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response, the quickening in her blood.
    He swallowed the mouthful of stew, then licked his lips. “Delicious,” he remarked with a stare that made her wonder if he was talking about the food. She looked away but could feel him studying her. “Your turn to answer a question for me, I think.”
    “You’re in no position,” she chided, though she was intrigued by his interest in her.
    “How did your husband die?” he asked bluntly, scrutinizing her as he waited for her response.
    The question startled her. “In the war.”
    “Combat?”
    She shook her head. “Fever hit the camp.”
    He must have noticed something darker in her demeanor than mere wifely grief. His fiery stare intensified.
    “What is it?” he murmured.
    Gin abruptly remembered that Order agents were trained to read people, and right now, he was reading her.
    She didn’t like it.
    Her father used to do that, search her out as if he wished to comprehend her every mood.
    Difficult to hide anything from these men.
    “Nothing.” She fed him another spoonful of food to silence his questions. It was not as if she could tell him that her husband’s death was her fault, indirectly. How could she ever tell anyone that she was responsible?
    At least, she felt responsible.
    But that was between herself, her dead husband, and their Maker. She’d have to answer for it someday, in the next world, if she ever saw Burke again.
    Until then, she hid her guilt away.
    Nick saw her refusal to talk about it and shrugged the question off. “As you wish.”
    When he had finished the beef stew, she gave him the chicken pie. This was not quite as messy a dish; he could manage it on his own. So she returned to her own seat and leaned against the squabs, gazing out the window.
    After another hour passed, she reached in boredom for her newspaper. “You were reading something in your cell. Would you like your book?”
    He shrugged. “Why not.”
    Because of his chains, she fetched it for him. The groom had stowed the box of Nick’s things in the compartment under the opposite seat. She lifted the lid, exposing the storage area. She immediately spotted the book he had been reading. It was right on top of the box.
    She picked it up and read the cover. A Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps of Discovery, by Sergeant Patrick Gass, 1807. When she saw what it was, she handed it to him with a rueful half smile. The caged warrior had obviously spent those months locked up in his cell dreaming of the ultimate in liberty.
    “You find my choice of reading material amusing, Lady Burke?”
    “Not at all. I just don’t know where President Jefferson found men mad enough to want to go out into that wilderness.”
    “I’d go,” he said.
    She laughed. “Of course you would. Not I, thank you very much.”
    “Ah, come. Does it not intrigue you just a little? Wondering what might be out there . . . ?”
    “Not in the least,” she assured him with an arch smile. “I am a creature of civilization. The Americans are welcome to their wilderness. I am looking forward to Paris, actually, once we get our game piece.”
    He snorted. “Philistine,” he teased.
    She smiled back at him. “Barbarian,” she answered.
    Then they both settled into their seats side by side and read together in relative contentment.
    E very now and then, Nick sneaked a glance at her from over the edge of his Lewis and Clark book. “So, um, where are we going?” he asked hastily when she caught him gazing at her once again.
    “To Deepwell, my estate in the North Riding. Won’t be long now.”
    “Ah, Yorkshire. I have always appreciated the North,” he remarked. “Good people. Who mind their own affairs.”
    “And where are you from?” she asked, turning to him.
    “But my lady, surely you already know. You seem to know everything about me.” He arched a brow, waiting for her to tell him how she knew so many details.
    Surely, Virgil had not told her all their life stories over tea.
    But the