This was what came of unrequited intimacies. They made one feel too much—want too much.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Since leaving Sawbridgeworth Station, Effie had been acutely conscious of the new edge of gruffness in Gabriel’s deep voice and the tender regard that lingered at the back of his eyes.

His every word and every look had worked on her heart as potently as a caress, reminding her of all they’d shared that night at Cremorne Gardens. Just the two of them, alone in the lamplit woods, in those scorching moments before things had fallen so terribly apart between them.

For heaven’s sake, how was she to pretend that she hadn’t kissed this man? That she hadn’t been clinging to him in the moonlight and whispering ridiculous things in his ear?

“She’s a widow,” he said.

She jerked to attention. “I beg your pardon?”

“The old woman in Trowley Green.” Gabriel’s gaze swept Effie’s veiled face. “A real one.”

Effie had kept her veil lowered the whole of her journey. A necessary precaution to protect her reputation. And not only that. Along with her crinoline, it provided a layer of armor between her and the greater world around her. Today, she found, she needed her armor more than ever.

“You mentioned she lived with her sister,” she said.

“That’s what one of my men told me. The sister’s a widow as well.”

Effie’s palms dampened beneath her gloves. She didn’t know how she was going to manage to adequately interrogate Mrs. Young without Gabriel learning anything compromising. What if the woman should reveal something untoward? What if—

But the time for what-ifs had passed miles ago.

“I know this Grace woman is important to you,” Gabriel said as their carriage entered the village high street. “But you’ve never mentioned why.”

“I told you. She was someone my family knew long ago.”

“A servant, I presumed. Your old nursemaid, or your childhood governess?”

Effie was in no frame of mind to spin him a yarn of half-truths. “I don’t remember the particulars of her position, only that her fate has always troubled me.”

“Your parents dismissed her?”

This time Effie didn’t reply. She looked out the window at the rolling green hills that surrounded the village, her hands clasped tight in her lap.

Gabriel’s frowning gaze lingered on her veiled face.

She moistened her lips. “When we arrive, you will allow me to ask the questions, I trust.”

“Of course,” he said.

It was some consolation.

By the time the carriage came to a halt at the end of the narrow lane in front of Mrs. Young’s isolated cottage, Effie had her nerves under some semblance of control.

Gabriel disembarked from the carriage ahead of her. He turned to offer his hand.