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off her feet and carry her to safety.
    There were days when she believed that if Hobbe were to walk into a room, her heart would know him without a moment’s hesitation, so long had she spent dreaming of him.
    Now if only she could find him, then she and Hobbe could exact their revenge for the young man’s life—together they’d make Bradstone pay.
    Bradstone. She shuddered at the very thought of him.
    A hero. Being celebrated and fêted. Living with all the rewards society poured at his feet, while she remained trapped in this—her own personal prison for a crime she hadn’t committed. Her only crime had been trusting Bradstone. A man with whom she’d believed herself in love. Well, she wouldn’t make that mistake again.
    She glanced out her bedroom window into the darkness of the January night and shivered.
    On a cold night like this, how could she believe there was a Hobbe? For a bleak moment, she knew she’d never find him in time.
    So the task fell to her shoulders. To make damn sure the Marquis of Bradstone wished he’d stayed in that French prison. She finished packing her bag and set out to complete the vow she had made all those years ago. Not the one to the dying man, the one she’d made to herself.
    Revenge.
    And as she passed through the dark shadows of Finch Manor, she took only one thing.
    The pistol Jemmy had left for her on the highboy in the hall.
    London
    Lady Bradstone’s welcome-home fête for her son had the entire house in chaos.
    As Robert hazarded his way through the confusion of delivery wagons out front and the battalion of servants rushing about inside, he would have liked nothing more than to turn and run in a direct line back to Portugal.
    He had spent the last week chasing after Pymm’s unbelievable revelations. Yet locating Olivia Sutton proved to be as elusive as finding a decent drink in Seven Dials. Since everyone believed the girl dead, it was hard to start an investigation.
    Her scandalous affair with Bradstone and her connection to the murder had left her reputation in tatters, ruined forever in the eyes of polite society. Everyone he’d questioned, albeit casually, had felt that even if she was living, she was better off dead.
    Avoiding his aunt and Carlyle, who would both have a list of requirements that needed his attention, he sought refuge in the marquis’s luxurious and spacious bedchamber, where perhaps he could find some peace and quiet in which to sort out the mystery of finding the infamous Miss Sutton.
    But an undisturbed corner wasn’t to be found there, for glowering in the middle of the room stood his batman, Aquiles.
    “Ach,” the man said, scowling as another servant brought in more pressed clothes, “they would drown you in all this.”
    Robert agreed wholeheartedly. If the dirt and stench of London wasn’t bad enough, the clothes he was expected to wear as a peer of the realm made a French prison look cozy.
    Ridiculous cravats designed to choke a man. Breeches and jackets so tight he could barely move. Orders and regulations he understood, having spent most of his life in the army, but the strict rules that made up the good society of London left him as unsteady as if a cannonball had just landed at his feet.
    “ Yer mother ,” Aquiles said with a short, gruff snort, “and that conceited coxcomb she hired said you should wear this one.” He held up a green ensemble that looked more befitting as funeral regalia for a toad. Grimacing, he tossed the expensive suit on the bed and turned on Robert. “ Yer mother’s been in a regular state since you left, especially when I wouldn’t tell ’er where you went. She’s been badgering me right awful. You’re supposed to be front and center and on display when the first guests arrive. And yer mother also said—”
    “Please stop calling her that,” Robert told him. His memories of his real mother seemed almost tarnished when she was compared to her blowsy and social-climbing sister. “When we are