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He glanced to where Miss Throckmorton and her bosom had captivated a pair of gentlemen in the party. “Afraid she’ll take all the gentlemen for herself?”

“I’m sure she’ll throw one or two back into the pond. When do you return?”

“I don’t know how long this business will take.” His expression was closed, as if some thought or worry related to his journey preoccupied him. He did not say what that business was, but she guessed at the urgency he felt.

“There’s a musical evening later this week.” Lucy waited for him to say that he’d attend, but he only quirked a brow.

“A musical evening? Is that a happy hunting ground for the husband seeker?”

“So I’m told.”

Lucy was growing used to such conversations with him. It was not hard to explain his refusal to kiss her. He might flirt a little, a very little, but he knew the obscurity of her origins. He was an earl’s son and the only unmarried man she knew in London who had seen her in a sauce-stained pinny scraping a pike off the floor. The other gentlemen she met knew her as a woman of property acquainted with such visible friends as their hostess.

“I don’t want you to think me remiss in any duty to you. Your friends will keep you amused and allow you to cast that net of yours wide in my absence.”

She nodded. He was bringing their conversation to a close, and she cast about for a way to keep him talking a few minutes more. “I’m sure you never shirk a duty, Captain. When do you leave?”

“At a most unfashionable hour for a lady, I assure you. Only delivery vans, cattle herds, and night soil wagons will be stirring.”

Lucy wanted to protest that she was an early riser. At least, as an innkeeper she had been, but London ways were taking hold of her. “Then I’ll not see you off,” she said lightly. “London ladies must sleep through the freshness of the morning if they are to dine and talk for hours by candlelight.”

At least she made him laugh, and he had not yet turned away, though the horses tossed their heads, eager to begin.

“Do you pass the inn on this journey of yours?” she asked.

“I do,” he said.

“Would you ask whether Queenie has returned?”

He looked away for an instant, as if he found her request awkward.

“Of course, as long as you don’t require me to smuggle the cat into the Fawkener household.”

“Would you? Queenie’s just lady enough for London.”

“I’ll be at your service when I return. And you may be sure that Adam will remain safe.”

The husband hunter may imagine that a gentleman with an inclination to favor her as the source of his future happiness needs steady and extensive doses of her company in order to fix his resolve. In truth a little absence may do the trick. The man who finds himself fasting from the sweetness of her smiles and her particular laugh returns to the table starved for what he has missed.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 15

Harry gave the elusive highwayman credit for covering his tracks well. It took three days of scouting to find the well-concealed pasture where Radcliffe’s stolen horses grazed. A few more inquiries led him to the owner of the pasture, Sir Ajax Lynley, Baronet. The gatekeeper at the lodge directed him up an elm-lined avenue to a stone house with jutting bays of windows, pointed turrets, and strolling peacocks. The place was called Lyndale Abbey.

The butler seemed to expect him and led him into an old-fashioned room, its walls hung with red damask and paintings with distinctly religious overtones. Robed figures with marble-like faces made their way through dark landscapes. Harry guessed them to be saints by the halos glowing above their heads. He did not at first see anyone in the room. Then a figure lying on a long couch came to life and rose to his feet. With his height and size the fellow would make a menacing highwayman.

This morning Ajax Lynley wore the buckskin breeches, boots, and buff coat of a country squire, but his dark looks and powerful shoulders suggested a man who would find country life tame. He was younger than Harry by perhaps five years, and his idleness did not conceal a pent-up energy. He might be a man to hold up a Rocket if for no other reason than to escape the sameness of his existence and the disapproval of the saintly figures looking down on him.

Whatever his reason for holding up the Rocket, Harry could only regard the taking of the horses as a rescue rather than a theft. He hoped the abduction would prove to be the same.

Lynley studied Harry. “How may I help you?”

“You could assist me in my search for two young friends of mine.”

“Search?”

“They went missing from the Radcliffe Rocket a few nights ago. He may have been shot. I want to be sure they receive shelter and a doctor’s care.”