“Good evening, John.” CC came into the room and stood with formal intent just inside the parlor door, refusing to let him think that things were all right between them.

“CC…” John turned quickly to face her, his gaze searching her face for some sign of her mood.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit?” she asked coolly, remaining where she was.

John’s heart sank at the standoffishness of her position and her tone. “I felt the need to see you… I wanted to explain about the other night…”

“I really don’t think there’s any explanation needed, John. We’ve been through this before and I thought you understood my feelings in the matter.”

“I…” John wasn’t sure what to say next. He had known that CC didn’t love him, but her behavior at their ball had given him hope that all that was changing. “I had thought that perhaps you had changed in your feelings for me”

CC was surprised and answered firmly, “I told you how I felt about you, John. Ours was a friendship.”

“But at the ball…you were with me most of the night… We were together, as I’d always hoped we’d be…”

“You were my escort, nothing more,” she supplied, squashing all of his fragile hopes.

“I see,” he said in a low voice as his gaze riveted on her, “and you took advantage of my friendship to disguise your tryst with the Englishman, is that it?”

Though she had not planned for what had happened with Noah the night of the ball, John’s words aptly described the situation she’d found herself in. CC felt a stain of color pinken her cheeks.

John swore violently under his breath. “When did you first meet him, CC? Here with your father? And the night of the meeting, when Kincade showed up to present his arms deal…you didn’t sneak out because you were afraid you’d be recognized, did you? You left to see him, alone, outside…didn’t you?” he charged furiously.

“You’re wrong, John,” she finally defended herself. He had guessed the bare facts, but he didn’t know the truth behind them.

He snorted in derision. “So you say, but everything I’ve seen tells me that I’m right.”

“I see no need why I should have to explain myself to you. As I told you before, you have no claim on me. No man does.”

“I bet you wouldn’t say that to your dear Lord Noah Kincade, would you?”

“You have pushed our friendship beyond its bounds, John. I see no reason to continue this discussion. Please leave,” she told him curtly.

John’s manner immediately changed as he realized that she was ready to cut him completely. “CC…” he pleaded, striding toward her, his arms outstretched in supplication. “CC, don’t you understand?”

“John…” She tried to warn him away, but he was too emotionally overwrought to listen.

“CC, darling, I love you. You’ve known that forever, it seems.” He took both of her hands in his even though she resisted his effort at first. “I came here to apologize for my behavior the other night, not to argue with you.” When he saw no lessening of her determination in her expression, he went on, “Don’t you understand what I’m feeling? Don’t you understand what it did to me to discover your involvement with Kincade? I love you. I want to make you my wife, and yet you spurn me at every turn.”

“John, I’ve told you before that I didn’t love you. Why do you continue to believe that I’ll change in my feelings for you? I like you as a friend, but obviously that’s not enough for you. For both of our sakes, I’m ending our association now. After tonight I think it would be best if we don’t see each other again.”

CC’s words pierced his heart in the most painful of ways. Unable to stop himself from one last, desperate effort to win her love, he swept her into his arms and kissed her.

CC stood perfectly still in his madly passionate embrace. She knew there was no point in struggling against him and that soon he would realize she wasn’t responding and release her.

Her prediction came true as John thrust CC from him in disgust. “So that’s the end of it…” His eyes bored into her, the agony of her final rejection mingling there with his anger at his own weakness for her.

“It has to be, John. There’s no other way. I’m sorry.”

In that moment in a flash of revelation CC saw her own situation mirrored in John’s emotions. He loved her just as she loved Noah…hopelessly, without a chance for any kind of future together.

“Good-bye, CC. I hope someday you find your true happiness.” With that he left the room, the closing of the front door giving testimony to his complete departure from her life.

CC lifted a trembling hand to her lips as she drew an unsteady breath. It was over. John was gone. The relief she felt was immense, but the sympathy she felt for him ran deep. How terrible it was to care for someone who could never return your feelings…

Noah had made it plain to her from the beginning that he had only been “taking what she was offering.” Instead of fighting him the other night in the carriage and insisting that his opinion of her was wrong, she had fallen into his arms without protest like a fool. She shook her head in despair as she realized that, like John, there could be no happy ending for her either. Lord Noah Kincade had used her, and she had allowed him to do it. He had felt no emotion for her but lust. When the spring came he would return to England, and she would never see him again.

The pain that that last thought brought was devastating and she sank down on the sofa, lost in a haze of loneliness that was so powerful it frightened her. She recognized now, as the agony of the truth of her feelings engulfed her, that she loved Noah. She hadn’t wanted to. She had fought it with all her might, but sometimes the heart just refused to follow the dictates of the mind.

“Miss CC?” Anna’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“What?” She looked up, a bit startled to find her maid standing in the parlor doorway.

“Are you all right? You look a bit pale… Is there anything I can get for you?”

“I’ll be fine, Anna,” she answered, thinking that the one thing she really needed, she would never have…Noah Kincade’s love.

“If you’re sure, miss…”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Her tone was melancholy, and Anna could only guess at the cause as she left her mistress alone with her thoughts.

CC stared aghast at Ryan Graves. “Surely you aren’t serious. There must be someone else who can do this…”

“I’m sorry, CC. Both Joshua and I are willing to make the trip,” he replied, gesturing to Joshua Smith and himself, “but you’re the only one who could go in there without drawing attention to yourself.”

She shook her head quickly. “No. I can’t do it, Ryan.”

The rebel leader was stunned by her refusal. “CC, we have to get this money to Lord Kincade. We promised him over a week ago that he would have it soon, and I’m sure he’s wondering at the delay in the initial payment. If I try to deliver it…” Ryan hesitated, glancing poignantly at Joshua. “There’s no telling what might happen.”

“I don’t understand. What could possibly happen if you give it to him?”

Ryan’s expression hardened. “We have it from a reliable source that Lord Kincade’s movements about town are being monitored. We don’t know if he’s aware of the surveillance or not, and we can’t take any chances. The deal is too close to fruition. We have to see it through. It has to be you, CC. You’re the only one who is not regularly known.”

CC vacillated, tormented by the decision she had to make. She did not want to see Noah again, yet if the entire arms deal was to fall through because of her refusal to take the money to him at the inn…she hesitated to answer, knowing that she couldn’t tell them the real reason why.

Joshua Smith sighed in very real exasperation as his gaze rested coldly upon her. “I told you we shouldn’t allow a woman to be included in any of this, disguise or no disguise. This is men’s business, and females shouldn’t have a part in it.”