Page 32 of The Duke’s Hidden Runaway Bride

“You may remain here as long as you wish, as our guest. Markham’s debt owed to Hugh means he will never willingly come here. You will be quite safe.”

It was a tempting picture: a quiet house and a kind woman offering friendship.

Ophelia looked down at Markham’s note.

“Thank you. But I have chosen London.”

Mrs. Horrocks did not argue. “Wexham remains open if you should choose it later,” she said.

Ophelia handed the draft to Adrian.

“We must compare this with the signed articles. Papa will have them.”

“And Soane will know what use can be made of the difference,” Adrian said.

“Perhaps. It is not a weapon yet.”

“No.”

“But it is a trail.”

Adrian’s eyes met hers. “Then we shall follow it.”

They left Wexham the next morning with Fenwick’s note and the rejected draft wrapped in oilcloth and secured in Lady Elise’s travelling case.

London waited. And for the first time since they left Plas Eira, Ophelia felt they were carrying something besides courage.

They were carrying evidence.

Chapter Fourteen

They reached London on the fourth of January, well in time for the Marchioness’s Twelfth Night party.

The city closed around the carriage in the early dark, lamps smoking in the drizzle, wheels grinding over wet stone. Voices rose from the pavements, and traffic pressed upon them from every side.

After weeks of mountain silence, the noise was enormous.

Ophelia sat very straight and watched her reflection appear and vanish in the glass, catching each lit window and losing it again to the dark.

I chose to come.

She repeated it with every passing lamp.

Lady Elise had sent ahead, so they went directly to the Maddox town house. The modest rooms had been hastily opened and warmed, though the air still smelled of dust and long disuse, and a fire not yet drawing well sent smoke curling back into the hall.

Adrian did not press his company upon her.

“I am a quarter-hour away at Daventry House,” he told her in the hall. “Send word and I will come, for anything or for nothing.”

Ophelia managed only two words through a tremendous lump that had suddenly arrived in her throat.

“Thank you.”

He bowed and went out into the rain.

Ophelia held to it through a near-sleepless night, listening to the house’s unfamiliar creaks and the rattle of carriages that never seemed to stop.

Her father came before she had finished breakfast.