LITMIR.BIZ

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‘Get your keys to the library, please. We need to consult the register for the address of the man with the scarred face.’

      ‘But I can tell you that. He’s at Mrs Thompson’s lodging house in Dolphin Lane...’

      ‘What name is he using?’ Lucian demanded.

      ‘Er... Mr George...no, Gregory Tate...’

      ‘Thank you, James.’ Sara was already running back down the steps. ‘This way, we can cut through the alleyway. I’ll watch the back while you go to the door.’

      The landlady was already up and beginning her day when Lucian knocked. She was indignant at the hour, then flustered by his card—he had dug out the ones with his real name—and finally agog at his questions.

      ‘He’s gone,’ he confirmed when he re-joined Sara. ‘She recommended Lambert’s Livery to him when he said he wanted to hire a post-chaise. I’ll go and rouse them out and get a curricle.’

      ‘You promise you’ll pick me up?’ Sara demanded, her hand tight on his arm.

      He should say no and not involve her. He knew that. But Marguerite liked and trusted her and she seemed to understand his sister. She needed Sara, he told himself, and tried to ignore the little voice that murmured that so did he. Desired her, he corrected. Lusted after her, wanted her. I do not need this woman.

      * * *

      It took an hour to get back to her, sixty minutes while he forced himself to plan and stay coldly rational. The last time he had done this it was to find Marguerite at death’s door—now, Lucian told himself, he would find her safe. At the hotel he found an apologetic note from his sister tucked into his wallet. His very empty wallet. Cunning little hussy, he thought as he raided his emergency funds hidden in the false bottom of his writing desk. He stuffed all the ready money he had into his wallet and found a road book while his valet, Pitkin, stowed the bare necessities into a valise. He loaded his pistols, tucked the case with his rapiers under his arm then set out, Pitkin on his heels, to find the livery stables.

      By ill chance it was not the one he had used before, so there was all the delay of establishing who he was, where he was staying, convincing the owner that, yes, he might want the curricle for as long as a week and he did want his best pair.

      Lucian couldn’t fault the speed with which Sara whisked down the steps from her front door, tossed her valise in with his and swung up on to the seat beside him. He had left Pitkin to deal with the hotel and to hold their suite for a week and, with no groom up behind, the light vehicle rattled over the cobbles.

      ‘Which route do you think?’ she asked, settling the folds of her cloak around her. ‘If I was them I would take the Dorchester road, then Yeovil and Bristol.’ Lucian grunted his agreement as he reached the top of the hill and let the pair canter. ‘I was trying to work out how much of a start they have. What time did you retire last night?’

      ‘Midnight and I suppose I was asleep by one. I haven’t been keeping town hours here.’

      ‘And she would know that, so, if she crept out at two...I wonder how she got past the night porter. Did she take much baggage?’

      ‘Two valises. And the man dozes at the front desk. If she went down the back stairs quietly he wouldn’t see her.’

      ‘So, it was eight o’clock when you picked me up, say eight miles an hour...forty-eight miles. They could be halfway to Bristol by now.’

      ‘Farnsworth’s got the contents of my wallet to add to whatever he has been able to raise and Marguerite’s only had her pin money for a couple of days, so they are not going to be short of funds to change horses when they want.’ Beside him Sara was wriggling out of her cloak. ‘What are you doing?’ Lucian demanded as she stuffed it under the seat and sat up straight beside him again, arms folded.

      ‘It was too hot, I don’t need to hide now and I am your groom. You are eccentric and have an Indian one.’

      ‘Give me strength! I am not so eccentric as to have a female Indian groom.’

      ‘People see what they expect to see.’ She glanced downwards. ‘It is a tight coat.’

      Lucian told himself that he was not going to study the effect on her curves and kept his gaze fixedly between his horses’ heads. ‘How are you going to explain your absence from Sandbay?’

      ‘I do not have to explain. Maude will tell Dot to open the shop, or close it if it is inconvenient for her. I am, after all, the daughter of a marquess. People expect me to do exactly what I want. The fact that I do not normally choose to flaunt my rank, or to put people out because of it, does not mean I can’t if I have to.’

      It was easy to forget that this stubborn, independent, infuriating woman was of the same rank as his sister and that, however unconventional her upbringing had been, she was Lady Sara, part of his world. What would he have thought of her if he had met her in a crowded ballroom or at a fashionable concert? Beautiful, desirable, intelligent...

      The pair jibbed and Lucian yanked his attention back to what he was doing. They were still not on the turnpike road and he dared not risk a cracked axle or a broken wheel.

      ‘The road book is in my valise, if you can reach it. I need to plan ahead for changes and to make certain we do not miss our road.’

      ‘I know it well as far as Dorchester.’ Sara turned on the seat, knelt up and leaned precariously over the back.

      ‘Take care!’ Lucian jammed the reins into his whip hand, brought his left down to grab what he intended to be the waistband of her trousers and found himself cupping a deliciously rounded buttock. He let go and Sara squirmed back on to the seat, pink-cheeked and clutching Cary’s Great Roads.

      ‘I apologise, I was trying to—’

      ‘You have a case of pistols in your bag,’ she stated, ignoring his inadvertent fondling. ‘Tell me you are not going to call Gregory out.’

      ‘I am not setting out on a journey that could last for days without weapons.’

      ‘That is not what I asked. Lucian, this has gone too far, you are going to have to let them marry. It is obvious from what I saw of his injuries that Gregory could not possibly have returned to her, whether it was an accident or he was set-upon. And she loves him, she has carried his child.’

      He knew it and he knew, too, why admitting the inevitable was so difficult. If Marguerite married Gregory Farnsworth now, then all his opposition, their elopement, her miscarriage and misery—and presumably whatever had ruined Gregory’s face—had been for nothing. If he had handled things differently from the beginning, then he would have spared his sister all that grief.

      Which meant that he had failed in his most basic duty, to protect his family. At home there was a Long Gallery, filled with portraits, the earliest dating back to the reign of Henry VII. His father and grandfather had walked the line of them regularly with him, telling the stories, the history. Men of honour, all of them, building the fortunes of the family until they were placed in his hands to safeguard. It was not Marguerite who had lost her honour, it was he who had lost his. And he was damned if he was going to admit any of that to this woman who held male honour so cheaply.

      ‘Killing Farnsworth is not going to help matters now, I agree.’ But he could still beat the living daylights out of the man, he thought grimly. And Lady Sara was not going to stop that.

      * * *

      Travel with the Marquess of Cannock was rapid, uncomfortable, occasionally alarming but exceedingly efficient, Sara discovered. Ostlers ran to fetch horses when he stopped for a change and their choices were quality animals. Landlords bustled out with ale and offers of the house specials and stopped to listen sympathetically to the tale of his ward who had run off with an unsuitable chit of a girl and who needed to be rescued for his own good.

      ‘He isn’t quite clear in his thinking since his accident,’ Lucian would explain, neatly building Gregory’s injuries into the narrative.

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