Their parting was swift and nearly silent. Caledonia Bowmont returned to the bench opposite to let her breathing slowly return to normal, and quietly put her clothes to rights, though nothing much could be done for the tousled mess of her hair—she retrieved a pin or two from the carriage floor and pinned it up in a quick twist.

Toby had all he could do not to stop her from tucking the long golden strands away with the rest of her inhibitions.

But they had both best return to their respective places in the world before the collision of their planetary houses was discovered. He picked up the pearl necklace that had fallen to the floor, and returned it to her hand. “Perhaps you had best return first?”

“No.” Her denial was quiet but firm. “I don’t intend to go back—I’m no card player, and anyone who knows me will suspect instantly that I’ve been up to no good.”

“No good?” He couldn’t manage to keep the prick of pride from his voice.

“The best sort of no good,” she said as she touched his cheek in reassurance. “But I have an evening cloak I’ll need, if you would but retrieve it for me.” She sat back, out of his reach and quickly fastened on the pearls. “You can just leave it over the door.”

“Just leave it? No speaking? No kiss goodbye?” Was he to be dismissed like a cicisbeo, no longer needed, now that he had performed to her satisfaction? His pride was like to burn a hole in his tongue.

“Yes, goodbye, dear McTavish.” She leaned forward to kiss him sweetly on the cheek. “And thank you, so very much. Now if you’d retrieve my coat so I might have some privacy to recover myself, I would appreciate it.”

“Recover yourself?” Was she ill or upset?

But she was smiling. “Yes, you sweet man. It has been a very long time since I’ve had the pleasure of such sexual satisfaction, and I have the silliest urge to laugh and cry and dance about all at the same time, but I have grave suspicions about my legs’ ability to support me at this time. Thus, I should prefer to simply sit here and smile stupidly into space until I have to force myself to go home.”

And now his smile had grown under the influence of hers. There was nothing he could say to such a sweet, silly speech but, “I will leave you to recover whilst I fetch your cloak, but then I will see you home, so I can satisfy myself that your legs do, in fact, still work. You have approximately three minutes.” This time it was he who touched her cheek, and he who planted a leisurely kiss on her mouth. “I’ll be back.”

He did exactly as he promised, taking a moment to check his appearance in a pier glass in the front corridor and wipe the faint smear of her rouge from his lips, before he retrieved her cloak and bundled her quietly out via the mews. “Where to?”

“My mother’s house is only a street away. Really there is no need—”

“There is every need.” His own gentlemanly satisfaction among them.

Toby steered them out of Grosvenor Square, around the corner and down Davies Street without incident, but as soon as they reached the edge of Berkley Square, Caledonia Bowmont put a hand to his arm to stay him.

“I’ll go on from here. It’s too cold for you to stay out.” She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and was off, dissolving out of his hands, though he meant to make her stay. At least long enough for a proper kiss.

But it was cold, and he couldn’t waste time standing about the pavement when he had better, though less rewarding, things to do than kiss Caledonia Bowmont.

He had a thief to catch.

Toby spent the rest of the uncomfortable night watching the Meecham place from the relative comfort of the frozen rooftop of his inn. From his vantage point with his back to a chimney for warmth and shelter from the cold east wind that drove the freezing fog up the river, he had an ample view of the Meecham Mansion that fronted on Grosvenor Square, but whose garden backed up to the inn walls.

But there was nothing of note to see. Not a flicker of movement, nor a shadow in the night. All was for naught. When dawn finally broke, red and raw in the east, he gave up his fruitless vigil, and made his quiet way down the back stairs to his room. He had just reached the bottom of the outer porch stairs below his room when she came at him.

“Give them back, you horrible, foul man.”

He was too happy to see her to understand what she was talking about. He drew Caledonia to him, both for the lovely comfortable feel of her in his arms, and to shield her from the innyard’s view—she was dressed informally, or rather intimately, in only a beautiful teal wool redingote over what appeared to be a white cotton flannel night dress, as if she hadn’t taken the time to do more than throw the coat on over her night clothes before she left her house. All it would take was someone spreading gossip that Viscount Balfour’s step-daughter was seen at dawn in the yard of an inn for Toby to be snared in something even tighter than a noose—the parson’s mousetrap.

But still he was amused and impressed—how had she tracked him down?—by her presence. “If you’ll recall, lass, I didn’t steal anything you weren’t freely offering.”

She slapped him—a hard, vicious right that sent flaming heat searing across his cheek.

“Mother’s jewels,” she hissed. “What have you done with them?” She started to pull at his clothes, turning his pockets out. “Where have you hidden them?”

Toby wasn’t sure what hurt more—the slap to his cheek or the blow to his pride that she would so quickly distrust him.

He grabbed her by the wrists, and though she put up quite a struggle—she was a strong Scots lass, after all—he managed to half-pull, half-wrestle her into a quiet corner of the stable where the only one awake was a mare who stared at him balefully over the door of the box stall.

“Keep your voice down,” he instructed in a low growl as he damned himself for a fool—a diverted, un-thinking fool. This was the second time the bloody, too-clever thief had gotten the best of him. “Now tell me exactly what has happened.”

“You know what has happened—you betrayed my trust, cozening me up with kisses, and then stole my mother’s jewels.” Her low accusation lost nothing of its furiousness. “This is no longer a lark, McTavish—now give them back.”

“This never was a lark, Caledonia.” He made free with her name—it seemed somehow disrespectful not to acknowledge that they were intimates. “Someone is trying to get me hanged, and they are doing a damn fine job of it. I don’t have your mother’s jewels—I didn’t steal them, damn my unseeing eyes.” He deflected a kick aimed at his shin. “Not that you’re prepared to believe me.”

But perhaps she was, at least a little. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then who did?”

“That is exactly what I have been endeavoring to find out, but like you, I thought the Meechams were the most likely target—I spent the entirety of last night on the bloody rooftop hoping to catch the thief.”

She was not convinced. “The whole of the night? It’s near freezing out.”

“Below freezing—the river will be icing up around the banks.” He offered her his hands in proof. “Look at what I am wearing. Feel how cold my hands are. I’ve been out all night. And I am tired. So, please.” He ameliorated his tone. “Please take me to your mother now.”

“I don’t think—”

“Fine. I’ll go alone. You can stay here and help the inn’s maids with the laundry.”

She followed of course, practically running down the pavement in an effort to keep up. He took her hand for reasons that were obscure to both of them. There was no time for gentlemanly niceties—with this robbery someone had practically measured him for a coffin and was tying the noose around his neck as they spoke. Toby could all but feel their malevolence drawing tight over his windpipe.

And their jealousy.