Page 35 of Avenging the Earl's Lady
He’d gone down another blind alley.
A red head appeared at the coach window.
“My Lord, she’s leaving the mews in the Hackwell coach,” Ewan said.
“Get in.”
The boy balked.
“Get in, I said.Riding outside, you’re far too conspicuous.”He shouted an order to the driver and tugged the boy in as they pulled away.“You’re sure?”
“Yes, my lord.”Color surged in the boy’s cheeks, making them almost as crimson as his hair.
“You’d best be right.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You are the one, are you not, who spotted her at an inn on the road.How did you not catch up with her then?”
They’d been over this before, but he always found that hearing a story a second time provided more clarity.
“The lady’s coach had stopped for a few minutes and was leaving again in all haste, and I’d just arrived at the inn.I spotted her getting in—it was her all right, all wrapped up in her red shawl, but my horse was completely fagged and the ostler had no fresh mounts.When I finally did catch up to the coach at a later stop, I learned that the lady had left the coach somewheres in between.No one could say exactly where, or where she might have been traveling to from there.”
An unmarked burgundy-colored coach pulled out of the mews, distracting him.He caught a quick glimpse of a woman inside before the shade came down.
“That’s her,” Ewan said.
Leaning back, he tried to dampen a rising excitement, contemplating the best way to confront her.What the devil was she about, running away like that, with nary a word to the people who cared for her?
When he’d met her as a young girl in Kent, she’d been a year or two away from her come-out.But old enough to be allowed at table for the quiet country dinners hosted by her father, the Earl of Cheswick.
Shaldon had been a guest at some of those dinners.He’d barged his way into the last one, his real purpose being to meet with Reginald Dempsey, who’d joined Jane’s brother, Lord Amsden, in the country.Jane had blushed prettily around Dempsey, who’d shown her a brotherly affection.That she had atendrefor Dempsey was to be expected—he was a strapping young man bursting with pride about his work for the Crown and his private engagement to a rich merchant’s daughter.
That marriage had never occurred.
The coach moved lazily through building traffic, easily keeping a distance from the quarry.
“I lost a man once in Kent,” he mused, watching the crowds on the street.
“My lord?”the boy prompted.
“Damnable thing.Damnable results.I lost him, and he circled around and killed two of my men.”
One of his men and the man’s friend, who’d insisted on coming along.Lady Jane’s brother had died that day, along with Dempsey.
Hackwell’s coach wound its way to the Burlington Arcade and discharged its passenger.She took no more than a few steps before Hackwell’s footman caught up with her.
Jane turned on the man with more intensity than he’d ever seen her display.
Ewan was already opening the door, but Shaldon stayed him.
“I’ll go,” he told the boy.
“But, my lord…”
He climbed out of the coach.“You lost her once.”
He hadn’t lost a mark since that disaster in Kent.He wouldn’t lose her today.
