She shrugged. “It was easier than riding in skirts, especially at night.”

“No doubt. But why were you riding at night, and sufficiently hard to appreciate the difference between sidesaddle and astride?”

She hesitated, then gave him one inch-dangerous, but…“I was following someone.”

“Someone doing what?”

“I don’t know-that’s why I was following him.”

“Who is he and where did he go?”

She held his gaze. Telling him was too great a risk, not without knowing why he was there. Especially now she knew the truth of his past.

That hadn’t been that great a shock; she’d always suspected something of the sort-she’d known him quite well, the youth he’d once been. But thirteen years had passed; she didn’t know the man he now was. Until she did, until she could be sure…she knew enough to be careful. “You said you were asked to look around here by your ex-commander. What sort of ex-commander does an ex-spy have?”

“A very determined one.” When she simply waited, he grudgingly elaborated, “Dalziel is a something in Whitehall-exactly what, I’ve never known. He commanded all British agents on foreign soil for the last thirteen years at least.”

“What has he asked you to look into down here?”

He hesitated. She could see him weighing the risk of telling her, of giving her the last piece of information she wanted without any guarantee she’d reciprocate.

She continued to wait, gaze steady.

A muscle shifted in his jaw. His gaze grew colder. “Information has surfaced that suggests there was a spy in the Foreign Office leaking secrets to the French during the war. The information suggests the route of communication lay somewhere near Fowey, presumably via one of the smuggling gangs operating hereabouts.”