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Which would have been more than fine with her.
Adelaide adjusted her spectacles, knocked askew by their embrace, and wondered if she was going mad, because it was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he not stop, when he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
The light shifted, and reality returned along with the unpleasant confirmation of what Adelaide had always known. That she was Adelaide Frampton, and he was the Duke of Clayborn, and whatever this was... it was an enormous mistake. For both of them. One that, if discovered by Mayfair, would ruin more than Adelaide’s prospects for dinner invitations.
Luckily, she had a clear path to keeping the man quiet.
She ran her fingertips over his lips, liking the way his eyes closed at the touch, his dark lashes impossibly long. “No,” she said softly, almost sad. “You shouldn’t have.” And then she stepped from his embrace, her hand running along the corded muscles of his forearm to the wooden curiosity in his hands—the one she’d already stolen and was therefore by rights hers.
Taking advantage of his surprise, she reclaimed it and turned for the edge of the barge, the dark, churning waters of the Thames threatening several yards below—even without skirts, the river would take her away.
“What—” His question faded into a harsh shout as she leapt. “No! Adelaide!”
She landed on the deck of the small riverboat as he shouted the last. The broad-shouldered man at the helmof her new conveyance pushed off from the barge with a long pole, putting too much river between the two vessels for anyone to follow her.
Even a man with legs as long as Clayborn’s.
She nodded her thanks to the captain of the boat and he tipped his hat in her direction. Neither spoke the other’s name. Too many watchful gazes on the river.
And one, in particular, above.
He’d called her Adelaide.
Adelaide dipped under the canopy that shielded the rest of the boat from the world at large. It took all she had to resist looking back. To keep from confirming that he watched.
To feel his keen focus once more.
It was nice to be noticed.
Chapter Two
Adelaide ducked into the dimly lit cabin of the small riverboat that appeared to all the world as though it were going about small riverboat business that afternoon: delivering coal, or grain, or some other bit of ordinary cargo. From the outside, there was no possibility that the tiny vessel would house a single interesting thing, let alone four of them.
As the day had already revealed, however, appearances were deceiving.
Inside, there was no pile of cargo on its way to Richmond. No coal to be delivered to the palatial manor houses east of the city. No packages to be offloaded on the London docks.
Instead, the boat boasted a lavishly appointed room lined with privacy screens to ensure that no one would see the silks and satins that hung on the walls, or impressive furniture and lush pillows that filled the space, making it an ideal conveyance to move silently and unnoticed through the city, without anyone realizing that four of London’s most powerful women were within.
Of course, most of London wouldn’t acknowledge that the four women in question were powerful to begin with, and the women in question had no intention of correcting them.
Low expectations were far better cover for secrecy.
“Impeccable timing, as always,” Adelaide said, extracting the notebook she’d swiped from The Bully Boysfrom her pockets. She set it on the low table before dropping onto a settee just inside the door to the cabin before accepting a cup of tea from Lady Sesily Calhoun, her friend and confidante—and wife to the captain of the vessel.
“Are you sure about the timing?” Sesily asked with a casual air.
Adelaide drank. “That it was impeccable? I am.”
“If one wishes to escape, I suppose it might be,” Sesily offered. “But I shall tell you—”
“It did not appear as though you wished to escape, Adelaide.” This from Lady Imogen Loveless, her wild black curls fairly trembling with excitement as she leaned forward from her own seat on the other side of the cabin.
They’d seen the kiss. Adelaide drank more tea, considering her reply and finally settling on a tepid, “I don’t know what you mean.” She returned cup to saucer and leaned forward, making a show of looking at the blue folder on the table, inked with an ornate indigo bell. Opening it, she considered the document within—a full dossier on one Lord John Carrington, coincidentally, the younger brother of one Henry Carrington, Duke of Clayborn, whom Adelaide had just kissed on the dock.
Coincidentally, being the important bit. There was no reason to discuss that kiss with her friends. Ever. It was unrelated to the dossier in her hands.
That, and they would never let her hear the end of her moment of weakness. Which was what it had been. Clearly. Indeed, she was only scanning the dossier to reacquaint herself with Clayborn’s brother. She was certainly not looking for information on the Duke.
