"My Genie's the only family I have now, and someone took her from me."

Eugenia Wallace! He was waiting for Ross to find a phantom! She knelt in front of the old man and wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders. Hot tears brimmed in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Lord Tuckerton."

"I came by to find out if the lad's heard anything at all about my Eugenia. Do you know if he has?"

"No, my lord, I don't think so. But I'm sure he's working very hard on it." What a terrible lie to tell a heartbroken old man.

An innocent soul that she hadn't antic.i.p.ated in all her conspiracies. But she couldn't very well confess to him that his Eugenia was fine and on her way to a happier life in America. A slip of his doddering tongue and the old man wouldn't stand a chance against Lord Wallace's interrogation.

But there must be some way she could make things right for the dear fellow.

"Good, then, my Lady Blakestone, Eugenia ought to be coming back to me any day now." Tuckerton patted Elizabeth's hand as he stood and started toward the door. "I'm glad I've got his lordship working on the case."

"I'm sure he'll do his best, my lord."

And I will too, she promised as he hobbled off down the corridor. One way or another.

Weighed down by more than a bit of guilt, Elizabeth finished cleaning up, then stuffed her costume into her satchel and was back at the Abigail Adams a few minutes later, the memory of old Tuckerton trailing after her like a ghost.

The true, untold cost of Lady Wallace's liberty.

She made her daily rounds at the Adams, the tea room, the bookstore, the library, then into the workroom with her three a.s.sistants, to celebrate their first and probably final international success.

"We were wonderful, my lady!" Jessica said, popping a humbug into her mouth.

"Skye, you were the bravest of all." Elizabeth gave the young woman a hug, her nerves still on edge for the danger they had all evaded.

"I was lucky, my lady. The princess was blindfolded when I found her and very cooperative after I whispered that we'd come to rescue her."

"His lordship was magnificent as well." Ca.s.sie dropped back into a chair. "Especially his moustache."

"I'll tell him that, Ca.s.sie." If she ever saw the man again.

Elizabeth would have stayed at the impromptu party, but she was called into the clubroom.

Lady Maxton was standing beside the besieged young woman from the charity ball.

A sight that filled her with relief for the girl, and a sudden trepidation for the future of her own married life. Because she couldn't give up on the lost and the aching, no matter her husband's objections.

"Lady Maxton," she said, sharing an embrace with the woman, "how delightful to see you again. Thank you again for giving the charity ball. Definitely the talk of the entire season. "

"As we knew it would be, my dear. And just imagine! I've brought you a new member. " Lady Maxton touched the young woman's shoulder. "Miss Preston, I'd like you meet Lady Blakestone. A woman of many miracles."

Would that were true! But Elizabeth smiled and offered her hand. "Welcome, Miss Preston."

To the rest of your life.

To the rest of her own life.

And this wayward marriage to the most confounding man she'd ever met.

Grousemeade Cottage had been a blissful paradise. Their own private South Seas island where their controversies couldn't find them. Where there weren't any fearful wives, or embattled emba.s.sies, or heartbroken old men.

Where Ross had been the ideal husband.

A paradise where she'd come to love her handsome privy counselor for his humor and the goodness of his heart.

And, blast it all, if they were ever going to put this marriage on the right course, they'd have to return to Grousemeade Cottage immediately.

Tonight.

And what better way to be sure that her husband would come find her than to return to their paradise without him?

That is, if the lout knew what was good for him.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation!" Ross cursed all the way from the Huntsman into the livery in Hampstead where he hired a mount and rode off toward Grouse in eade Cottage.

Cursing the darkness.

Cursing the Russian amba.s.sador and the Austrians.

Cursing his wife's stubbornness.

Her b.l.o.o.d.y independence.

And this driving need to hold her in his arms at any cost.

He arrived at the cottage reeling in the saddle, exhausted from the lack of sleep.

And certain that Elizabeth would be waiting for him on the doorstep, ready to do battle.

But the cottage was dark, save for a few low-burning lamps, the main floor quiet.

And his wife lying stark naked and fast asleep in their bed.

Her hair was spread across the bank of pillows in the moonlight, the counterpane dipped to her waist, revealing the soft perfection of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His heart full, and pumping hot fluids to every corner of his body, he leaned over her gentle breathing and whispered softly against her ear, "Elizabeth?"

A dreamy smile flickered on her mouth, but she only drifted deeper into sleep.

Hardly a fit opponent for the hostilities sure to come. And Lord, he was sleepy. Compelling him to remove his clothes and slip in beside his wife, where he could hold her through the night and join in her dreams.

Knowing that the battle would come tomorrow.

But having no idea that it would come with the first rays of dawn and the smack of a pillow against his head.

"Ross Carrington, how could you!"

He sat upright, opened his bleary eyes and found himself face-to-face with his wife's lovely navel.

Dangerously close to her inviting triangle of curls, his groin already fully distended under the blanket.

"Well, my lord?" She was standing over him, spread-eagle and delicious, her eyes wide and filled with fury, the pillow hiked over her shoulder, ready to come across his head again.

"How could I what, wife?" Risking another swat for his insolence, he leaned back on his hands to enjoy the tempting view. All bobbing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and flashing eyes.

"First I worried that you were hurt. Then I worried you weren't coming at all. I waited up all night for you. I shouldn't have bothered."

" So eager for me, love, you fell asleep."

"When did you get here?"

"Last night. Just before ten." That brought the pillow down on his head again, but with half the force of the first blow and a good pouting afterward.

"After everything that happened yesterday, you didn't wake me up?"

"I tried, sweet. You were snoring."

"I don't snore." He got the pillow again.

"Then you drew me into your dreams, love." He wrapped his arm around her knees and buckled her sideways across his lap, sending the pillow over the side of the bed.

"And you left me standing in the middle of a strange courtyard without a by-yourl eave."

Just as he'd hoped, she swung around in his lap to face him with her fierceness, her bottom pressing against his thighs, her cleft just inches from his raging hot erection.

"I left you under the care of Pe in bridge." A lot of good that did.

"That's all the trust you have in me, Ross? After I helped you save mankind from a terrible war?"

"No... well, it' 's -" Habit perhaps. Though that might not be the most politic answer. "You said it yourself, Elizabeth, you didn't know where you were. I thought Pembridge could help you find your way back through the Factory."

She narrowed her eyes at him, setting her jaw in suspicion. "What happened to the princess?"

So that was the source of her ire, that he had finished up her secret operation on his own. He needed to step gingerly here.

"Just as you had planned, Elizabeth. We pulled up in front of the emba.s.sy. Drew opened the rear of the wago n -"

"I didn't see Drew get into the wagon!"

"Because he was already waiting there when we arrived." The benefit of a well-oiled system of messengers and private telegraph stations. "A moment after he set the princess on her feet on the sidewalk in front of the emba.s.sy, our wagon was disappearing around the corner, and the phalanx of Russian guards were just realizing that we'd dropped off someone."

"So Princess Lenka was all right?" Elizabeth seemed entranced with his story as she drew the end of the counterpane up over her shoulders like a tent.

And he was enjoying every moment of antic.i.p.ation. The sight of her shapes, the sound of her wonder, the shifting of her hips, bringing her warmth closer and closer to him.

"Her Royal Highness seemed right as rain an hour and a half later when Drew and I were standing in the Russian Emba.s.sy with Lord Clarendon, offering our official sympathy that the princess had been kidnapped by a local mad man."

Her eyes few open. "She didn't recognize you, did she?"

"Not a flicker."

"They didn't wonder about who had rescued her?"

"Amba.s.sador Brunnov speculated that it was a secret Russian agency that watches out for Russian royals."

"That's silly."

"Yet the very idea seemed to please not only the delegation, but Princess Lenka herself." He slipped his hands around her hips, wanting desperately to pull her forward and bury himself inside her. But the antic.i.p.ation was too sweet and he was burning way too hot for her.

"What about the Austrians?"

"I paid a visit there and found the place eerily silent and nearly paralyzed with what seemed like a plan gone terribly wrong. I made sure that Prince Rupert understood how grateful Queen Victoria was that her cousin had been returned to the safety of the Russian Emba.s.sy."

"Do you think he was a part of the conspiracy?"

"Don't know. But when I lied and told him that Scotland Yard was on the case, his face went pale."

"He must know something. What were they hoping to accomplish?" She drew the covers more tightly around her shoulders.

"What matters is that they won't be trying it again. A ransom demand was never made, therefore no clues to trace, no pointing fingers. A clean slate. Thanks to you, Elizabeth."

"Thanks to me?" She drew back, her rosy mouth pursed in skeptical pout.

"I hate to admit it, my love, but without your help, Drew and I would still be in the Factory a.n.a.lyzing your clever red herrings. And Scotland Yard would be spinning in circles."

Elizabeth wondered if her husband would be so generous with his compliments when she confessed her many other sins to him.

Though she hoped he didn't pull away from her; the flex of his thighs beneath her bottom, and the ramrod sight of his p.e.n.i.s, were just too thrilling to forfeit.

"Actually, Ross, I really couldn't have done my own work without a lot of help from the Factory." Without a lot of help from the man himself, though she hadn't realized it at the time. He looked the restive saytr just now, leaning back against the dense bank of pillows, bare-chested and ready to spring.

He raised that decisive, accusing brow. "Then yesterday wasn't the first time you were there?"

The scar across his shoulder looked darker this morning, more ragged, in need of her hands. She leaned forward and began to ma.s.sage the thick muscle beneath, drawing a groan from him.

"You see, Ross, I've been borrowing your telegraph machines."

"Have you?" His growled question became a deeply rumbling moan. He leaned forward and dropped his head against her shoulder.

Might as well get it all over with, while she had the beast distracted, if not tamed. "And I've used the small handpress in the print shop. We needed a certain train ticket for Lady Hayden-Cole."

"Anything else I should know about?" His palms were hot against her hips, his fingers spread so wide that his thumbs nearly met across her belly, kneading slowly there.

Making it very difficult for her to think beyond the sizzling feel of his hands.