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W ill and Woodward found the Earl of Cheswick in the reading room of White’s, drinking coffee and reading The London Gazette . His injured arm was in a sling.

He barely looked up when the two other men joined him, Will taking the chair at his right side, Woodward at his left.

“I don’t know what else I can tell you about that weasel who shot me or Christopher Hamilton, for that matter, Gilford,” drawled Cheswick in an annoyed voice. “I gave you all of it last night. If you wished for Woodward to hear it, you could have told him yourself.”

To Woodward, he said with a shrug, “I like you well enough, I suppose, Woodward, but now you have my confirmation of the acquaintance you may leave with your companion. Or remain if you wish, but leave me the hell alone.”

“Gilford did tell me, my lord,” Woodward said wryly, “but there are some finer details that we need to ask you about.”

Cheswick heaved a great sigh and set his paper aside, wincing as if the movement hurt his injury. “Because I hold Hamilton directly responsible for the pain in my damned arm, I will listen to your questions. But after that, you must promise to leave me in peace.”

“You have my word as a gentleman,” Will assured him, exchanging a glance with Woodward.

“And mine,” the American said, placing a hand over his heart.

Still cantankerous, Cheswick waved a hand. “Quickly, please.”

Will didn’t mince words. “Are you certain that the man you met with here in London was Christopher Hamilton?”

Cheswick opened his mouth, Will was certain to deliver a cutting setdown, but Woodward spoke before the nobleman could.

“We don’t ask to annoy you, Lord Cheswick,” Woodward explained in an apologetic tone. “But there is a possibility that Christopher Hamilton’s cousin, Jedidiah Hamilton, is here in London impersonating him.”

“Of course it was Christopher Hamilton I spoke to,” Cheswick ground out. “I am hardly so advanced in years that I have become unable to recognize the fellow.”

Because he knew that was exactly how he’d react to the same question—after all, no one wished to be accused of being tricked by a charlatan—Will pressed on. “I know you believed the man here in London to be Christopher, but were there any changes to his appearance that you simply attributed to the passage of time?”

“A different hairstyle, for instance,” Woodward suggested. “Or maybe he was taller or shorter than you remembered.”

Rolling his eyes, Cheswick was clearly disgruntled at their questions, but he looked upward and to the left, as if trying to recall his meeting with Hamilton.

Something must have suggested itself to him, because his next words were a foul curse. “Yes, damn you. He was taller than I remembered. And he sported a beard, whereas he hadn’t when I met him in Philadelphia.”

Inwardly, Will cheered. This was precisely what they’d needed to learn from the earl.

“Anything else you remember?” Woodward asked carefully. “So that we needn’t bother you again?”

But Cheswick shook his head. “No, though I’ll be thinking about it more. I’m annoyed that the man succeeded in pulling the wool over my eyes, of course, but I’m even more incensed that he did so in order to have me introduce him to Fleetwood. Without Fleetwood’s involvement, I’d never have been shot.”

Will couldn’t blame the man for being annoyed at having been caught in the middle, but there were more important things to be angry about, in his own opinion. Like the fact that the impostor had kidnapped a defenseless young woman.

Aloud, however, he said, “We are grateful to you for answering our questions, Cheswick. I hope you continue to recover from your wound.”

“And I hope the two of you catch the blackguard,” Cheswick said as Will and Woodward rose to take their leave.

“You didn’t correct him when he said he wanted us to catch Hamilton,” Woodward said as they stepped outside. “In point of fact, it will be Eversham and his men who capture him.”

Will turned back after requesting the doorman to summon a hansom cab. “At this point I don’t give a damn who captures the man, so long as he’s off the street and we know where Miss Blackwood can be found.”

That evening Will found himself seated beside Lucy in the Duke and Duchess of Langham’s box at the Royal Opera House.

The party had been arranged as soon as the duke and duchess learned he’d returned from Paris. He hadn’t even known Lucy was to be a member of the party when he’d accepted. But in light of their current closeness, he was glad of it.

“Never knew you had any particular fondness for the opera, Gilford,” said Lord Adrian, who, along with his wife, Jane, was also included in the invitation. “I must admit I find it a bit tedious, though Jane enjoys it, so I came to please her.”

Will glanced to where Lucy, Jane, and the duchess were deep in conversation. Knowing them, it had something to do with Vera’s disappearance. He was having a difficult time putting the matter out of his own mind, as well. Especially given what they’d learned today. He’d wanted to inform Lucy of what he and Woodward had learned from Cheswick, but there had been no opportunity for privacy. Perhaps he could speak to her at the interval.

She wore a silver-blue gown of satin with a gauzy overlay that showed her creamy shoulders and upper bosom to advantage, and he had difficulty keeping his thoughts to something appropriate for mixed company.

Perhaps they could do… other things… during the interval as well.

He heard Adrian clear his throat and realized he’d been staring at Lucy.

Before he could respond to either Adrian’s earlier comment or his amused look, Meg leaned forward from her seat behind them. “Oh, my brother is not an aficionado of the opera per se, Lord Adrian, but like most gentlemen, I believe, he went through a phase in his younger days when he was very interested in watching the dancers—oh, I mean, dancing.”

Will felt his ears redden as he glanced back at his sister and gave her a pointed look. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Meg. I have always been very fond of hearing a lovely singing voice, however.”

“Oh, are we discussing the opera?” asked Lucy as she took her seat beside Will. “I must admit that I have always had a fondness for the theatricality of it. Beautiful costumes, dramatic music, stories of life and death. It is not unlike some of the more colorful novels we read for the book club.”

Baron Parkington, Meg’s escort for the evening, a bit of a dull dog from what Will recalled of the man from their days at school together, cleared his throat and looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I hope this is not the same book club you were telling me about earlier, Miss Margaret. I must confess I find it shocking that you allow your sister to engage in novel reading, Gilford. A good many physicians have noted that allowing the gentler sex to tax their limited intellects with such activities can have a deleterious effect on their delicate constitutions.”

Beside him, Will felt Lucy straighten her backbone. And he heard Meg’s sharp intake of breath behind him. Turning to face the marquess, he saw that the fellow appeared oblivious to the hellfire he’d just invited to be rained down upon his head.

Then, to make matters worse, everyone else in the front row of the box turned to look back at his lordship. And Langham, not one to suffer fools, lifted his quizzing glass to imagine the man, as if trying to determine the classification and genus of Parkington’s species of nodcock.

Ever the diplomat, however, it was Benjamin Woodward who averted a crisis and said mildly, “Perhaps it’s because I’m just a brutish American, but I’ve always found that the more well-read a lady is, the better she seems as a prospective bride. After all, one must have something to talk about besides household matters and crop yields.”

Silence fell in the box as the others waited to see how Parkington would respond.

But the oaf took one look at the escape ladder Woodward had offered him and metaphorically tossed it into the ocean.

“One’s wife is not meant to be entertaining,” Parkington said, aghast. “She is to be a helpmeet. A precious flower to be sheltered from those worldly things such as novels and the like. One cannot expect the female mind to grapple with the subjects to be found within the pages of a novel. Next you’ll be saying ladies belong at university.” He gave a little laugh at this last, as if the idea were so absurd as to be laughable.

“As a matter of fact—” Woodward began, but then the curtain opened on the stage below and the singing began.

Parkington had had a narrow escape. And everyone but Parkington knew it.

When the interval came, and Will and Lucy stood, he noticed that the chair beside Meg where Parkington had been sitting was now empty.

“Where did your escort go?” he asked his sister, who was following the other ladies toward the door of the box.

Meg turned to him with a grin. “He was feeling unwell and excused himself. It’s just as well, because I know I spent much of the first act composing the ear-blistering tirade I meant to deliver once the curtain came down.”

Lucy laughed softly. “As did I.”

Beside her, Jane nodded. “I did, too. What a buffoon.”

“That’s Lord Buffoon to the likes of us,” Lucy said wryly. “But honestly, I do not know how to reconcile the fact that ladies are forbidden from attending university but ignorant wretches like Parkington are able to sit in the Lords, on top of being given one of the best educations in the world.”

“I understand better now what your book club is up to,” Will said, looking from his sister to Lucy and back again. “You’re planning a revolution.”

Rather than address his words, the ladies gave him twin looks of disappointment and left the box.

“What have I done now?” he asked Adrian and Woodward, who had come to stand beside him.

“My dear fellow,” said Adrian with a shake of his head. “The revolution has already begun. The very fact of the book club and all the other activities that have emerged as a result of the newspaper column Kate and Caro write are proof of it. It is not for you or me to question it. We are simply here to ensure that they do not come to harm in the process.”

“Come on, Gilford,” said Woodward, putting an arm about his friend’s shoulders. “Let’s go to the smoking room, and you can tell me about your youth misspent ogling opera dancers.”

The three men left, and by the time they returned, the curtain had risen once again and the opera had resumed. But to Will’s alarm, neither Lucy nor Meg was in their seats. He turned to where Jane sat beside Adrian and asked her, “What happened to Lucy and my sister? Were they not with you?”

Turning to see that neither of the ladies were yet returned, Jane frowned. “I came back before they did and was distracted by my conversation with Lady Heller in the next box. But surely they simply lost track of time and will be here any moment.”

But when several more minutes passed with no sign of the missing ladies, he and Woodward, who had been just as alarmed by the ladies’ absence as he was, crossed to the door.

Once they stepped out into the hallway, which was largely empty now thanks to the resumption of the performance, the two men exchanged a look.

“We should split up so that we cover more ground,” Will said tersely. It might be unfounded, but he couldn’t put aside the fact that Lucy had been with him at Miss Fleetwood’s today. Could Jedidiah have seen them and decided to do something to harm Lucy? He didn’t like to think so, but couldn’t forget the sight of Hamilton slinging Vera Blackwood into the waiting coach. “I’ll go check the ground floor and the area leading to the entrance. Perhaps they sought out the coach for some reason.”

Woodward nodded. “I’ll go make sure they aren’t in any of the retiring rooms. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to intrude into a space where men aren’t allowed, but if I’m lucky, no one will be there to catch me.”

At Will’s sharp look, the other man rolled his eyes. “You aren’t the only man who’s had to go in search of a dawdling sister or lady friend in one of those viper’s dens.”

Grateful to Woodward for the needed bit of levity, he nodded to his friend, and they agreed to meet back at the door to the stairs in five minutes.

But when Will reached the gently sloping entrance area, he saw no sign of Lucy or his sister. Some unexplained impulse made him open the entry door and step out into the chill evening. Out front, he saw that the carriages of the opera-goers were starting to queue up in anticipation of the performance’s conclusion.

Here and there, men in evening wear stood chatting and laughing, but Will didn’t care about them. He scanned the area for some sight of either Lucy or Meg, but saw neither.

To one side of the theater entrance, he spied a couple of footmen and a coachman engaged in a game of dice to pass the time. He stepped toward them, but as soon as the men saw him they began to get to their feet.

“My lord,” said one of the footmen with a guilty look. “We was just…”

“Don’t mind me, lads,” Will said to them and indicated that they needn’t stand upon ceremony with him. “I don’t mean to interrupt your game. I’m simply looking for my betrothed and my sister, who seem to have come out for a bit of air. You didn’t happen to see them, did you? One is wearing a rose-colored gown, and the other a light blue one.”

The footman who’d addressed him exchanged a look with one of the other men—their livery matched, so they were likely from the same household. “Not two of ’em together, my lord. There was a lady by herself, though, who was wearing a gown like you mentioned. Blue it was. And she had hair that was almost white it was so light.”

Lucy, Will thought with relief. At least someone had seen her.

“And which way did she go?” he asked.

“She asked us about some gent who’d run past us a couple of minutes before,” said the coachman. “He was a tall feller with black hair and a fine beaver hat. Quality from the looks of him. He was in a powerful hurry. All but ran down the lane.”

“And she went after him, you say?” Will asked, not liking the sound of this. Knowing Lucy, she wouldn’t go haring about after a strange man without good reason. And yet that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t blister her ears for being so foolhardy when he found her.

If he found her.

“She did,” the footman said with a nod. “Would have tried to stop her, of course, but begging your pardon, my lord, it didn’t seem our place.”

He was about to ask another question when the sound of a scream came from the end of the lane Lucy had disappeared down.

Cursing, Will sprinted toward where the shriek had come from.