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“You know perfectly well who I mean, madam. Where in perdition did Cassia take off to?”

“My lord, you really should attempt to tame your tongue in the presence of a lady. I?—”

“Pray do not make the mistake of attempting to further play me for a fool, Lady Haslit. Believe me when I say I am much more pleasant when I am one’s ally than when I am one’s foe. Now I will only ask you this one more time: Where is she?”

Cordelia took a further moment to weigh her options, then realizing Rolfe would be a little more difficult to handle than the men she and her scheming friend were accustomed to, she frowned. “She has gone to her father’s offices in Westminster.”

Rolfe did not respond. Instead, he turned and strode from the room, barking for the hackney coach that was parked outside in the shade across the road.

Being midday, the roads to Westminster were at an impasse. Between shouting at the driver and balling his hand into a fist as the coach crawled its way toward Whitehall, Rolfe tried to think about what he would do with Cassia when he finally caught up with her.

He’d devised an assortment of responses by the time they reached their destination, the last of which was to perhaps leg shackle her to a chair. One thing was certain, though. When he found her, there would be hell for the lady to pay.

Cassia peered down the deserted hallway, making certain no one else was about as she quietly closed the door to her father’s office behind her.

How she hoped Cordelia had been able to keep Lord Ravenscroft from noticing her absence this long, but, somehow, she rather doubted it.

Ravenscroft was not a stupid man. While Cordelia may have been able to distract him long enough for Cassia to have taken her leave, and perhaps even for a short time after that, sooner or later, a man like Ravenscroft would eventually realize what she’d done.

He would see there hadn’t really been any menus that needed discussing, and instead, she’d done just what she’d promised him she would not do. She’d run off without his knowing.

And it had been for naught.

If only she’d been able to find the mysterious document that her father had alluded to in his letter, perhaps she wouldn’t now feel this empty sense of failure coupled with the nagging guilt of having stolen away.

But then she asked herself why should she feel guilty?

She owed Ravenscroft no loyalty. It certainly hadn’t been her choice to appoint him as her personal sentry.

In fact, he should have expected it of her, indeed, if anything, he’d been remiss in his duties by allowing her to get away at all.

But regardless of how many times she tried to convince herself of this, in the back of her mind, Cassia still heard that tiny inner voice that always seemed ready to remind her of her shortcomings.

You broke your word.

Cassia frowned. But perhaps, it wasn’t too late. Perhaps she might manage to sneak back into the house without his seeing her and simply evade his questions as to where she had been all that time. She just needed to get herself back to Seagrave House as quickly as she possibly could.

Cassia tucked the key to her father’s office that she’d gotten from Clydesworthe safely into the lining pocket of her cloak and headed out of the building.

She tried to avoid crossing anyone’s path, ducking into an alcove when she heard someone else approaching.

She waited until they were well away, and even a few minutes after, before moving out of the shadows once again.

If anyone saw her, chanced to recognize her, it could prove disastrous, particularly when news of her father’s petition to the king making her sole heiress to the Seagrave estate became public.

Nothing of any consequence was left to secrecy for long in this city for the grand and glorious people of the court seemed to revel in discovering everybody else’s most hidden secrets.

Knowing the rumors that would be flying about Whitehall, of how she was a murderess who had viciously killed her own father for the fortune he so na?vely had left to her, Cassia could not risk being seen so near to his offices now.

Any activity that appeared even remotely covert or unusual would only be cause for more suspicion.

She already had more than she could manage of that.

Pulling the hood of her cloak over her head, Cassia slowly opened the door onto the street.

Outside, the cobblestoned courtyard in front of the Horse Guards was teeming with people all milling about.

Since it was just after the noon hour, carriages were awaiting their noble passengers to take them back to their dwellings in the city.

Coachmen were shouting crude obscenities to each other.

Some were waving their horsewhips high in the air as they fought for a forward position closest to the footpath so as to keep their masters from having to walk among the muck that littered the area.

Cassia struggled to see her driver through the crush. She’d asked him kindly and had paid him well to wait for her to return. After some searching, she finally located him parked alongside the roadway near the Holbein Gate entrance clear on the other side of the courtyard.

He did not seem to notice her standing there.

Rather than attempt to wave him down and thereby draw unwanted attention, Cassia began weaving her way through the people and coaches to make her way across the courtyard to him.

In trying to keep her hood in place and watch where and into what she might be stepping, she was bumped and jostled by the prancing horses and the other people in the busy area.

When she was finally within a short distance of her waiting coach, she noticed the driver starting to pull away, heading, it seemed, in the opposite direction.

No! Wait!

Cassia tried to hurry to catch him, pushing at a fidgeting bay who had backed up against her and, in the process of trying to veer away and avoid stepping in an unsightly pile of horse muck, her hood fell back off her head.

By now, Cassia was more concerned with stopping the fleeing coach, thinking she was about to be left there at the palace.

She started to call out to the driver when, suddenly, something struck her squarely between her shoulders.

She tumbled forward onto the cobbles, managing to break her fall with her hands. She lay for a moment, stunned, then struggled to rise to her feet. It was then she saw another coach, this one gleaming black and pulled by a team of matching blacks, barreling straight for her.

Cassia froze.

Her gaze locked on the pounding, flashing hooves that were galloping straight at her. She realized she would be trampled in moments and could do nothing about it.

But then, two strong hands somehow lifted her from where she lay prone on the ground, pulling her to safety just as the coach came racing by exactly at the spot where she had fallen. Had she still been there, she’d surely have been crushed beneath it.

Cassia turned, heart pounding, ready to thank the kind gentleman who had surely just saved her life when a familiar voice breathed close to her ear.

“I was wrong, Lady Cassia, when I said earlier that you were not a foolish woman. Only a fool would have done something quite as stupid as what you just did.”