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into a ballroom.
    Like her husband, Mrs. Webster was always onstage. At the moment she was doing an excellent imitation of a Juliet who has just discovered that Romeo is dead.
    â€œI hope to return at a more convenient time, Mrs. Webster,” Ursula said, aware that Slater was listening to the conversation. “It’s just that something has come up of a personal nature.”
    â€œAre you ill?” Mrs. Webster demanded, hand clutching at her throat. “I know a very good doctor. He saved Mr. Webster’s life.”
    â€œI assure you I’m in excellent health,” Ursula said. “I hate to rush off but I’m afraid I really must go.”
    Webster reluctantly opened the door.
    â€œUntil Wednesday, then,” Mrs. Webster said, hopeful to the end.
    Ursula pulled the black netting of her widow’s veil down over her face and escaped out onto the front step before Mrs. Webster could add
Parting is such sweet sorrow
. She decided not to tell the Websters that she would not be returning on Wednesday or, possibly, ever again, judging by the expression on Slater’s face.
    The carriage that Slater had insisted on arranging for the twice-weekly sessions was waiting in the street.
    The coachman jumped down from the box, opened the door and lowered the steps. His name was Griffith and he was a mountain of a man with a powerful, muscular build. His black hair was tied back at the nape of his neck with a leather thong. Ursula had learned that in his previous career he had worked as a stagehand with a traveling theater company.
    â€œYou’re leaving early today, Mrs. Kern,” he observed. “Everything all right? You’re not coming down with a fever, are you?”
    This was getting to be ridiculous, Ursula thought. It seemed that everyone connected to the Roxton household had begun to take an alarming interest in her health. She was certainly not accustomed to such close scrutiny, nor did she want to encourage it.
    â€œI’m in excellent health, thank you, Griffith,” she said. “Please take me back to my office.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    Griffith handed her up into the cab with obvious reluctance. She collected her skirts and sat down on the elegantly cushioned seat.
    Griffith closed the door. He exchanged dark glances with Mr. and Mrs. Webster before he vaulted up onto the box and loosened the reins. Ursula got the distinct feeling that she would be the subject of some low-voiced conversations later in the kitchen.
    She had understood from the outset that Roxton’s servants were fiercely loyal to their employer but it was unsettling to realize that they took such acute interest in her. In the two years that had passed since the scandal that had destroyed what she thought of as her
other life
she had successfully reinvented herself. She could not afford to let anyone look too deeply into her past.

FOUR

    H e stood at the window in the front hall and watched until the carriage vanished into the fog. Everything inside him went cold. He was losing her.
You never possessed her. She was not yours to lose.
    But logic did nothing to push back the endless night that threatened to coalesce at the edge of his senses. It was always there, lying in wait. The time spent in the temple caves of Fever Island had taken its toll. The year in the monastery had taught him self-discipline and the dangers of strong passions. For the most part he had learned to harness the forces of his temperament. The Principles of the Three Ways had provided him with a sense of structure and control that suited his nature. He had found what some would describe as a calling, and he had pursued it relentlessly, driven by a quest for answers to a question he still did not understand.
    He thought he had made his peace with the darkness. With the exception of the occasional cathartic flash of violence, he had assumed the role of observer. Even during the rare moments of sexual release some part