This far into the night, the free traders hurriedly stowed their booty in a cellar at Scruggs’s Inn and took their leave of the place, breaking into pairs and heading back to their crofts and hovels.

It was a spot forsaken by all but the evil fairies. No overnight coaches plied this side road on regular runs, just the occasional lost traveler who’d missed the turning to Scarborough. The elderly ostler was part deaf. The young one would be asleep in the loft.

MacEwen saw the light in the window of Scruggs’s one parlor, crept stealthily along the wall and stationed himself in the bracken below it. Scruggs kept enough rough weeds here that there’d be no tell-tale footprints left behind, and this spot had been tramped down by the dog MacEwen had seen wallowing here when he’d stopped earlier. Thank God, the lazy cur was gone now, probably asleep in the stables.

The window was open to the cool air and Scruggs’s bellow was unmistakable. The other man’s intonations—clipped and nasally, almost froggy—were a bit harder to discern. Mayhap he’d spent his life dodging men like MacEwen lurking outside his window.

“It’s but one man in the cottage. Not his man. Some queer bookish gent, Goodfellow, took the place for the summer. Said summat about a death in the family and wanting to get out of the crush in London. That’s all.”

Scruggs’s belligerent tones ended with a whimper. Sure, and this man was Carvelle. Shaldon had set MacEwen and the others tracking the scoundrel all over England and half the Continent.

“No,” Scuggs said. “Don’t worry about revenuers. The Riding Officer’s green as spring corn, and Glenna’s happy to be ploughed.” He growled out a laugh. “Turned up his nose at her, did that Goodfellow.”

Carvelle spoke quietly. MacEwen couldn’t make out the words.

“As long as he gets his spirits and his cut, Sir Richard’s happy to be locked up in that moldy manor. Don’t bestir himself for nothing short of capital murder.”

The hair rose on MacEwen’s neck and a scent wafted his way. The high gorse rustled.

“Someone’s out there.” Carvelle voice came from above.

He melted back into the wall and slipped out his blade. Two golden eyes stared at him, teeth bared.

The window sash rattled. The fox jerked his head up and ran off through the yard.

“Bloody fox,” Scruggs shouted. “Boy,” he bellowed out the window.

The elderly servant stumbled from the stables, lantern in hand. Scruggs shouted oaths and instructions about his chickens and made quieter requests to his guest to let him show him his room.

By this time, the fox was long gone, and the inn’s meager staff would be stirring themselves. MacEwen would learn no more.

One Day Earlier

Lady Sirena, the Viscountess Bakeley, was all lovely elegance in her fashionable morning gown as she took a bite of marmalade toast and unsealed the first letter on the stack next to her breakfast plate. No one would believe that only a year or so ago, Lady Jane Montfort had fished the girl out of a hedgerow on her family estate.

“I’m surprised to see you up so early, my dear.” Lady Jane Montfort slipped into a chair across from Sirena. Sunlight streamed into the breakfast room of Lord Shaldon’s huge home near Berkeley Square. In this quiet corner of the house, a few chirping birds in the garden added their sweet noise to the comforting sounds of distant traffic. “I am glad we left the party early, but even so it was very late. Perhaps you should have some more rest in your present condition.”

“I’m fine, dear Jane. Bakeley has already left for some meeting regarding the coronation, and Shaldon is off to his study already. Kincaid came in early this morning bearing secrets.” She grinned. “Will the torment to my curiosity never cease? In any case, we have this grand room all to ourselves. Have we not fallen into the pot of gold, my lady?” She set the letter aside and picked up another.

It was Lady Jane’s turn to laugh. “You’ve done me a great kindness allowing this visit to your new home.”

Lady Sirena glanced up and smiled. “Turnabout is fair play.”

They both knew this “visit” had no fixed ending date. Sirena’s fortuitous marriage to Shaldon’s heir had been a blessing for both the orphaned Sirena and for her benefactress. Jane’s cousin, Lord Cheswick, would arrive in London any day and insist that she come stay with him and his petulant wife. She wasn’t so sure she would go. She’d been invited to stay on at Shaldon House, and she could live very economically and peacefully here, as long as she kept a careful balance between saying too little and saying too much.

The thought stirred a sadness in her. Even a lady of a certain age liked to have her own home.

“Ah. A letter from Gracie.” Sirena unfolded the paper and squinted at the lines. “Little Reina has had a belly ache from eating too many early berries. Their new estate continues to be lovely. Charley has been teaching Gracie how to ride and taking her around to meet the tenants.”

“But I thought her last letter suggested…well, is that a good idea?”

Sirena waved a slim hand. “It’s not certain. In any case, we are neither of us so far along.” She flipped the paper over. “She says Perry has gone off to visit a friend in Yorkshire.”

“By herself?”

“She’s taken Jenny.”

Lady Jane rested her fork on the plate. The maid, Jenny, had the makings of a wild little thing, as did Lady Perry, come to think of it. “What friend did she visit?”

“Hmm. She says here it is Cecilia Broadmoor.”

Jane squinted at her cup. After so many years on the fringes of Britain’s wide social scene, her memory of names was encyclopedic. “I know her. She’s a bit older than Perry and…the last I’d heard, she’d married and gone off to India. She must be back visiting her family. I attended a house party once many years ago at an estate near theirs and —”

She bit her lip. Before Charley and Gracie left for their new home, they’d had a lively discussion about Yorkshire families.

Lady Perry’s interest then had been keen.

She felt Sirena’s gaze on her. “The Broadmoors live in Lincolnshire,” Jane said.

Sirena bit back a smile. “Perry has bolted.”

Jane paced to the window and looked out, unseeing. Lady Sirena had done her own bolting a few months earlier and had been lucky to land in Lord Bakeley’s noble arms, but it had been a near thing. Lord Shaldon was rounding up old enemies from the war, and at least one was still out there for whom Shaldon’s only daughter would be a grand prize.

Shaldon was such a consummate actor his children thought he knew everything that went on. She knew better. They’d met many years before, when she had been not much more than a child.

She went back to the table, downed the rest of her tea, and wished Sirena a good day.

“Are you sure you want to go tell him?” Sirena asked. “Perry may never speak with you again.”

“I’m afraid if I don’t tell him, she won’t survive to speak to me again.” She sighed. “You of all people know the dangers, Sirena.”

Shaldon had holed up with Kincaid in his small study, and both stood when she entered, two tall striking men of late middle years, and each seemingly unattached. Kincaid was the shorter of the two, a dark-haired Scot who had served as Shaldon’s second for so many years the men didn’t need to talk to communicate.

Kincaid’s personal history was something of a cipher. Not part of the ton, he’d appeared at his lordship’s side sometime after Jane had met Shaldon, but nevertheless, many years ago. Where Shaldon went, he went, unless Shaldon sent him off on a tasking. He was related to Shaldon’s eldest son’s wife, Paulette.

Jane had exchanged no more than a few polite words with him, weighing his responses carefully. It had been enough to judge his character favorably. Whether he had a wife and family tucked away somewhere, she didn’t know. She hadn’t touched upon that topic with him.

Shaldon, on the other hand, was widowed. Either man was vital enough to take a much younger woman to wife. Or perhaps they preferred to pay for such arrangements. Men could be a fickle, dispassionate lot.

Shaldon invited her to sit, but she shook her head. They were obviously at their business, and she’d dispense with the niceties. “Sirena has received a letter from Grace. We believe Lady Perry may have departed their home using subterfuge.”