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Wild, reckless, irresistible woman. Devil take him, but he couldn’t help but admire her derring-do.

And when she writhed in his arms, a fiery heat ignited in his loins, making him ache to know her intimately, to feel their bodies glide together in the throes of passion, limbs intertwined.

This Lora—this lady—was an aphrodisiac, and he was her pitiful fool.

She wasn’t a wallflower. She wasn’t a female prone to foibles and flaws.

She was a tantalizing temptation, a paradox, her complexity sending a shot of desire straight to his loins.

The very idea of her intrigued him, making him yearn to sample her charms.

Who would know out in these woods?

He would.

How cleverly she had played him false.

“You are ruining everything!” she shrieked.

Me? “You have done that yourself.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he got up, hauling the struggling vixen to his side. “What are you up to? And who are you chasing in the woods?”

“I can explain,” she rushed to say.

“I’m listening.”

“I know you saw me at your estate. I wanted to tell you then that I didn’t kill your man, that I didn’t arrive until after someone attacked your butler. But if you want to find the real murderer, the man responsible is getting away.”

“Who?”

She stomped her foot with outrage. “The man in the orange neckerchief.”

He blinked. “The man?—”

“The man who killed my brother!” Her admission pierced his soul. She was chasing the man who murdered the young earl? What kind of foolish fortitude did she possess? “You let him get away!”

Her accusation hit home. Staggering back, he realized he hadn’t been there when his father died.

He hadn’t been in residence when Stuart was murdered.

Each time, he hadn’t been able to stop Fate, no matter how long he’d fought in the House of Lords to forge his destiny.

And by intercepting Lora, he’d hindered the hunt, permitting the true slayer to escape.

Their gazes locked, hers vengeful, his self-loathing and suspicious.

In the seconds they stood face-to-face, he recognized her, the real Lady Lora Putney, for the first time.

She embodied vengeance, a Fury born from blood and death, the one who could not be escaped.

Her previous timidity had hidden mad rage and frenzy, and like Nemesis, she sought retribution for the evil deeds of men, serving portion for due portion to what each man deserved.

How did she do it? What source offered the kind of courage required to do what she’d done? And how long did she expect to keep up pretenses without succumbing to the same sins as the outlaws she hunted?

“You are after your brother’s killer?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Killers,” she said coldly, the ice in her tone chilling him to the bone. “One provided the death blow, the other the order. And now, the man I saw kill my brother with my own eyes is gone because you allowed him to get away!”

She moved to leave, but he stopped her. “You are going to get yourself killed.”

“It doesn’t matter. I died one year ago. Now, let me go,” she pleaded. “He’s getting away.”

Her daring brown eyes reflected moonlight, the glittering orbs reeling him in like the siren who lured Odysseus. He’d misjudged her. She was not plain and unaccomplished. She was anything but.

“I will explain, but not now.” A healthy blush colored her cheeks. “You have my word. Only, let me go.”

She expected him to believe her? “You have done nothing but lie to me from the moment we met.”

“I can say the same about you, Your Grace.”

She was right. She’d used him, he suspected, to get back at her cousin, and he’d used her to gain access to her father. Checkmate.

“We have much to discuss.”

“We do.” She bit her lower lip, a devious and delicious temptation, reminding him of the kiss he’d won and had yet to collect.

He was at a crossroads. While he yearned to crush her in his arms and kiss away her crazed ambitions, he also needed to stop her fool’s errand.

They couldn’t accomplish anything in the dark.

Didn’t she know that? “Another time, however.”

What if she dashes off and gets herself killed?

He retrieved her cloak and handed it to her, watching closely as she fastened the clasp at the hollow below her chin. “I cannot let you chase after a murderer alone. Surely, you cannot expect that of me? I am a gentleman and, therefore, must offer my protection. Allow me to accompany you.”

“That is . . . a fine suggestion, but you will only?—”

“Slow you down.” He comprehended her meaning and her limited belief in his abilities cut him to the quick.

But, he conceded, the man she’d wounded had a head start, and the odds were against either of them catching him now.

There was no reason to hamstring her with his presence.

He’d seen her in action and knew exactly what she could do. “Meet me privately, then.”

She hesitantly agreed. “There is a bothy near the old farmhouse located behind the folly on my estate.”

“I will find it.”

She raised her hood. “Meet me there in two hours.”

Their gazes locked and then she slipped away, disappearing into the woods like a wraith melting into shadow.

Myles stood still for several moments, listening to the night and trying to process what he’d just learned.

An owl hooted a warning, and something scurried off in the trees, making him wonder if the legends of hell-hounds were true. Reality was strange. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that Lady Lora was the avenging highwaywoman.

Who then was targeting Kingston? And what was this hold Lora had on him whenever she was near?

Maddened by these unanswered questions, he strode out of the woods and located his horse without too much difficulty.

It had been trained to stay close and not wander far.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t say the same thing about his thoughts.

He’d always believed that a man could do anything with the right information.

And what better way to assess the quicksand before him than to ride back to Winterbourne and locate that farmhouse.

Lady Lora is no wallflower. But her quest for vengeance might do more than wilt her resolve.

What was a man supposed to do with that information?

Questioning his own motives, he took the trail back to Winterbourne, locating the farmhouse easily enough after having studied a map of the estate before arriving to question Putney.

Hidden by the folly and an alcove of trees, the small bothy paled in comparison to the main house and the immense size of the estate.

Tying his horse’s reins to a branch, he carefully opened the door and went inside and waited.

Surprisingly, Lora was true to her word. When she joined him an hour later, she looked defeated. “He got away.”

The agony in her voice as she lowered her bow and quiver to the fireside table, and removed her cloak, made him squirm.

She wore men’s breeches and a corset over a loose linen shirt, her shapely form one he’d never forget.

He struggled to think and fought for the right words.

“How long have you been chasing the man in the orange neckerchief?”

“Almost a year.”

Since the young earl’s death. “What happened to your brother?”

She sat down and glanced out the lodge window, smiling sadly. “We were racing on the downs. I allowed Nicholas to win, of course, which put him ahead of me by one horse length. Tempted as I was to race ahead, maybe I could have prevented his death.”

In that case, he might never have met her. “Your brother’s death isn’t the work of a random thief. I suspect that no matter how far ahead of him you were, he was the intended target.”

Locked in her memories, she must not have heard him.

“It all happened so fast,” she said. “I saw Nicholas fall. He hit the ground and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing whatsoever. By the time I reached him, he was gone.”

He understood her agony better than she knew. Stuart’s death stare flashed before his own eyes.

“My world ended that day. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. How to tell my father. Until I saw him .”

“The man with the orange neckerchief?”

She clenched her jaw, nodding. “He . . . taunted me. Threatened to kill me, too. That moment still haunts my dreams.” She rose unsteadily to her feet.

He rushed to her side when it appeared she might collapse from sheer exhaustion.

She shooed him away. “I swore then that I would get my revenge. But there’s more. Someone sent him here.”

“How do you know this?”

“His partner was attacking Miss Parr and Miss Finch on the London Road several nights ago. When I discovered them, the poor dears were frightened half to death. And after . . . after what I suspect the man in the orange neckerchief did to your butler, I—” She started to shake.

He stepped forward, and she walked into his arms. “This can’t go on. I cannot keep?—”

“You do not have to do this alone. I am here,” he assured her, tightening his embrace. “Dark forces are at work, but we will outwit them together.”

“What do you mean?”

He rubbed his chin against her braided hair, inhaling her scent—leather and horse and a hint of violets. “Who stands to gain from your father and brother’s deaths?”

“My uncle is next in line.” She tilted her head back to stare up at him.

“If you are suggesting that he would purposefully harm my most beloved brother, you could not be more wrong.” Shaking her head as if reluctantly working through the possibility that her uncle had deceived them, she broke away. “No,” she said.

He felt her rejection of his suggestion keenly.