LITMIR.BIZ

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Oh. Oh.”

      Coop retrieved the folded scrap of paper. “Yes, oh. Do we have a hired lad in the hackney? A less than tall blackmailer? Or do we have a...”

      “Woman! The blackmailer could be a woman? Mari may have been pouring her heart out to another female? No wonder how she could have found all the right, soppy things to say to make Mari think she had finally found someone who understood her anguish.”

      “Some women have sympathetic, understanding sisters to confide in,” Coop couldn’t help but say as he tucked the note into his waistcoat pocket and moved Dany along, back toward the side door.

      “I’d be insulted if Mari hadn’t begun her illicit correspondence before I arrived in town, and if I were silly enough to applaud her for doing anything so harebrained. She doesn’t need sympathy. She needs her letters retrieved before Oliver gets home. I’m being leagues more helpful to her than some sweet ninny who does nothing but pat her shoulder and say, ‘There, there.’ Of course, that also means we’ve ended up with you. So far, sad to say, that hasn’t seemed to have helped much.”

      “Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, although at least you’re rid of the garnets. Let’s step inside and see what our mutual tormentor has to say for himself, or herself.”

      “But what about the viscount and your other friend? Don’t you want to hear what they have to say?”

      “They’ll be waiting for me at the Pulteney, hopefully with a glass and a bottle, and my mother safely snoring in her bed. Do you want me to read this or not?”

      She jammed her fists against her hips. It was possible she was running out of patience with him. Strangely, he found that very attractive in her. She was the only female he’d met since Quatre Bras who didn’t all but drool over him.

      “No, I want you to fold it into a paper bird, and then launch it out toward the mews.”

      “Yes, that’s what I thought,” he told her, putting the lantern on the table beside the door. “But I’ll read it, anyway.” He unfolded the note, biting back a sudden curse. “Since it appears to be directed to me.”

      “It is? Not Mari? Oh, God. That’s not good, is it?” Dany grabbed at his wrist, pulling down his arm so that she could see the note, read it along with him.

      Naughty, naughty, my lord Townsend, meddling in business that does not concern you, although I will say taking yourself off the marriage market was inspired, if your choice a decidedly odd duckling. Thanks to me, beating the drum of your undeserved popularity, you could have held out for an heiress. In any case, my congratulations; your mama appears well pleased, and it will leave you more time to contemplate the consequences of your rash actions. Because, you see, a price must be paid. Please inform the countess that my kind offer is rescinded. The earl will receive the letters upon his return. Oh, and your price just went up by a thousand pounds. After all, I must recoup my losses caused by your interference. Ten days until a copy of Volume Three is delivered to the Prince Regent. Less, if you get in my way again. You can begin counting now... I’ll be in touch.

      “He’s not going to let her pay to get them back? I can’t tell her that. What are we going to do?”

      Coop looked at his brand-new fiancée. Her indigo-blue eyes were awash in tears.

      He took her hands, her suddenly ice-cold and faintly trembling hands. “We’ll find him, that’s what we’ll do,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster. “Or her. Are you up to a trip to Bond Street at eleven tomorrow morning? I fancy buying you a betrothal present.”

      “You want to go shopping? What good is that going to— Oh, wait. I forgot. Mrs. Yo—”

      He clapped a hand over her mouth and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Nothing. Not another word. Not to your sister, not to your maid, not to anyone. And for God’s sake, if you keep a diary, don’t write in it about any of this.”

      She pushed his hand away. “How did you know I keep a diary?”

      At last, he smiled. “A fortuitous guess? Now wait until I’m outside, throw the latch and get yourself upstairs. I’ve got to go meet my friends, hoping at least one of them saw something that might help us.”

      “I wish I could go with you.”

      It would take a stronger man than he to look into those eyes, see the pain and worry and not respond.

      “I know. But everything will work out. I promise.”

      She nodded. “I think I’ll hold you to that. My hero.”

      And then she went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, the same one she had repeatedly slapped with her gloves that afternoon.

      “I thought you said I didn’t seem very much like a hero.”

      “I know. But now you rather have to be, don’t you?” she said before pushing him through the doorway.

      He stood outside, waiting until the sound of her footsteps on the servant stairs faded away, his hand to his cheek as he wondered what the devil that was all about, and why he was smiling, of all things.

      Then he remembered the mess he was in, all of them were now in, and took off at a trot, hailed a hackney at the end of the square and directed that he be taken to the Pulteney.

      As arranged, Darby and Rigby were waiting for him in his rooms, joined there by Sergeant Major Ames, the trio looking relaxed and comfortable, rather sprawled across the couches and chairs, drinks in their hands.

      “Sir!” Sergeant Major Ames said, leaping to his feet to salute his employer. “We were just reminiscing about Champaubert. Fine mess that was. Called for a toast to the viscount’s dimmed eye, you understand. I’ll go now.”

      “Yes, thank you, Ames,” Coop said, looking to Darby. How did the man do it, turn his injury into countless jokes at his own expense, even make it easy for the sergeant major to comment on it? The thing was, it was one thing to sacrifice an eye in battle, but quite another to lose it in a totally unnecessary defeat brought on them by that damn Russian general, Olssufiev.

      “Are you all right?” he asked his friend after Ames had quit the room, no one commenting as he picked up one of the bottles and took it with him. It would be an hour or two of singular reminiscing for the sergeant major before he’d find sleep, Coop knew. Their losses at Champaubert, followed by their months of captivity until the deposed emperor was caught and put in a cage, had changed all their lives.

      Their friend Gabriel Sinclair, his skull nearly bashed in by a French soldier’s rifle butt, had gone into a funk, blaming himself for events he couldn’t have changed, even though he’d felt certain an attack was coming. Coop himself had taken a ball in his side, and been little use to anyone when his wound had become infected. If it weren’t for Ames’s rough nursing and Rigby’s suddenly discovered talent for finding food where none seemed to exist, things could have ended much differently for him. And Darby had lost the vision in his left eye.

      Four schoolboy friends, now bound together more tightly than many brothers. They’d managed to return to their former lives, pick up the pieces and move on. But never alone. When Gabe had asked for their help, they’d come to him at once, fully prepared to make utter cakes of themselves with those damn birds. Now they were here for him, no questions asked, willing to do anything he needed of them.

      “Did anyone hear from Gabe?” he asked now as he picked up one of the bottles and drank from it, not bothering to use the glass that had been placed next to it.

      “I had a note from him this morning,” Rigby said. “He hopes to return to town soon, sooner than that if you need him, if possible. He’s still sweeping up after that little adventure last week, I’m afraid, dealing with what his Thea believes are her new responsibilities.”

      “In other words, hiding themselves away until the scandal is replaced by something more interesting,” Darby added. “Unless we get luckier than we were tonight, you might be able to help Gabe

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