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illness and death. The period of mourning only prolonged Lila’s maidenhood.
    The duke himself, however, had certainly not waited to marry again.
    “Did Lady Lillian-Anne tell you all that happened to her?” Brook asked.
    The duke waved a hand. “She told me enough.” He gestured to his son to rise from the chair Granbury occupied and then took it himself. Granbury retreated to the window, seeming content to stay in his father’s shadow.
    “She is still intact, still able to marry. That is, if you agree,” the duke said.
    “If I agree?” Brook had been standing still, but he went stiller yet.
    “To keep this little incident to yourself. I’ll pay you to keep silent, of course.”
    Brook raised a hand. “As I’ve said before, I don’t want your money, and you insult me by supposing I would ever tarnish a lady’s reputation. If the abduction is discovered, the news of it won’t have come from me.”
    “I have your word on that?” the duke asked.
    As far as Brook was concerned, he’d already given his word. “I believe we have a more pressing concern than your daughter’s reputation. She witnessed a murder last night, and based on the information Granbury just gave me, I believe the man murdered was the MP from Lincolnshire.”
    “What?” Granbury pushed away from the window. “I never said anything about Lila and the MP.”
    “No, but I put the facts together and made a deduction.”
    “I don’t follow,” the duke said. “What is this about Lila and a murder?”
    “Did she tell you she saw her captor slit a man’s throat last night in Seven Dials?”
    “No.”
    “She doesn’t want to think about it,” Brook said. “I had to pry the information from her.”
    “If she doesn’t want to think about it, why not let it lie?” Granbury asked.
    “Because if it’s the MP she saw murdered, she’s a target. Bee—the men who took her won’t want witnesses. They know who she is, where she lives. They’ll come for her and kill her.”
    “This is preposterous!” The duke rose. He was not a tall man, but he had broad shoulders and the face of a Roman general—tall forehead, aquiline nose, sharp blue eyes. “How can you be certain the man she saw murdered was the MP—what’s his name?”
    “Fitzsimmons,” Granbury supplied.
    “How can you know it was the same man? Surely a handful of men are murdered every night in Seven Dials. And Fitzsimmons was found near the theater.”
    “Which is on the outskirts of Seven Dials,” Brook added. Though the rookeries bordered the respectable neighborhoods throughout the city, he found that the gentry liked to believe they were far, far away from the rabble in their own homes and favorite shops or clubs.
    “It would be a relatively simple matter to dump the body there.”
    “Relatively simple?” the duke sputtered. “And you know this from experience?”
    Brook let the snub slide. “I will check with my contacts at Bow Street and inquire as to the possibility of there being another corpse killed by the severing of the jugular. Until I return, I still think it prudent to take additional security measures. I don’t know who took Lady Lillian-Anne—”
    “Some investigator,” the duke snorted.
    “—but I will find out. If it’s the man I think, your daughter, your whole family, is in danger.”
    “We will take precautious,” Granbury said. “In fact, it might be a wise idea to remove to the country.”
    “And how do we explain our absence at my niece’s wedding then?” the duke asked.
    “Rose will understand that this is an emergency,” Granbury said.
    “How?” the duke demanded. “We will have to tell her that Lila was taken, and though I love the girl, her mouth runs more than my prize thoroughbred.”
    “I understand your dilemma,” Brook said, “but surely your family’s safety trumps etiquette.”
    The look the duke gave him reminded him of one his mother often bestowed when he gave her similar advice. To men like the duke