She was the one who turned to follow the path, he the one to be drawn along by their interwoven fingers. “Tell me more about yourself, Hawk. Tell me about your work in the army.” She hungered for everything about him, and there was so much she did not know.

She thought he might resist, but after a moment he led her onward and answered. “I started out in the cavalry, but I was seconded to the Quartermaster General’s Department. It’s a separate administrative unit. There is also the Commissariat, and the duties often overlap.

“The main purpose is the management of the army. It’s no easy matter to move tens of thousands of men and all the hangers-on around efficiently and bring them to battle in good order. In addition, an army is like a city. Everything that happens in a city happens there. Brawls, theft, crimes of passion. Most matters are sorted out by the officers—think of them as magistrates.” He helped her over a spot where a crumbling hole spanned the path. “Sometimes there are more complex problems. Organized thievery, forgery, murder.”

“Murder?” She hoped she sounded merely curious. She’d reacted to the word like a spooked horse.

He gave her one of his sharp glances. She told herself it didn’t matter. Soon they would be bound, and then she would tell him everything.

“Murder,” he agreed, “but rarely of any cleverness. It was usually a case of following the bloody footprints.”

She hoped she didn’t shiver at that.

“We mostly looked into crimes involving officers or civilians, and of course there were always spies, some of them traitors.”

“Men in the army who turned traitor?” she asked, genuinely shocked.

“Sometimes.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“For money. There’s no limit to what some people will do for money.”

There seemed a dark tone to that. Was it because he was thinking of himself as a fortune hunter? Was it simple guilt over that which made him hesitate?

They were talking of crimes, however. It was an excellent opportunity to see just how strictly he kept to the letter of the law.

“Did you always enforce the law?” she asked. “Sometimes there must be excuses. Should a starving person hang for stealing a loaf of bread?”

“No one should hang for stealing a loaf of bread. Our punishment system is barbaric and irrational. But those with wealth live in fear of those who are poor.”

She made herself ask the next question. “What of those who steal life? Should a person always hang for murder?”

He glanced at her, and she could glean nothing from his expression. “You think there should be clemency?”

“Why not? The Bible says an eye for an eye. What if it’s a crime of revenge?”

“The Bible also says, ‘He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall surely be put to death.’ ”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “What of a duel? Should the victor who kills his opponent be executed?”

“That is the law. It’s generally ignored if the affair is handled according to the rules.”

She took a risk and referred to the heart of the matter. “Yet you said you would have liked to kill Lord Deveril for me.”

He was looking at her intently. She met his eyes, waiting for his answer.

“Some people deserve death,” he agreed.

“So in such a case, you wouldn’t want the law to run its course?” She was being too direct, too bold, but she must know.

He didn’t instantly agree. “Who are we to play the angel of death or the angel of mercy? Who are we to subvert justice?”

“Subvert justice?”

“Isn’t that what you’re suggesting? Shielding a criminal from the wrath of the law?”

It was precisely what she was suggesting, and she didn’t like his answers.

“I was thinking more of a jury,” she said quickly. “Often they let people go rather than expose them to harsh penalties.”

“Ah, true, and why our system does not work.” They had stopped, and he rubbed a knuckle softly in the dip beneath her lips. “We are being very serious for a summer afternoon. You think often and deeply about justice and the law?”

“We had to discuss such matters at Miss Mallory’s,” she said, beginning to melt again—and at such a slight touch. “Do you mind a thoughtful, educated w… woman?”

She’d almost said wife!

His eyes crinkled with laughter. “Not at all. So,” he added, soberly, “what is it you want to know about my views on the law?”

She thought for a moment, then asked a direct question. “Did you ever let a guilty person go because you thought it just, even though the law would have punished them?”

His hand stilled. After a thoughtful moment, he said, “Yes.”

She took what felt like the first deep breath in minutes. “I’m glad.”

“I thought you might be. In at least one case, I was wrong and thus responsible for another death.”

“But—”

Jetta leaped out of the undergrowth just then, and Clarissa started with shock. She put a hand to her chest and Hawk laughed. “That cat will be the death of me. Come on. We are commanded onward by our chaperone.”

Jetta was walking haughtily ahead.

chaperone or not, Hawk put his arm around her as he had that day at the fair. Here, however, there was no need to protect her from a crowd.

She relaxed into the gentle protectiveness of it, but dared another question. “Did you ever have to investigate a friend?”

“Once. I had no choice. He was guilty of repeated cowardice, and a danger to all around him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing dramatic. He was allowed to resign his commission on the grounds of ill health. Last I heard, he goes around recounting his brave deeds and regretting that his weak body forced him to leave the scene of battle.” After a moment, he looked at her and added, “Sometimes we do not know our friends.”

Was that a warning?

“Can we know people at all?” she asked. “Can we ever know another person too well to be surprised?”

“Can we ever know ourselves too well to be surprised?”

She frowned over that. “I feel I know myself fairly well, faults and all.”

“But—forgive me, Falcon—you have flown in circumscribed territory. If you were plunged into the extraordinary, you would doubtless surprise yourself. One way or another.”

She looked up at him. “If we are uncertain of everything, even ourselves, how do we go on?”

“Ultimately, blind faith and trust.”

Trust. That was the key. “I trust you, Hawk.”

His eyes shifted away. “Ah,” he said. “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

Chapter Seventeen

She looked ahead, to find that the path wound around a large boulder. Jetta, following it, glanced back, then disappeared.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He took her hand and pulled her along. “Come.”

Beyond the boulder the path tumbled down long, rough steps. It didn’t go very far before it divided, seeming to wander through shrubs and rocky outcroppings. She could hear splashing water somewhere.

“I have led you,” he said, “like the children of Israel, into the wilderness.”

Then she realized what this was. A wilderness garden. “So you have. But surely that isn’t such a terrible thing.”

“It has not, I fear, received Maria’s efficient care as yet, and thus is rather more realistically wild than it should be. Yet it stands between us and our goal.” He looked at her. “Do we go on, or back?”

A wilderness was designed to look wild but to also provide safe, smooth paths for civilized enjoyment. She could see that some paths here were almost overgrown, and there might be other hazards.

She smiled at him. “We go on, of course.”

His smile suddenly matched hers. “So be it.”

He helped her down the rough, rocky steps. “This is all completely artificial, of course. Dig here and you’ll hit chalk, not granite. Careful.”

The final rock was covered in tangling ivy. He stepped on it in his riding boots, grasped her at the waist and swung her completely over to the path beyond.

She landed feeling as if she’d left her stomach and her wits behind her entirely. When he stepped down beside her, she curled a hand around his neck. “A hero deserves a kiss,” she said, and rewarded him, rejoicing in the first kiss she had taken for herself.

When they drew apart, she dared to caress his lean cheek with her fingers, her delighted fingers. “Knight errant and princess.”

“Or,” he said, “dragon and princess… ?”

“With sharp teeth?”

He turned and nipped at her fingers, and she snatched them away. “But you are Saint George! Georgina West said so that first day.”

He captured her hand and drew it to his mouth, to his teeth. “I’m no saint, Clarissa.” He pressed teeth softly into her knuckle. “Remember that.”

Astonishingly, she wanted him to bite harder.

But then he lowered her hand and tugged her along a path. “Come on.”

She laughed and went, their bare hands clasped as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it was. They were friends. They were joined. He was hers, and she was his, and before they returned to the civilized world she would be sure of it.

He often had to hold back invading branches. At one point, Clarissa raised her skirts to work past a brambly spot. It was necessary, but she didn’t mind showing an extra bit of leg.

“Daisies,” he said, admiring her stockings with a grin. “Are all your stockings fancied in some way?”

She deliberately fluttered her lashes at him. “Why, sir, that is for you to find out!”

When he reached for her, she ducked under a drooping branch and evaded him. Something snagged at her, and she realized that her hat was still down her back. She didn’t mind, but waited for him to unhook her. Then froze at the tender touch at her nape…

They seemed magically transported out of the real world and real cares, to a place where wild rules reigned. She turned slowly to look at him, but he shook his head and drew her onward.