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that," the highwayman said.
    "Stop him, Wylde," the Veiled Lady ordered. "I shall never forgive you if you let him get away with this."
    "I pity ye, havin' to put up with that mouth of hers," the highwayman said sympathetically to Gabriel.
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    "One gets used to it," Gabriel said.
    "If ye say so. Well, thank ye very much and good evenin' to ye both. Pleasure doin' business."
    The masked man swung his horse around, kicked hard, and sent the beast galloping off down the lane.
    The Veiled Lady watched as the highwayman disappeared. Then she rounded on Gabriel. He braced
    himself for the onslaught. It was obvious she was not pleased with his performance as a knight-errant.
    "I do not believe this, sir," she said furiously. "How could you give up my manuscript without so much as
    a single attempt to defend it?"
    Gabriel slanted her a meaningful glance as he dismounted to retrieve his greatcoat. "Would you rather I
    had let him put a hole in my already weak chest?"
    "Of course not. But surely you could have dealt with him. You are a gentleman. You must know about
    pistols and such. He was nothing but an uncouth highwayman."
    "Uncouth highwaymen are capable of pulling the trigger of a pistol just as easily as any gentleman who
    has trained at Manton's." Gabriel vaulted back into the saddle and collected the reins.
    The Veiled Lady groaned in frustration. Gabriel thought he heard her swear under her breath.
    "How could you let him just take it like that?" she asked. "I brought you along for protection. You were
    supposed to be my escort tonight."
    "It seems to me I did my job. You are quite safe."
    "But he took my manuscript."
    "Exactly. Your manuscript. Not mine." Gabriel urged his horse forward down the lane. "I learned long
    ago not to risk my neck fighting for something that does not belong to me. There is no profit in it."
    "How dare you, sir? You are certainly not the man I believed you to be."
    "Who did you believe me to be?" Gabriel called back over his shoulder.
    The lady urged her mare after his stallion. "I thought that the man who wrote The Quest would be at
    least as noble and as valiant as the hero in his book," she yelled.
    "Then you are a fool. Chivalry is for novels. I admit it sells well, but it is useless in the real world."
    "I am exceedingly disappointed in you, my lord," she announced in ringing accents as her mare drew
    alongside his stallion. "Apparently everything I believed about you is nothing more than an illusion. You
    have ruined everything. Everything."
    He glanced at her. "What did you expect of me, my Veiled Lady?"
    "I expected you to put up a fight. I expected you to protect that manuscript. 1 did not expect you to give
    it up so easily. How could you be so cowardly?"
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    "How badly do you want that manuscript back, madam?"
    "Quite badly. I paid a great deal of money for it. But that is the least of my concerns at the moment.
    What I really need is a genuine knight-errant."
    "Very well, I will get the manuscript back for you.
    When I bring it to you, I will tell you whether or not I will accept your quest."
    "What?" She was plainly dumbfounded. At the same time, Gabriel sensed her renewed hope. "You
    mean you will think about taking on the task of helping me find the pirate who has my copy of The Lady
    in the Tower?"
    "I will give the matter my closest consideration. But I must warn you, my Veiled Lady, that if I do
    undertake the quest and if I am successful, there will be a price."
    That news appeared to startle her. "A price?"
    "Yes."
    "As it happens," she said, sounding disgruntled, "I had intended to give you that book you just handed
    over to the highwayman, as I'd hinted. It was to be a sort of memento of the quest. If we were
    successful, that is."
    "I'm afraid the price will be a great deal higher than that, madam."
    "You expect me to pay you