A single woman in La Marais dreaming about a stable home life with a passel of children and a decent husband to safeguard them all was beyond ridiculous. She might as well yearn for a tree that bloomed gold.

But even worse, Maddy still believed in…love.

Even after her parents' ill-fated May-December union, and even after seeing the twisted relationships in the garret, Maddy still longed for a man to love her.

In a ruthless world, dreams like hers were liabilities….

In lieu of them, she'd take Le Daex and the luxury of not having her arms broken.

Ethan peered down at the informant whose throat he clenched, regarding him pitilessly. He released his grip enough for the man to gasp a breath, and then he squeezed harder. "Still saying that's all you know about Grey?"

The bug-eyed man nodded as best as he could, and Ethan finally released him, leaving him in a collapsed heap in an alleyway.

He strode back inside the Lake District tavern from which he'd plucked that man earlier. But this time he took a seat at a back table, sinking into the shadows to contemplate all he'd learned in the last week.

In his inexhaustible hunt, Ethan had ridden hundreds of miles and had thrashed so many informants that his knuckles stung. He'd discovered that Grey might indeed be afflicted with a hunger for opium, but he was far from being out of his mind—Grey had secretly reached England, surprising them all.

Yet then the man had made the critical mistake of viciously knifing a woman in the Network. Grey's preferred weapon was his blade, and the brutality of the killing had alerted Ethan to his whereabouts….

Grey was already on Hugh's trail.

Ethan had to be faster than Grey, better. He'd always managed to be in the past, though they'd been closely matched adversaries, each with his own talents.

Grey relied on technique; Ethan on brute strength. Grey spoke four languages with flawless native fluency and was eerily brilliant with strategic matters, but there was a reason he'd become so lethal with a blade—with a gun, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Ethan would take his humble street smarts and his aim any day.

Weyland considered Grey the most talented natural killer he'd ever encountered; Ethan was deemed the most doggedly brutal and relentless in pursuit….

Ethan knew he was closing in on the man now, but he hadn't been able to force Grey into the open. So he'd decided to anticipate Grey's moves.

Hugh had taken Jane to Ethan's remote lake house just a few miles north of this tavern, to stay for a few days before traveling to Scotland. Grey would likely have uncovered information about the residence by now and would pursue her there, but the place was most readily accessible from the ferry that ran from this very tavern. Otherwise, it would take days to go north and circle back south to get to the estate. This tavern was the portal, and Ethan would act as sentinel here, waiting for Grey to come to him.

The trap had been baited; Ethanfelt he was close.

As if there wasn't enough pressure to kill Grey, Edward Weyland had demanded that Hugh and Jane enter into a hasty marriage of convenience before they'd departed together. Hugh hadn't reacted particularly well to denying himself Jane ten years ago. Now, after being near her constantly, bloody married to her…Hugh was going to lose his mind.

After the lake house, Hugh planned to go to the Highlands to hide out at their brother Courtland's ramshackle estate. If Ethan couldn't catch or kill Grey, then he at least wanted to buy time for Hugh to escape with Jane. Hugh would travel by horse into the Scottish forests. He was an expert rifleman and hunter, the wilderness his element….

Ethan's thoughts were interrupted when he spied Arthur MacReedy and his barely bewhiskered son entering the tavern.Of all the people.

Ethan recalled then that the MacReedy family had a hunting lodge in the Lake District and spent the fall at leisure in this area. Ethan knew a lot of things about the MacReedys—he'd been a day away from marrying Arthur's daughter, Sarah.

Meeting up with them now was a timely reminder of when Ethan had ignored the curse and sought to have a normal life, to take a bride, and try to father an heir.

To get past what had been done to him.

His planned marriage to her had in no way been a love match—he and Sarah had never met until the days leading up to the ceremony—but the union had made sense. Sarah had been a renowned beauty, and Ethan had been a wealthy young laird. Everything was supposed to have been settled—until the night before their wedding, when she'd stood at a high turret of his family's ancient hold. She'd gazed at his face, at his newly healed scar, alternately with pity and disgust.

He reached out his hand and rasped, "You doona have to marry me, Sarah…."

"Kavanagh," MacReedy the elder said, nodding at him once, respectfully—as he should.

In return, Ethan cast the man the menacing expression he deserved. MacReedy and his son walked on.

When the barmaid finally sauntered over to Ethan's table, she averted her eyes, no doubt thinking that with eye contact, he would proposition her. After all, a man with a face like his would have to be paying for it.

He was sick of the furtive looks or horrified glances women always cast him. What he wouldn't give for a woman to look him full in the face and address the fact that he was scarred, maybe even say, "How did you receive such an injury?" He would never reveal the truth, of course, but he wanted to experience what it would be like simply to have the subject on the table for once.

Without facing him, the barmaid asked him what he wanted to drink or eat. He declined curtly, though he was tempted to snap, "As if I'd have you. Just five nights ago, I took a woman who would shame you."

And there his thoughts turned to Madeleine yet again—MadeleineVan Rowen . Ethan had barely hidden his amazement when Quin had revealed the girl's identity, though the connection wasn't improbable. The Weylands had a family seat near Iveley Hall, the former Van Rowen manor—which Ethan had seized at Van Rowen's death. It made sense that upper-class families like theirs in the same county would associate.

Yet Ethan could scarcely believe he'd slept with the girl, theMaddy referred to on that night—the one mention that had turned the tide of Ethan's fate, putting Van Rowen in a fury.

Learning Madeleine's identity had made Ethan reevaluate the entire night of the masquerade. The morning after, he'd practically convinced himself that she'd been innocent of any deceit. He'd only recognized how truly devious she'd been, how arrogant, when he'd discovered that she was the child of two of the most vile people he had ever imagined.

Ethan had always heard that those in desperate situations behaved in unpredictable ways. This had not been so for the Van Rowens. They had been so easily manipulated that Ethan's revenge hadn't satisfied whatsoever.

Van Rowen had already been in financial straits. He'd leveraged all his lands and investments to pay for his much younger wife's jewels and silks, frantic to keep her happy.

Working insidiously, Ethan had bought up the man's loans, forcing himself to act slowly, though he'd burned to make them pay. He had never let them know he'd been the catalyst for their ruin, and they'd never suspected a young Scot could destroy a powerful English landholder.

So many accused Ethan of being unfeeling. In truth, he felt too strongly—always had—and Ethan's hatred for the Van Rowens had boiled over into every aspect of his life. He'd tried to let the revenge go when he'd won—when Van Rowen and Brymer had been killed, and Sylvie left penniless.

Ethan had thought his work had dulled some of the rage, but his encounter with Madeleine made him realize the same fury still simmered.