can you see a farmhouse?” she asked between chattering teeth.
    “No, but I can barely see my hand.”
    “Look there,” Lily said, “across the enclosure. Do you make out a shape?”
    He took her hand;