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“Y ou should have awakened me,” Lady Emma said as she entered the morning room.

Richard purposely did not look up from the newsprint he had been reading, but now only pretended to read, as he aimlessly reached for his coffee cup.

“You required your sleep, my lady. Moreover, I wished to know assurances the men from last evening were long gone before you rose. I would not have you know more worry.”

“I am worried now, sir,” she said testily. “For you have yet to look up at me. Nor have you presented me with a proper greeting.”

Richard sighed heavily. He knew he was being an arse, but he could not pretend he did not know disillusionment.

Nevertheless, she was correct; he rose to his feet and bowed to her.

“Good morning, my lady. I pray you slept well,” he said in greeting.

He directed his gaze to a place just off her right ear.

He could not look directly upon Lady Emma and not desire her.

He came around the table to hold the chair for her.

“I have changed my mind, my lord,” she said as tears formed in her eyes. Her bottom lip trembled, and Richard knew himself an arse of the first caliber; yet he could not prevent his own hurt feelings. “It might be best, after all, if we returned to London today.”

He knew true regret for bringing more harm upon her head, but his heart shared in her tears, adding those of its own. “As you wish, my lady. Please enjoy your breakfast while I make arrangements with my coachman. Would three-quarters of an hour be adequate, my lady?”

When she nodded weakly, as if she were a wounded animal, he thought to reach for her and ask for her forgiveness, but he, too, possessed a stubborn streak, which would not permit him to bend. Instead, he bowed a second time and quickly exited the room.

Lord Orson had suggested that they call in at the local sheriff’s office in Bletchley, which was the next largest of the constituent towns after Whaddon, which was nothing more than a village.

Bletchley was a part of Milton Keynes. His lordship meant to know assurances all had gone well with Lords Beaufort and Graham.

Emma would have preferred to continue on: She wished to be as far away as possible from the man who had become quite essential to her sanity, but she agreed to wait in the carriage as his lordship went about his business.

After he stepped down, Emma sighed heavily.

“How did things between us change so dramatically overnight?” she asked the empty coach.

Tears again formed in her eyes. “Perhaps if I shared...” she began to reason aloud, but a feeling of dread had her sliding closer to the curtained window in the coach’s rear so she might view the street.

“No one,” she murmured, but she was still not convinced.

With a swallow of determination to know an end to the madness which had plagued her of late, she slid along the bench seat to the door, which remained ajar with the steps in place.

Sucking in a breath of determination, Emma swung the door wide and prepared to step down.

“My lady,” Lord Orson’s footman had frightened her, for she had not expected anyone to be so close to the carriage, and she stumbled on the steps, but the servant expertly caught her before she fell. “Are you harmed, my lady?” the footman asked. “Should I fetch Lord Orson?”

She shook her head in the negative. “Might you do me a favor?” she began softly. “Please look casually to your left to see whether there is a man standing in the shadows near the bench and the small garden between the streets.”

The footman frowned, but he did as she instructed. Meanwhile, Emma pretended to be straightening her gown.”

“Someone is standing in the shadows, my lady,” the footman said as he turned back to her.

“I know you will think me peculiar, but I am going to walk in his direction.”

“I do not believe Lord Orson would approve, ma’am.”

“I cannot say with confidence that I approve either, but something, or I should say, someone attacked me a week ago today.” Emma knew the evidence of her words was written upon each bruise and cut still upon her face.

“I cannot explain why, but my soul tells me the man in the shadows knows something of what happened to me. The three men from last evening are likely the reason he is in Bletchley and waiting outside this particular gaol.”

“What do you require of me, my lady?” the footman asked quietly.

“If I am ever to know peace,” she said, “I must confront him. Would you please inform Lord Orson of my intentions?”

“Ma’am,” the footman began his protest, but Emma had already set her shoulders in place and strode off in the man’s direction.

She was determined to have a look at the man and have him know she had survived him.

“Just a look,” Emma murmured under her breath.

“One look should provide me an opening into the black clouds holding me prisoner.” Although she was walking decidedly in the man’s direction, he had yet to move or to look away.

It was as if he had planned their confrontation, and the idea of an actual confrontation had her rethinking this choice.

Should she pause to reconsider her decision before it was too late to do so?

Yet, she did not turn her steps back to the coach.

It was as if a force compelled her to keep walking.

With each inch of the wooden walkway she covered, Emma’s heart beat faster and faster, pounding in her ears.

Her breath had shortened, but she did not slow her pace or turn aside.

She was compelled by both fear and curiosity to know the truth of why she had suffered this man’s cruelty.

“My lord! My lord!” Richard turned to see his footman attempting to reach him, though several of the local sheriff’s men held him in place.

“Lucas, what is the matter?” Richard asked, immediately thinking of Lady Emma.

“Her ladyship saw a man watching the coach, sir,” Mr. Lucas called, while he still struggled with the local officers. “She means to confront him!”

Richard was on the move immediately. “I may kill her myself,” he groused while motioning the men to release his footman, before rushing outside. “Which way, Lucas?” he demanded.

“There! By the bench at the end of the street!” Lucas responded in urgency.

Richard turned his head to view Lady Emma walking smartly in the direction of a man dressed all in black and with a hat pulled down over his forehead, hiding some of his features. “Lucas, assist Lord Graham in securing Lady Emma’s safety.”

With that, Richard was at a run. He knew without looking back that the footsteps behind him belonged to Beaufort. “Emma! Lady Emma, wait!”

At Richard’s call, the man in black darted away.

He slipped easily between a carriage and a donkey cart to cross through the traffic.

For a man of his weight, the stranger was very quick upon his feet.

Richard could hear Beaufort shouting orders to Graham and noted when Beaufort turned down a different street in order to intercept the man they were chasing.

As he overtook Emma, Richard shouted “Stay! Graham, she is yours!”

Richard ignored the burning in his lungs as he, too, worked his way between several wagons.

He could now tell that the man’s clothes were not black, but rather a dark brown.

Suddenly, the stranger pulled up and turned with a gun in his hand to take aim at Richard.

Orson dove to the side, yelling to all in the vicinity to take cover.

“Stay down!” he yelled, as he rose to give pursuit again, but the man was no longer in sight.

“Where the hell?” he groused as he looked this way and that.

Moving more cautiously than he had previously, he began to check each of the buildings near where he had last seen the man, but nothing.

It was as if his attacker had vanished into thin air.

Beaufort appeared at the other end of the street and shrugged, meaning no one had come past Richard’s friend.

Orson motioned to several buildings. A stable.

Some sort of charity house. A school. A blacksmith.

He and Beaufort worked instinctively, with little conversation, to examine each, but a quarter hour later, they stood together on the outskirts of Bletchley, guns in hand, but no suspect within sight.

A few people went about their business, but none of them was a stocky-built man, wearing dark clothing.

“Where in the world did he go?” Beaufort asked as Richard’s friend turned in a slow circle. “No one! Anywhere! How is that possible, Orson? We were on his heels and then he was gone!”

“Either we are becoming slower or the reprehensible creatures we chase are becoming faster,” Richard declared as he too scanned all the buildings a final time. “I suppose I should discover what tick lodged in Lady Emma’s head to make her wish to confront a stranger.”

“Perhaps a similar confrontation began this madness,” Beaufort suggested. As they started back to where Graham waited with Lady Emma, his friend said, “So you two decided to return to London without settling things between you?”

“It was her ladyship’s wish,” Richard admitted lamely.

“Are you assured?” Beaufort asked.

“I performed dastardly,” Richard made his explanation, for he knew Beaufort would return to the subject again and again until he knew it all, “and there were tears in her eyes, though I attempted not to look too closely at her.”

“Did the two of you at least decide where you are to set her down in London? Where will she go?” Beaufort asked.

“The lady is of age, and I am not a male relative; therefore, I have no say in the matter. I am just the man who found her after she had been attacked. Anyone else, except an idiot of my nature, would simply have seen her home and in the care of her servants.”

“You are not anyone else, and, most assuredly, not an idiot, when it comes to the woman,” Beaufort argued. “The lady simply does not know up from down.”