There was a thin edge of light showing beneath Tobias’s door. She raised her hand and then hesitated. The occupant of the neighboring bed chamber might hear the knock and grow curious.

Grasping her sword, shield, and mask in one hand, she tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her fingers. Casting one last glance down the passageway to make certain that she was not being observed, she opened the door.

The sight of the couple locked in a close embrace in front of the fire brought her up short. The man had his back to her. He had removed his jacket and cravat and unfastened his collar. There was something very familiar about the strong line of his shoulders. She could not see his face, because his head was bent intimately toward a woman with long black hair, who had her arms around his neck.

“I beg your pardon.” Mortified, Lavinia quickly averted her gaze and retreated back into the hallway. Wrong room. Dreadfully sorry to disturb you.”

“Lavinia?” Tobias’s voice crackled across the short distance.

No wonder the set of those shoulders had looked familiar. She spun back around, aware that her mouth had fallen open in stunned shock.

“Tobias?”

“Bloody hell.” He disengaged himself from the woman’s arms in a single swift motion. “Come in and close the door behind you. I want you to meet someone.”

“Oh, dear.” The woman stepped away from Tobias and surveyed Lavinia with cool amusement. “I do believe that we have shocked poor Minerva.”

Feeling as though she had just been caught in some dark magician’s spell, Lavinia moved a short distance back into the room and shut the door very carefully.

Tobias, looking very grim and dangerous, crossed to a small, round table and picked up a cut-glass decanter. “Lavinia, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gray.” He poured himself some brandy. “She came here tonight to see me in regard to a professional matter.

“Aspasia, this is my, uh, associate, Mrs. Lake.”

Lavinia recognized the cold, uninflected tones. Something was very wrong in this room. She turned back to Aspasia. “I assume that you are one of Tobias’s clients, Mrs. Gray?”

“I believe I have recently become one.” She gave Tobias an unreadable glance. “But, please, you must call me Aspasia.”

Lavinia could see that she was very sure of herself and of her place in Tobias’s life. These two had formed a connection long ago, she thought. There was a bond between them that excluded her.

“I see.” A chill went through her. She turned back to Tobias, fighting to keep her voice even. “Will you be needing my assistance on this case?”

“No,” Tobias said. He took a swallow of the brandy. “I will handle this matter by myself.”

That flattened her spirits as nothing else could have done.

Perhaps she had presumed too much, she thought. After the successful completion of the affair of the mad mesmerist a few weeks ago, she had found herself slipping more and more often into the habit of thinking of herself as Tobias’s full-time business partner. But that was not how things stood, and she would do well not to forget that fact, she thought.

In truth, their business arrangements more or less mirrored their personal relationship. They sometimes worked together, just as they sometimes made love together. But they each maintained separate careers, just as they maintained separate households.

Nevertheless, Tobias had not hesitated to involve himself in her last two cases, and it came as a decidedly painful surprise to discover that he did not welcome her assistance in this one.

“Very well.” She pulled herself together, summoned up what she hoped was a polished, businesslike smile, and opened the door. “In that case, I will bid you both good evening and allow the two of you to return to your private affairs.”

Tobias’s jaw hardened in a telltale warning sign that she had come to recognize. He was not in a good mood. Fair enough, she thought. Her own mood at the moment was not what anyone would describe as sunny.

His powerful hand tightened around the neck of the brandy decanter. For an instant she thought he might change his mind and ask her to stay. But in the end he made no move to keep her from leaving. Anger replaced the hurt his words had caused. What was the matter with him? It was obvious to her that he needed her assistance.

“I will come to see you later,” Tobias said deliberately, “after Aspasia and I have concluded our business.”

He had practically ordered her back to her bedchamber and told her to wait upon his convenience. Outrage leaped within her. Did he really believe that she would open her door to him tonight after he had ejected her from this room in such a summary fashion?

“Do not trouble yourself, sir.” She was pleased that her smile did not waver so much as a fraction of an inch. “It is late, and as we had to endure that very tedious carriage ride as well as the various entertainments here at the castle earlier this evening, I’m sure you’ll be quite exhausted after you and Mrs. Gray finish your discussion. I would not dream of allowing you to go to the effort of climbing that extremely long flight of stairs. I will see you at breakfast.”

Anger burned in Tobias’s ice-and-fog eyes.

Satisfied that she had made an impression, Lavinia stepped smoothly out into the hall and closed the door with a good deal more force than was necessary.

Halfway up the stairs she decided that she did not like Aspasia Gray.

He missed his footing again on one of the high, cramped steps and likely would have fallen if the maid had not held his arm with such a firm grasp. The close call sent a small tingle of dread through him. It was a long way down to the bottom of the narrow staircase.

“Steady as ye go, m’lord,” the maid said bracingly. “We don’t want ye to have an accident before we get there, do we? Come along now.”

“What d’ya expect? It’s bloody damned dark in here.” Perhaps he should have refused those last two glasses of brandy she had pressed on him before they left the bed chamber. His head was spinning and he was starting to worry about his stomach. “Ought to have used the main staircase.”

“I told ye, sir, the master doesn’t like staff to entertain guests alone in their bed chambers.”

“Beaumont always was a bit prim and proper when it came to that sort of thing.”

She was a strong wench, he thought; stronger than she looked. She was able to hold the candle in one hand and maintain her grip on his elbow with the other. But, then, good maids were required to be sturdy, he reminded himself. They not only had to be able to hoist heavily laden breakfast trays, full chamber pots, and huge stacks of linens all day long, they routinely carried their burdens up and down long flights of steep stairs like this one. In addition to the exercise, there was all that sweeping and scrubbing and washing.

Bound to build stamina in a wench. But he liked em that way. That was the reason he preferred to take his evening sport with one of the hardworking girls in a household rather than with the professional whores in the brothels. The latter were inclined to be weak and listless from an excess of gin and the milk of the poppy.

He told himself that the long climb would prove worthwhile when they reached their goal. Doggedly, he plodded up another few steps.

“How much farther?” he muttered. His heart was beating so strongly he wondered that she did not hear it.

“We’re almost there.”

The step in front of him seemed to waver in the flaring candlelight. He had to work hard to set his foot down on it, and even at that, he nearly missed.

The maid tightened her grip on his arm and urged him upward.

“Come along now.”

When he reached the top of the cramped stairs, he was wheezing.