When the coach stops for the night Mr Kendrick steps out and Eleanor follows, only to lose him as he climbs into a private carriage. She decides to spend the night with a family friend who lives in the vicinity, but her pleasure quickly evaporates when she recognises Lucien, Lord Silverton, one of the other guests, as the highwayman. Thinking that if she denounces him, no one will believe her, she decides to hold her peace. He is clearly disturbed, however, and tension fills the air as they have a barbed conversation in which he tries to discover if she has recognised him.

Hoping her sister's letters might be in the case Lucien stole from Mr Kendrick, Eleanor goes up to his room whilst the gentlemen are sitting over the port. She has just searched the case, finding it empty, when the door opens and Lucien walks in. Danger rolls round the room. His presence is overwhelming. As he comes closer, Eleanor's heart begins to race and her mouth dries.

'Looking for something?' he asks.

Seeing no alternative, she reveals that he has something she wants.

Misunderstanding her, he gives a wicked smile. 'I have something you want? Perhaps you're not as innocent as you look,' he says, dragging her into his arms and kissing her.

Outraged, she pushes him away, but not before she has found herself unwillingly responding to his kiss. Revealing that she is looking for some love letters, she asks Lucien to steal them for her. 'You should be willing, you have already committed one robbery,' she tells him.

'That was for a reason,' he says, refusing to help her and warning her to stay away from Mr Kendrick.

With her sister's marriage plans likely to founder if the letters come to light, Eleanor has no choice but to seek out Mr Kendrick in London, but when she goes to his house she finds him dead. Voices in the hall frighten her, and she finds herself pulled backwards into a cupboard as a hand clamps itself over her mouth. Her heart beat escalates as she realises that the man who has pulled her into the cupboard is Lucien. She might be at odds with him, but she is irresistibly attracted to him, and his nearness is disturbing.

When the voices disappear, she berates him for dragging her into the cupboard, and he in turn is furious that she has ignored his advice and has continued to pursue Mr Kendrick. Eleanor says they must alert the magistrates to the dead body, but Lucien says that he does not want her involved as it will damage her reputation, and that a colleague of his will see to the formalities.

Eleanor reluctantly agrees to his plan because she does not want to bring shame on her sister by her involvement in a sordid murder. She helps him put the papers from Mr Kendrick's study into a bag and then unwillingly accepts an invitation to Lucien's house, as there will not be a suitable stage coach to take her home to Bath until the morning.

Over tea, they talk about their pasts and futures. They discover a rapport that allows them to come to know each other and respect each other.

When Lucien retires to his study to speak to a colleague, Mr Drayforth, Eleanor looks through Mr Kendricks' papers and discovers her sister's letters. She also discovers secret military documents, and realises that as well as being a blackmailer, Mr Kendrick was selling secrets to the French.

Lucien is eager to return to Eleanor and leaves Mr Drayforth to show himself out. He returns to the drawing-room and explains to Eleanor that he held up the stage coach in order to recover the secret documents. It was necessary to stage a robbery so that Mr Kendrick would not know that his treachery had been discovered. That way, Mr Kendrick could be supplied with false information in the future and used to mislead Napoleon's armies. Lucien reveals that he is trying to track down the traitor who had sold the secrets to Mr Kendrick in the first place.

That night, Lucien is overcome by gas from the new gas lighting in his house, a fact Eleanor discovers when, unable to sleep, she goes downstairs for a book. She drags him out of the room. Seeing him so ill, she is shocked to the core. When he begins to recover they are both vulnerable to their feelings, and Lucien kisses her softly on the lips. Eleanor is shaken by the all consuming nature of the kiss, and retires to her room before she is carried away entirely.

The following morning Eleanor returns home, hating the thought of never seeing Lucien again. Lucien checks that his house shows no sign of a break-in as he is suspicious about his accident with the gas: if Eleanor had not found him when the lights blew out, he would have died. He, too, is unhappy with the thought of parting, but as the incident with the gas has reminded him, his life is too dangerous to allow him to take a wife.

Eleanor's sister marries, and Eleanor is overjoyed to see Lucien at the wedding as, unbeknownst to her, he was at school with the groom. But Lucien, having seen her embracing Thomas, a childhood friend, when he arrived in Bath, is distant with her. Eleanor is perplexed and unhappy by this unexplained estrangement.

There are other, less welcome, guests at the wedding. Eleanor sees Mr Drayforth and recognises him: she remembers that she had seen him at the coaching inn with Mr Kendrick. She realises that the two men must have been in league, and Lucien realises that it must have been Mr Drayforth who caused his accident with the gas: Mr Drayforth secreted himself in the house instead of showing himself out, then drugged the port. When Eleanor went upstairs and Lucien fell into a drugged sleep, Mr Drayforth blew out the lights, leaving the gas turned on. Lucien realises that it is Mr Drayforth who has been selling secrets to the French, using Mr Kendrick as a courier. It is also Mr Drayforth who killed Mr Kendrick when Mr Kendrick's part in the operations was discovered.

No sooner has Lucien worked this out than he and Eleanor are kidnapped by Mr Drayforth. Tied up in a remote cottage, they manage to escape, but Eleanor is shot, bringing all of Lucien's tender and protective emotions to the fore.

Safely back at home, Eleanor receives a visit from Lucien. He proposes to her. Thinking he is doing it to protect her reputation, because they were alone together when they were kidnapped, she refuses. He asks her if it is because she is in love with Thomas, and, to make him accept her refusal, she says that yes, this is so.