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“Only that Sunday is so very far away.”

“Damn me.” She made living difficult if only because he could not be wrapped around her from sunup to sun … up. All twenty-four bloody hours of the day.

“Mr. Webster.” The trainer’s muffled voice from the hall.

“I have to go.”

“I understand. I’ll sneak out later. When everything is quiet.”

“You could wait for me here.”

“I must see my daughters to bed.”

“Yes. Of course.” He gave her one more kiss then vaulted out the door, slipping through the tightest crack between it and the frame to keep his Freddy hidden.

That’s what lovers did. They waltzed in shadows and made merry in the dark.

And he could give Freddy nothing more than that.

Six

Freddy stepped out of Garrison’s after the matinee and into the breezy air. She blinked the stars away even though the afternoon hung bright about her. Her entire body sparked with celestial light, vibrated with the anticipation of having the man she’d just watched woo the crowd to a roaring devotion … woo her. Indeed, his entire performance had seemed a seduction specifically designed to entice her. He’d sought her out in the crowd soon enough, swept every smile her way, winks, too, and every (likely purposeful) flex of his brawn. Arrows aimed with accuracy—direct hits her thumping heart, her aching core.

She pressed a hand to her gut and gulped in air, hoping to cool the desire spiraling through her.

A carriage rumbled to a halt in front of her, and the driver jumped down and opened the carriage door. He bowed low, and, when he straightened, pinned her with a quizzical stare. “Freddy … darling?”

She nodded. “Yes, I suppose that is me.” She wasn’t sure she liked the name. It felt a bit false, like playacting.

“Mr. Webster must stable and care for Wellington. I’m to take you to his lodgings and tell you he will be along as soon as can be.”

“Ye-yes. Thank you.” She climbed up into the carriage and sat, and soon she found herself facing a large row of townhouses near … Cheapside perhaps? She’d been too busy considering the delights of the late afternoon liaison ahead of her that she’d not paid much attention to where they went.

The driver opened the door for her once more, then ushered her though a teal-painted door that looked like all the others in the narrow line of houses. “There is a housekeeper, but she has been given the night off. Mr. Webster will be home soon.” Then he left, and she was alone.

The narrow windows on each side of the door let in light from the street, enough to see the small round table in the hall and the candle and tinderbox resting there. When she had a light, she ventured up the stairs. Presumably that was where the bedroom would be.

How odd to be in a man’s house without him. Without anyone. How so very intimate. Waiting for him as a wife did her husband in the evenings.

At the landing, she found a tiny hallway and two rooms, one on each side. She peeked into the one on the left. Not what she’d expected. There, she found wall-to-ceiling shelves packed with books. This was a mystery she wished to unravel. The horseman collected books. Mountains of them. She wished to curl up in the beaten leather chair by the small dark fireplace with a book chosen randomly from his shelves. But she left the books behind her for the remaining room across the way. A bedroom, bare but for a bed. She sat at its end.

Not small, this bed. Perhaps the most opulent thing she’d ever seen with a pile of pillows at its head and thick blankets of excellent quality over the top. Dark velvet curtains were tied about silken oak bedposts with golden tassels. The sheer grandeur of it made her skin tingle and her fingers ache to … to … explore herself. Since Mr. Webster wasn’t around to explore her himself.

She fell back onto the mattress and imagined him loosening the curtains, cordoning the world off from he and his lover. They would hide away and make each other the world. She let her hand do what it pleased and brush against her breast, her nipples tightening.

When would he arrive? Her nerves jangled like church bells.

And then a door rattled from far away.

She jumped off the bed, self-consciousness tightening her skin. She poked her head out into the hallway and glimpsed a tall form at the bottom of the stairs. Mr. Webster—Grant—doffed his hat, his hair slicked back, still, with sweat from his performance. A greatcoat hung off his shoulders, unbuttoned and revealing his costume from that afternoon’s performance. Before he saw her, his shoulders stooped, rounded with weariness, and he favored one ankle, walking with a slight limp to the small table that had held the candle that now sat on the nightstand beside his bed.

After he saw her, he straightened and grinned brightly as if she were the entire audience of Garrison’s rolled into a single body. The limp disappeared and the weariness, too.

“Good evening, Freddy darling,” he said.

She stepped fully into the hall. “You have a lovely home.”

He nodded. “It’s serviceable. I see you’ve already discovered the best part.”