Passion for the Game

proceed. He could not charge ahead and risk damaging their relations further.

Now, hours after waking, he was relieved when a knock came to his study door, grateful for a brief respite. Calling out for the person to enter, he watched as the portal swung open and Philip stepped into the room.

“Good afternoon,” the young man greeted.

Christopher smiled wryly. “Is it?”

“I think so. You might agree, after you hear what I have to relay.”

“Oh?”

Philip took a seat across from him. “Lady Winter was not intimate with Lord Eddington in Brighton, or at any other time.”

Curious, Christopher asked, “Why tell me this?”

“Because I thought you would wish to know.” Philip frowned. “If you had known before she sought you out, the evening might have progressed differently.”

“Would I have wanted it to progress in another way?”

Philip began to squirm slightly as he became more confused. “I thought you might. You have been rather brooding since she left, and while I was asleep at the time, I have heard from others that Lady Winter did not look well when she departed.”

“What purpose does it serve for me to know that she was not intimate with Eddington in Brighton?” Christopher leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve no notion,” Philip muttered. “If you see no use for the information, there is nothing further to discuss.”

“Very well,” Christopher said dryly. “Allow me to rephrase. What would you do with the information, were you in my place?”

“But I am not in your place.”

“Humor me.”

Taking a shaky breath, Philip said, “I am not certain if Eddington’s association with Lady Winter is the cause of your recent bout of melancholia, but-”

“I do not have melancholia,” Christopher bit out.

“Um…Yes. Wrong word. ‘Decline’ might be better?” Philip risked a glance at Christopher’s face and winced. “In any case, if Lady Winter and Lord Eddington were the cause, and I were to learn that they spent very little time together, I would conclude that perhaps they are not engaged in any lascivious activities.”

“A reasonable conclusion.”

“Yes, well…” Philip cleared his throat. “Therefore, since the events would make little sense to me, I would go to Lady Winter and ask her to clarify.”

“She has never once told me a secret of hers,” Christopher said. “That is our primary point of contention.”

“Well…she did write to you. She came to you. I would consider that a positive sign.”

Christopher snorted. “If only that were true. She came to say good-bye.”

“But you do not have to say it in reply, do you?” Philip asked.

“No. However, it would be best if I did. For both of us.”

Philip shrugged. You know better than I. That was his protege’s message. But it was tempered by an unspoken admonishment. His lieutenant did not believe he had exhausted all of his options, and Christopher supposed he was correct about that.

“Thank you, Philip,” he dismissed. “I appreciate your concern and candor.”

Philip made his egress with obvious relief.

Christopher rose and stretched, his body aching from muscles strained by Maria’s passion. By God, the woman had ridden him to the best orgasm of his life, but the climax had been bittersweet. He had felt her withdrawal even as she opened herself as she never had before.

“Maria,” he breathed, moving to the window where he could look out at the street below. She had come here to this cesspool in search of him. Christopher’s forehead pressed against the glass, the heat of his skin misting the pane, the unanswered queries in his mind tormenting him.

There was no real need for the answers. Their relationship, such as it was, had nowhere to go. It was best that it end so miserably. Their estrangement should make it easier to do what he must-wrap her up in a pretty bow and deliver her to Sedgewick.

Why pursue the connection?

A knock sounded behind him, then, “Lord Sedgewick has come to call.”

The irony almost made him laugh.

It took him a moment to collect himself, to lift his head from the glass and return to his desk. He nodded his readiness and waited for the viscount to enter.

“My lord,” he greeted dryly, refusing to rise.

Sedgewick’s lips whitened at the insult and then he sank into the seat Philip had recently vacated, crossing one ankle over to the opposite knee as if this were a social call.

“Do you have any information for me or not?” the viscount snapped. “You and Lady Winter were both gone a fortnight. Surely you learned something during that time.”

“You assume we were together.”

Sedgewick’s gaze narrowed. “You were not?”

“No.” Christopher smiled as the other man’s face reddened. “Why such haste?” he asked, taking a pinch of snuff from the box on his desk with deliberate leisure. “It has been years since the deaths. What are a few weeks more?”

“My schedule is none of your concern.”

Studying the peer with a trained eye, Christopher hummed softly. “You want something, a higher position within the agency, perhaps? And the length of time you have to acquire it grows short, yes?”

“What grows short is my patience. It is not one of my virtues.”

“Do you have any virtues?”

“More so than you.” Sedgewick rose. “A sennight, no more. Then back to Newgate you go, and I will find another to take up the task you seem not to be capable of.”

Christopher knew he could end this now. He could promise to deliver a witness who would implicate Maria. But the words would not come. “Good day, my lord,” he said instead, his nonchalance infuriating the foppish viscount, who then left the room in his profusion of lace and jewels.

A week. Christopher rolled his tense shoulders back and knew the time had come to make a decision. Shortly, the men he had assigned to investigate the girl named Amelia would return with their reports. Beth hopefully would have gleaned something interesting from her association with Welton. And the young man he had stationed in Maria’s house could be called back to share what he had learned.

Christopher had pockets of information to tap. It was not like him to delay the reception of news. But then he had not been acting like himself since the night he first had sex with Maria.

What hold did she have on him?

He was still asking himself that question when he handed the reins of his mount to her groomsman in front of her house. He took the short steps to her door with the heavy stride of a man walking to the gallows, and he was not at all surprised to be told that she was not at home.

Telling himself to go, to leave, Christopher still found himself saying, “I am coming in. The manner in which I do so, however, is entirely up to you.”

The grumbling butler stepped aside and Christopher took the stairs, anticipation warring with dread in a heady mix. He hoped for Quinn to appear and give him a fight. Though he was in poor physical condition, he didn’t care. Fisticuffs would leave him no room to think about Maria, which was all he wanted-to be free of his pining for her.

He reached the second floor and found a familiar face there, although it was not Quinn’s.

“How fare you?” he asked Tim, noting that his lackey was sporting a tidy queue and a Vandyke, the mass of his unruly beard gone.

“Well.”

Nodding his approval, Christopher said, “See that we are not disturbed.”

“Aye.”