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quite tired.” Perhaps in the morning, she could come up with an answer. She let her voice trail off as if to confirm her words, and glanced toward the bedroom door.
    “Of course. It is late. Until then, will you accept my hospitality?”
    She gave a slight nod, and he led her into the other room. He turned back the covers on his bed, offering his place to her. Then he went to sit on a small couch in the corner ofthe room. “Until you decide, I think it best that I sleep here.” He smiled and added, “To avoid temptation.” He took off his coat and boots, lay down and rolled his face to the wall.
    As she prepared for bed, she stared across the room at him. Despite her doubts, she could feel her body longing for his. She could not fool herself into thinking that her enthusiastic response to him had been caused by loneliness, or because she had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be with a man.
    It had not been like this with Charles. Not ever. Her father had assured her that it was a good match, and that she had nothing to complain about. And he had been right. Charles Paget had been a good husband to her. And she had loved and respected him, and wished always to make him happy.
    But he had never looked at her with the hungry intensity that Tom Godfrey did. She had certainly never been loved to completion multiple times in a night. And Charles, God rest his soul, would have told her to leave off with her nonsense and obey him immediately, had she ever dared to refuse him a kiss. From the moment she had said her vows, she had known that while it was important to love one’s husband, to honor him was more so. And total obedience trumped them both.
    But Tom had taken her refusal to kiss as a challenge. Her body burned hot at the memory of it. He had been a generous lover, more concerned with her pleasure than his own.
    She could not remember the last time that her pleasure, her wants or her desires had been important to anyone. Not even herself. She had learned to ignore them, to postpone them or to do without. Perhaps that explained her sudden and extreme attraction to Tom Godfrey.
    And with that, she felt an unexpected pang of guilt. She had insinuated herself into his life to spy upon him. Perhapsshe was in the right, for she had done it for England and her husband’s memory, instead of for French gold.
    But if she had accused an innocent man?
    And there was the rub. His behavior toward her was—she struggled to find a word. It was gallant. She felt safe in his company, from the way he wished to rescue her from the brothel, to the foolish gesture of sleeping on a bench, when his own bed was just across the room. Would it not pain the wound in his leg and side to sleep in such a cramped way?
    The Tom Godfrey she had imagined was a coward who had sacrificed all around him for personal gain. But from the first moment this stranger had touched her, she’d trusted him. She had given of herself and in ways that were new to her, sure that no matter what they tried, he would not hurt her. That trust had been at the heart of their lovemaking, and her response to it.
    On the other side of the room, Tom let out a sigh, and rolled again, to face her. And in the barest whisper he said, “You are awake, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.” She sat up in bed and stared across the room.
    He sat up as well. “It is quite hopeless. I meant to bring you here, and to care for you, hoping that I could avoid what I must say. But I will not get a moment’s sleep if I do not just admit the truth.”
    She bit her lip and gave a little nod, suddenly afraid that she might hear the very thing she had expected.
    He took a deep breath. “The day Captain Paget died my horse was losing a shoe. He favored a leg, and I was lagging behind, trying to nurse him along. If I had been ahead on the road, as I should have been, they would have had warning. It would have been I and not he.” His eyes grew vacant for a moment as he remembered it.
    There had been no