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Satisfied with her work, Adelaide straightened and closed the hatch.
“So, the girl is off to Gretna Green.”
She turned to discover the Duchess of Trevescan approaching from the rear door of the tavern that abutted the alleyway—the tavern above which Adelaide kept rooms.
Adelaide palmed her skirts. “Like so many before her—choosing the hope of security over the promise of it.”
“You think she marries the boy only to escape the father?”
“I think any woman with a brain in her head who chooses a hasty wedding over freedom is doing it for a reason.” Adelaide tightened a cinch on one of the matched greys she’d selected for the first leg of the journey before heading to the front of the carriage to check bridles and halters.
“So cynical.”
Adelaide cut her friend a look. “Since when do you believe in love?”
Long married to a duke who never left his estate in the Scilly Isles, the Duchess of Trevescan was more merrywidow than she was duchess, delighting in what had to be the best of all marriages—one that included an absentee husband. Instead, Duchess spent her days diminishing the duke’s vast fortune, living in his vast home, and growing her vast network of informants—all in service to a higher good: destroying the worst of London’s men.
“Oh, I believe in it,” Duchess said, approaching. “I believe it’s an absolute mess, which leads me toalsobelieve the girl loves him, as the plan went entirely sideways.” She set a hand to the nose of one of the horses, lowering her voice to please the animal. “I suppose we can’t really blame her. If he’s charming and handsome.”
“Is he?” Adelaide moved to the side of the carriage.
“Charming?”
Adelaide inspected a carriage wheel she’d inspected twice before. “Handsome.”
One of the duchess’s brows rose in a perfect high arch. “I think he must be if he looks anything like his brother. Clayborn might be insufferable, but he’s not the worst thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Adelaide was grateful for the darkness and the way it hid her flush. “I have not noticed.”
Silence fell and she crouched, peering into the inky blackness beneath the carriage, as though there were something very important within, feeling suddenly as though she’d said the exact wrong thing.
Duchess gave a little laugh. “You absolutely have noticed, Adelaide.”
She sighed and stood, facing her friend. “The man is arrogant and superior. He’s awful, and I shall enjoy absolutely demolishing him on the race north.”
Something lit in Duchess’s gaze. “You’re out for blood.”
“He deserves a proper setdown. He lacks anything to recommend him—he is pompous, stiff, stern, unpleasant... pompous.”
“You said pompous twice.”
“Because he is twice as pompous as any other peer,” she replied. “But the point is, all of that flatly diminishes any value found in his handsome face or his decidedlyunducal lips.”
The Duchess’s brows rose. “Unducal lips?”
Adelaide waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”
The Duchess tilted her head. “It has been many years since I have been in contact with ducal lips, so I shall have to take your word on it.”
Adelaide ignored the teasing in her friend’s tone, and the lingering silence as Duchess watched her curiously, no doubt considering her next words.
Leaning against the carriage, she settled on changing the topic, for which Adelaide was immensely grateful. “So, if you had to wager, what is the girl up to?”
“Idiocy,” Adelaide said without hesitation.
Duchess laughed. “Fair enough. But map it out for me.”
“Two weeks ago, Helene witnesses her father kill a peer.”
