Alexander stared determinedly out the carriage window; it was either that or gaze at Georgiana with a foolish love-besotted smile on his face. He tried to concentrate on the sheer beauty of the day—the blue sky, the sunshine—but his head turned without his volition and he found himself looking at her again.

Damn it.

He wrenched his gaze from Georgiana and focused on the view out the window. He recognized this stretch of road. He’d walked it yesterday. Another minute and they’d be skirting the clifftops.

The carriage slowed to little more than walking pace. Alexander craned his head. There was the exact spot where he’d stood and watched the waves crashing eighty feet below.

He glanced at Dalrymple, and decided not to tell him how close they were to the cliff edge. His gaze slid to Georgiana. Happiness swelled in his chest. After a moment he realized he was doing it yet again: staring at her and smiling like a love-struck fool.

He tore his gaze away and glanced at Lord Dalrymple.

The viscount was watching him, his eyes slightly narrowed.

Alexander felt himself flush. Had Dalrymple guessed some part of what had occurred last night? Not the sex, he prayed. Let him not have guessed that. He cleared his throat. “Uh, sir . . . Georgiana and I have something we’d like to tell you.”

“Do you?” Dalrymple said, and there was a dry undertone in his voice that Alexander didn’t like the sound of.

Shit. He has guessed.

The carriage lurched to a halt. “Whoa!” he heard the coachman cry, and “Whoa!” from the coach-and-four behind.

The carriage swayed as the footman jumped down.

“What on earth?” Georgiana said.

“Sheep on the road, probably,” Alexander said, opening the door and jumping down himself.

It wasn’t sheep on the road ahead of them; it was a boy and a cart and a donkey.

The cart was tilted at a dangerous angle over the cliff, one wheel off the road. The donkey was straining and so was the boy, every line of his body taut with desperation. “Help!” he cried out. “Help!”

Alexander ran. For a moment all was frantic effort, he and the footman heaving and hauling, and then the cart lurched up onto the road again. He turned to the boy. “You all right?” But the boy paid him no attention. He abandoned the cart and ran to the cliff edge. “Janey!” he screamed.

Alexander’s chest tightened with foreboding. He crossed to the boy, crouched, and looked over.

He saw rocks.

Rocks and sea.

Rocks and sea and a girl clinging to the cliff, about twenty feet down.

For a moment it looked impossible—the cliff too sheer, the drop too far, the sea-smashed rocks at the bottom too brutal—and then Alexander’s brain started working again. “Hold tight,” he called down. “We’ll get you up.”

He wasn’t sure the girl heard. She was clinging white-knuckled to a thorn bush, her face bloodless with terror, wisps of hair whipping about her head in the breeze. She looked about fourteen years old, halfway between childhood and adulthood.

Someone crouched alongside him, peered over the side, and recoiled. “Mother of God.”

Alexander glanced at him: the footman, as white-faced as the girl. “Fetch Greenlow.”

The footman scrambled to his feet.

Alexander looked over the side again. He studied the cliff. The rocks at the bottom were still sharp in the foaming waves, but the cliff itself wasn’t nearly as steep as he’d first thought. “Hold tight,” he called down again. “Won’t be long.” And then he said to the boy, sobbing alongside him, “We’ll get her up, I promise.”

He looked west, and saw that the cliffs grew steeper. Looked east, and found a relatively gentle slope down to the water.

“Your Grace?”

Alexander glanced around. The senior coachman crouched where the footman had been. Behind him were his valet, Fletcher, and Georgiana.

“Greenlow, I want all the reins. Tie them together with a large loop at one end, something I can tighten. It’ll go under her arms.” He touched his own armpits to show what he meant. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” the coachman said, and hurried away.

Georgiana dropped to hands and knees, peered over the edge, then looked at him, her face pale, her eyes wide. “You’re going to climb down to her?”

He shook his head. “I’ll climb up.”

“Up?”

“It’s always easier to climb up than down,” Alexander told her. “Fletcher, help me out of this coat.”

He stood and peeled out of his tailcoat, and after a moment’s thought, his waistcoat and neckcloth.

“Vic, you don’t have to prove anything,” Georgiana said, her tone slightly desperate.

He looked at her blankly, and then realized what she was talking about: his fear of the dark.

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I can do this, Georgie. I spent half my childhood climbing cliffs with Oliver and Hubert, remember? And it’s not that dangerous, truly. Look . . .” He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face east. “You see that slope?” He pointed. “I’ll go down there to halfway, then come across. There’s quite a wide ledge . . . do you see it?”

“I see it,” she whispered.

“Once I’m far enough across I’ll climb up to her. It’s good, rough rock, plenty of handholds. The steepest part is this very last bit, and we’ll use the reins for that.” Both his arms were around her now, his mouth by her ear. “I know it seems dangerous, but once you look at it, it’s not really. I promise I won’t fall.”

“Vic . . .” Her hand rose to clutch his shirt-sleeve.

“On my word of honor, Georgie, I’m not going to fall.”

She blew out a shaky breath. He felt her tension, her fear. “All right,” she said. “Go.”

Alexander tightened his arms around her for a moment, and then kissed her cheek, not caring what Lord Dalrymple and the servants thought. He released her. “Look after the boy. I won’t be long.”