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A fter the meal, as she had predicted, Lord Orson and his friends claimed they meant to enjoy a cheroot out in the garden, while Lord Duncan excused his nurse and asked his daughter and Emma to join him at his end of the table.

Once the servants and his nurse disappeared, Lord Duncan said, “Orson tells me he was following a suspicious man when he became disoriented for a matter of a few streets before he encountered you.”

“In truth, I never asked why his lordship was in that part of Covent Garden,” Emma admitted. “At first, I was afraid of Lord Orson, but he was so...”

“Insistent?” Lady Theodora asked.

Emma smiled. “I suppose he was, but I would never have found my way out of Covent Garden if he was not. Either I would have been left to die in an alley or someone would have robbed me of my pearl hairband or executed worse on my person.”

Lord Duncan frowned. “And the color red? From my short talk with Orson this morning, I understand the man Orson was following wore a black cape with a red lining and you were temporarily frightened by Mr. Rheem’s red waistcoat.”

“Again, I cannot speak with any confidence. Lord Orson mentioned something of a strange-acting man, but I hold no memory of encountering him, whether it be yea or nay,” she admitted.

“And the number three?” Lord Duncan asked.

“I recall telling Lord Orson I must find ‘three,’ but, like the other questions, I am unable to name the significance of the number. Three could have been a part of the house number or a street or three particular baskets or any number of things. As I lost two shoes and a reticule, such could be three.”

“How did you lose your shoes?” Lady Theodora asked.

“As I would not likely have worn half boots with the gown I had on last evening, I must have worn evening slippers on my feet. If I was running away, which makes sense, for I staggered into Lord Orson’s arms, I imagine I might have lost them in that manner.”

“Anything else?” Lord Duncan asked.

“You have trained Lord Orson well,” she commented with a lift of her brows. “You asked the same questions as his lordship.”

“I was asked by... by someone I cannot name to protect each of the men you encountered at my table today. Part of that protection was to teach them how to defend themselves and others,” Duncan confirmed.

“He was a boy, my lord,” Emma remarked with a lift of her brows.

“As were they all,” Lord Duncan said with a nod of appreciation. “The world is not perfect, my lady, as you have quickly discovered. Sometimes even a child must know how to defend himself. Even so would a woman.”

Emma looked to Theodora. “Is such true, my lady?”

The girl shot a quick glance to her father. “I am proficient with several weapons.”

“Lord Orson said something similar, but I did not initially think upon his words as you described them. Perhaps my parents would have been served better if they had sent me to you, my lord, rather than home from Europe with an insufferable governess. If so, I would have been better able to defend myself last evening.”

“Did you not have a proper governess, my lady?” Lady Theodora asked.

“I truly cannot say, but I would assume so. Are not all governesses both proper and insufferable? Mayhap no one served as my escort from the Continent, at least, no one of a permanent nature.”

“You would have,” Lord Duncan said with a smile of understanding.

“Would have what?” Emma inquired.

“Would have possessed a proper governess and have done well in defending yourself if you had been raised under my care,” he said with a smile.

Before more could be said, Lady Theodora suggested, “It is not as if I mind sharing clothes with you, but had you thought to send to your home for some of your things? Orson says Mr. Rheem believes you will be with us for a sennight or longer, depending on when the swelling on your head lessens and your memory returns.”

“I do not think Orson wished others to know Lady Emma was staying with us,” Lord Duncan reminded his daughter.

“There are servants in this house and in the surrounding houses who know Lady Emma is with us,” Lady Theodora reasoned.

“Moreover, eventually, someone at Lady Emma’s house will report her absence to the authorities.

It would be best if my new friend was known to have had an ‘unfortunate accident’ and will be staying with the Duncan household for the foreseeable future.

” The young woman squeezed the back of her father’s hand.

“No one would dare question Lord Macdonald Duncan’s word or think to cross his threshold without an invitation. ”

His lordship sighed heavily. “Lady Emma, please provide Theodora a list of items you wish your staff to send over to Duncan Place. If you cannot recall specific items, ask for a certain number of changes of clothing. I assume you employed a lady’s maid who could assist in arranging an appropriate wardrobe. ”

“I doubt Richard would wish for Lady Emma’s maid to join us here, as we do not know who all is involved in her attack,” Lady Theodora suggested diplomatically.

Lord Duncan sighed heavily, obviously annoyed by his daughter’s apparent manipulations. “List your clothing needs. Theodora and Orson will drop off the list before this afternoon’s tea and retrieve Lady Emma’s trunks after the entertainment.”

“How did you come to bring Lady Emma Donoghue to Duncan Place?” Thompson asked as they all settled among the chairs in the library.

Richard sighed, for he did not wish for more explanations.

He would prefer this situation could be resolved with as little fanfare as possible.

However, he began, “I accompanied Sir Hunter Wickersham to Madam Ahrens’s last evening.

Hunt and Miss David will marry this Friday, and he thought to sow more of his freedom before then.

I was still a bit out of sorts with us having few leads in Duncan’s attack, as well as the hours at the Lords listening to first one and then another speaking for the latest funding bills for our military.

I know otherwise, and I truly understand the reasons behind this madness of sending money to other countries to pay them to fight at Wellington’s side.

Yet, have we not enough men to do the job properly? ”

“The obvious,” Thompson said. “The war efforts would not be so popular among British citizens if our people were showing up on deceased lists with some regularity.”

Richard did not argue, though he suspected his friend was correct, so he simply continued.

“I left the Lords and went to White’s, only to find Lady Emma and her contingent again blocking the door.

So, between the insentient debate in the Lords and Lady Emma’s efforts to shame all of London’s most prestigious gentlemen and no movement on Duncan’s situation and a strong belief that Sir Hunter is making a gigantic mistake in marrying Miss David, I simply could not stay any longer at Madame Ahrens’s house.

My God, the woman employs a woman who calls herself ‘Chastity.’”

“So you left?” Beaufort summarized. “Then what?”

“There was a man at the end of the alleyway on the main street. Dressed in theatre garb, but it was a Monday night and the theatre was closed. Basically, he was all in black, but the cape had a red satin lining. He appeared purposely to walk away from me, so I followed him all the way to the theaters where he hailed a hack and was gone. I started back towards where Sir Hunter’s coach was waiting.

I was going to take it home and then send Hunt’s driver back to Madame Ahrens to rouse out the baronet.

I was still thinking about the man in black and his odd behavior, and so I made a few wrong turns and ended up on a street with which I was not initially familiar, where Lady Emma Donoghue managed to fall into my waiting arms. She fought me for a bit, but she was too far gone to provide much of an altercation.

I sat her on the entrance steps to a boarding house while I looked for her attacker or even her reticule or evening shoes, neither of which was still on her body.

“The lady says she must have been attending the theatre and become lost when she left. Yet, as I just said, there are no productions on Mondays. Not until the end of the week. Moreover, when Rheem first attended her, Lady Emma became quite frightened when she noted the surgeon’s red waistcoat.

I am at wit’s end to know where we might begin to find her assailant.

I could use your expertise in this matter. ”

“You have it,” Thompson swore. “Let us begin again and take each part of this mystery apart.”

Richard nodded his thanks. “Oh, I forgot to include how Lady Emma said, ‘I must find three...’ She does not recall what three things for which she searched, but they were important enough to drive her deep into Covent Garden’s less colorful neighborhoods where she was beaten close to death and would have known God’s mercy if I had not found her. ”

His conversation with his friends already had Richard more distracted than he wished to be for the tea party honoring Hunter and Miss David.

More so upset, after the bizarre nature of Lady Emma’s staff’s response to Theodora’s request that they prepare several small trunks for their mistress’s use while the lady recuperated.

“Though this appears to be Lady Emma’s script, I was not aware that my mistress held you in acquaintance,” Emma’s butler responded when he was presented the task.

Irritated by the man’s response, Richard snapped, “I did not realize Lady Donoghue thought it necessary to report her whereabouts to her employees nor with whom the lady spends her time. How convenient to possess such an intimate relationship with your mistress!”

The man pulled himself up to stand stiffly before Richard and Theodora. “I have served Lady Donoghue for some twenty years, my lord.”