Page 72 of The Lady’s No Angel

The two women ran to each other, hugging, laughing, and crying all at once. Hart followed at a more measured pace, yet a startling degree of pleasure and relief exploded in his chest at seeing them both again.

“Sir! Sir!” Toby exclaimed, dropping the sack that landed with an alarmingly heavy thud on the carpet and ran to him. “Oh, sir, when we saw the bus-nappers had got you, we was that afraid. But we hid ourselves away, and they never saw us.”

Hart took the boy by the shoulders and gazed down at him, smiling as he saw the young fellow was none the worse for his adventures.

“You did right, Toby, my lad. Well done and well done for following us. How ever did you do it?”

Toby’s chin went up, pride glowing in his eyes. “Ah, it weren’t difficult. We just asked along the route if anyone had seen the constables’ cart with two prisoners and we followed behind,” he said blithely. “Oh, but that ain’t the best of it, see—”

“Is anyone going to introduce us to the young people?” Grandmama demanded pointedly.

Toby gasped and shrank behind Hart.

“Yes, of course. Apologies, Grandmama. Come, Toby, Milly. Come and pay your respects.”

Toby ran back and hefted whatever was in the sack with difficulty but refused to be parted from it when Hart offered, so he clasped it to his chest as Hart made the introductions. Milly’s jaw almost dropped to the floor upon hearing that the Dowager Duchess of Langley was his grandmother.

“Then you’re—you’re—” she stammered, unable to take the sentence to its logical conclusion.

“Are you a duke?” Toby demanded suspiciously.

Hart exchanged a wry glance with his grandmother and shook his head. “No, Toby. My father is the Duke of Langley; I am the Marquess of Hartwell. But my friends call me Hart.”

“Hart,” Toby repeated, looking a little dazed.

“That don’t include you,” Milly muttered severely, giving him a little jab with her elbow. “You say ‘my lord.’”

“Bleedin’ ‘ell,” Toby breathed, shaking his head in wonder as Grandmama and the dowager snorted with delight.

“Oh, Milly. I am so happy to see you,” Angel said. Now that Milly and Toby were here, safe and well, she felt she could finally breathe easily. Milly sat close beside her, the two of them clutching each other’s hands as if fearing they might disappear if they let go. “I was so very worried. Leo sent people out looking for you, but we worried you would think they wished to arrest you too.”

Milly nodded. “We kept our heads down and tried to stay off the main road. Especially as…” She hesitated, glancing around at the eager faces all turned in her direction. Flushing, she bent close to Angel and whispered in her ear. “We’ve got it.”

Angel frowned, blinking at her. “What?” she mouthed in return.

Milly rolled her eyes. “We got it,” she repeated, gesturing to the muddy sack that Toby was hugging to his middle as if his life depended on it.

“You’ve got—” Angel began, still rather overwhelmed by recent events, and then the penny dropped. She let out a shriek, leaping to her feet. “Oh! Oh, my word. Truly?”

“Whatever is the matter? Is the child ill?” demanded the dowager, staring at Angel like she’d run mad.

Angel did not care. She turned to Leo and tugged him to his feet. “They’ve got it! They’ve got it!” she cried, practically dancing with excitement.

Leo turned to stare at Toby, his gaze falling to the filthy sack. “Toby?”

Toby grinned at him, a broad, smug grin that almost split his face in two. “You nearly had it, sir—my lord. It weren’t but a few more scrapes under the mud.”

“Good heavens,” he said with a startled laugh.

“We thought we’d best check after they took you away,” Milly explained urgently. “In case anyone else knew of it and thought to take their chances.”

“The treasure!” Hetty exclaimed, realising suddenly what they were talking about. “They found Black Jack’s treasure!”

The room erupted into excited chatter as Leo reached for the sack. Toby released it somewhat reluctantly, but his eyes glinted as Leo withdrew a small, sturdy chest, encrusted with mud and banded about with iron.

“It’s locked,” Toby said with a grimace.

Angel looked at Milly and then to Toby. For all they knew, there was a king’s ransom in jewels inside that box, but it had never crossed either of their minds to take it for themselves. They’d just kept looking for her and Leo. Suddenly her throat was tight with emotion. Black Jack had sent her on an adventure to find his treasure, and it seemed she had done—with a lot of help—but she’d found so much more along the way.