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He’d thought of her as he left London behind, dawn breaking in the east, certain that he would catch up with her larger, heavier carriage within hours. He’d thought of her as the skies had opened and he’d pulled his cap low over his brow, hunching his shoulders and refusing to find shelter. The thoughts had bounced from irritation to frustration before lingering on a catalogue of her features. Her keen brown eyes, glittering with knowledge behind those wire-rimmed spectacles. Her pert chin, lifted in defiant challenge. Her cheeks, bright with October’s evening chill... or more? They’d been pink when he’d kissed her, too. Pink as her lips.
His thoughts had lingered on those lips for longer than they should have, as his matched horses had raced north. As he’d begun his search, hours into the journey, for any sign of their owner.
Adelaide Frampton had disappeared.
There’d been no sign of her at the Tipped Pheasant in Hanslope.
None at the Cock and Canary in Wilton.
There’d been four drunken louts in Shawell at the Singing Stone Inn, too deep in their cups to be any help.
So, by the time he’d arrived in the drive of the Hawk and Hedgehog, Clayborn was ready for a meal, a bath, and a bed in which to sleep off his irritation that she had, as promised, outrun him. He’d never be able to boast of his driving skills again.
And now, to make matters worse, an entire taproom’s worth of people watched him.
Clayborn stiffened, shoulders and spine straightening as he attempted not to notice the room noticing him. He was a duke, after all. People noticed him more often than not, but they usually did it with admiration.
This group instead stared at him as though he were a curiosity—a lumbering creature stepped from MaryShelley’s novel. The siren song of warm food and sleep was more powerful than the urge to retreat, however, so he approached the proprietress of the tavern.
“Good evening, traveler.” She waved to a spot at the end of the bar. “Ale? Food?”
Clayborn nodded in the direction of the tapped cask behind the bar. “Thank you.”
“’Course,” she said, turning to pull a pint, setting it on the shining mahogany before him. “Your Grace.”
He met her eyes. “You’ve the better of me.”
She grinned. “Your carriage carries a ducal crest—you should be careful of that, you know... you’re a highwaywoman’s prize.” Before he could query the word, she added, “Though if I’m being honest, even looking like the road tossed you through the doors, you reek of title.”
Apparently, title did not carry much weight in the Hawk and Hedgehog. “Should I apologize?”
“Don’t see why you would,” she said matter-of-factly. “Ain’t your fault how you were born.”
The words echoed through him, true and somehow impossible to believe, but he had no reason to discuss it with this woman, no matter how welcoming she seemed. “I’d like a room, please. And a bath. And a meal.”
She smiled, a big broad grin, as though he’d said something wildly entertaining. “Lord knows dukes’ money spends as well as anyone else’s.”
Clayborn knew a prompt when he heard one, and reached into his pocket, prepared to pay whatever additional tax this shrewd businesswoman would add to find room for an aristocrat that evening.
Except his pocket was empty, save for a three-inch slit in the fabric. His purse was gone.
He looked up into the twinkling eyes of the tavern mistress, suspicion flaring even before she tilted her head. “Problem, Your Grace?”
She knew exactly what the problem was. “I don’t suppose you’ll extend credit.”
She made a show of sucking in a breath. “In my experience, the rich ones never pay their debts.”
Snickers spread through the room, though when he looked around the space to confront them, their audience appeared deep in its own business. Bollocks. He’d never met a group of people more in his business.
Clayborn swallowed a curse as a voice spoke at his shoulder. “I shall cover the duke, Gwen.”
He grew hot at the words.
He hadn’t lost her.
Triumph sizzled through him, even as he knew it was silly to feel it. It wasn’t as though she was priceless treasure, dammit. And still, he turned toward her as though she were just that, doing his best to remind himself that Adelaide Frampton was a troublesome, contrary, unruly woman, and a thief as well.
She looked as though she’d been riding as long as he had, her rich green traveling dress beneath a dark cloak damp with the rain, the hem of her skirts caked with mud. Her cheeks were red with the cold air of the night beyond as she lifted one hand to remove her spectacles and clean them of the fog that had appeared on them when she entered the warm pub. The only thing that remained impeccable was the one thing he wished to see unraveled—her hair, tightly hidden beneath her cap, the copper shine that had tempted him on the docks tucked out of view.
