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“The inn is watched. Most likely Adam’s enemy sent Findlater and...took the cat.”

“Queenie was taken?”

“I suspect so. Without her, Adam loses an early warning of approaching danger.”

“How can Adam have such a terrible enemy? Adam, harmless Adam?”

“Likely, Miss Holbrook, he witnessed a murder.”

She shivered at it, and at his tone. How had she become Miss Holbrook again? But what he said changed everything. He was not after all a man taken with a girl’s charms and wooing her, he was someone else entirely. “You have been less than honest with me from the start, Cap—what do I call you now?”

“Mountjoy,” he said.

“From the start you have befriended us, not out of kindness or sympathy or affection, but as part of...what?”

“An investigation. A case. For the Foreign Office. Likely the person whose murder Adam witnessed was a British agent carrying important papers as well as money.”

“By agent, you mean spy.” She looked up and met his gaze. “You are a spy.”

“I am.”

Lucy stood again and backed away from him. “When did you plan to tell me?”

He didn’t answer. He did not extend a hand or take a step in her direction. He offered no excuse, no comfort. He had been content to play with her happiness, to lead her to betray herself with feelings she believed he returned in equal measure.

She had mistaken his intentions from the first. The happiness she had looked for not hours earlier was a lie. Her legs grew weak, her stomach churned, and she knew she must end the interview at once or disgrace herself.

She did not extend a hand again. There would be no parting touch. “I doubt we will meet again,” she said. She did not know what name to call him. “You have my sincerest sympathy on the loss of your brother and my gratitude for your care of Adam in this fortnight. Good night.”

She turned away and slipped through the door as quickly as she could.

The husband hunter may wonder at the models of marriage she sees before her in London society. Seeing couples whose glittering nuptials were the talk of town a year or two earlier barely exchange a civil word in company or speak only in such commonplaces as to suggest a dull familiarity with each other’s thoughts may lead the husband hunter to doubt the possibility of happiness in marriage. She must not let public moments of irritation or indifference between married persons of her acquaintance diminish her faith in the happiness that awaits her in the union of true hearts.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 20

Early in the morning Nate and Miranda were summoned to a large dim salon with red-damasked walls. Velvet drapery kept out most of the light. The walls were hung with pictures of martyrs and madonnas, all of whom wore fewer clothes than seemed saintly or even proper to Nate. He knew what it felt like to be near naked around the woman he loved. It was not a saintly feeling. Their host lay on his back on a gold velvet sofa as long as a Thames barge, looking at the ceiling.

“You look reasonably recovered from your wounds,” he said, glancing at Nate, where he and Miranda stood hand in hand, facing their host.

With any luck Nate would convince the highwayman to let them return to the Tooth and Nail. He had instructed Miranda to let him do the talking. “Where we are?” he asked.

“You’re at Lyndale Abbey. You’ve been my guests. Anything to complain of?”

“Nothing, sir,” Miranda said.

Nate elbowed her in the ribs. Not five minutes into the conversation, and she was breaking the rules.

She elbowed him back. “We owe you my husband’s life.”

“You owe me a bit of truth, I’d say.” The highwayman swung his long legs to the floor and came upright. Even seated, he was a tall man. “What’s your connection to Harry Clare?”

Miranda drew a quick breath at the captain’s name.

Nate squeezed her hand to steady her. “We work for him, sir. He asked us to investigate a former footman from Hartwood Manor. We were returning from our investigation when the Rocket was stopped. We’re grateful for your assistance and don’t wish to trouble you further.” He’d rehearsed that line and hoped it was truth enough for the highwayman without giving away the whole.

Their host appeared to consider his own well-polished boots at the end of his very long legs. The pause was disconcerting. The man was obviously thinking. When he looked up again, his dark gaze was sharp but also amused.