Page 78 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“Oh, don’t,” Joseph said with false pleasantry. He pulled open the front portal as Treen gripped his walking stick. “I’d quite like to see the hounds tear any trespassers apart.”

“And I thought Londoners would be civilized,” Treen remarked, stepping across the threshold into the cloudy day, which had somehow grown darker.

“Not when we’re crossed,” Joseph answered. “Have a care where you step, Treen, and rest easy—Inez won’t trouble you again.”

“A beautiful woman is always trouble,” Treen said with another of his oily smiles, and then, at long last, he turned to his horse.

Joseph had no time to congratulate himself that his suspicions were true. Treen was the one he’d seen riding earlier, but was he also the one who had shot at him? If so, he had put Inez in danger, and for no other reason than that he was bloody interested in a certain pocket of Penwellen land.

Wenna appeared in the doorway, and, as if she shared the thought that suddenly struck Joseph, she carried his outer coat, hat, and riding gloves.

She also carried one more item that made Joseph’s eyes widen to see it. It went against all the training he’d received to be conciliatory, but when had minding his manners ever gained him what he wanted?

“Plymouth,” Wenna confirmed. “That Jock took ’er, and Arthur in the cart. She never said why, or who she was going to see, but me lover says they had a natter a day agone at the pub, and Mrs. Da Costa seemed proper wisht by the end of un.”

“Wisht?” Joseph echoed, taking his items from her.

“Pale. Sad.”

There was only one reason he could think of that Inez would drop all and take off for a port town with nary a word to the rest of them. Something had happened to her father.

“Treen, I know you’ll forgive me, but I need your horse. It’s a hack from the White Hart, isn’t it?” Joseph pulled on his riding gloves as he strode toward the mount, a Hackney with strong lines and a deep chest. He needn’t waste the time strapping spurs to his boots; this horse could go fifteen miles at a brisk trot.

“It is, but you can’t mean— You can’t take my horse!” Treen spluttered.

Joseph made a few quick adjustments and swung himself into the saddle. He dug a coin from his pocket and flipped it to the other man, exactly as if he were a servant.

“I just did. One of my trotters can see you home, and my boy will stop in the White Hart to tell them of the trade. Fearful accommodating of you, old man, but then I believe you owe me a boon. If you’re to make free hacking about on my land, then I’m at liberty to borrow your horse.”

He saw from the man’s dark expression that he had made a firm enemy, but he couldn’t spare a moment to care. Inez was going to Plymouth, so he was, too. She might be accosted on the road by ruffians; she might meet all manner of menace at the docks. She might even now be taking in news that would pull her world down about her ears.

He had to be there for her if that happened. And somehow—and he had no notion how he might do so—he needed to persuade her to come back to him, and stay.