watched the door to the butcher’s shop open and a gangly boy emerge. The boy’s arms were piled high with packages and he dropped one awkwardly shaped parcel to the dusty ground almost immediately. When he turned back to retrieve it, his pile tilted precariously.
It was the most interesting thing that had happened since they had arrived in the little Yorkshire village two evenings earlier.
“A crown says he drops another before he reaches the haberdasher,” Nick said.
“Make it a sovereign,” Rock agreed.
The boy passed the shop without incident.
“Are you ready to return to London yet?” Rock asked, pocketing his winnings.
“No.”
“Will you at least consider leaving Yorkshire?”
“Not unless we have reason to believe she left Yorkshire.”
Rock took a deep breath, rocking back on his heels. After a long moment, he said, “It occurs to me that you are the one who is committed to finding the girl. There is nothing in this place that is keeping me. Ankara was more accommodating than this town.”
Nick raised one dark eyebrow. “Ankara? I think that’s a bit extreme, considering our accommodations when last we visited Turkey.”
“Also your doing,” Rock grumbled. “We could at least move to York. This inn—and I use the term loosely—is awful.”
Nick smiled at that. “You know, for a Turk, you really have become something of a dandy.”
“It is called The Stuck Pig, for God’s sake!”
“Do you think we would find a more interestingly named establishment in York? ”
“I think we might well find a finer establishment there.”
“Perhaps, but the last we heard, she was headed here,” Nick said. “Where is your sense of adventure? ”
Rock huffed in irritation, looking toward the stables. “Lost, along with our horses. Where do you think this place is keeping them? Bath? The only excuse for taking so much time to fetch a horse is death.”
“Death of the horse? ”
“I was leaning toward death of the groomsman who went looking for it,” Rock said, and he was off, heading for the stables, leaving Nick to turn his attention to the village of Dunscroft.
They were close.
They had tracked Lady Georgiana across England to Yorkshire, where her course seemed to disappear. They’d ridden north for a day, questioning anyone who might have had a chance to witness a young woman traveling alone, and found nothing past Dunscroft, where a boy who worked at the post remembered seeing a “lady like an angel” come off the mail coach. He could not remember what happened to the angel in question, but Nick had quickly decided that she hadn’t gone far. She was in Dunscroft. Or close to it.
He was certain of it.
With a deep breath, he considered the little village that lined a single main street, where a church, an inn, and a simple row of shops marked civilization. Across from the inn was the village commons, a small patch of green that still bore an empty maypole from the May Day celebration that likely marked the most exciting night of the year in Dunscroft. As he took in the commons, Nick’s attention was drawn to a lone woman crossing them.
She read as she walked, transfixed by the stack of papers she carried, and the first thing Nick noticed was her ability to keep a straight line despite her obvious lack of awareness of her surroundings.
She was in mourning, clad in a simple black day dress, a common enough design, if slightly out of fashion, but such a thing was to be expected, considering their location. The dress indicated that she was very likely the daughter of some local landed gentry, but her movements were unselfconscious enough to suggest that she was no society miss.
He watched her carefully, taking in her uncommon height—he didn’t think he’d ever met a woman as tall as she was. Her quick, purposeful strides were entirely the opposite of the mincing little steps that young ladies were taught to believe graceful. He could not resist focusing on her skirts, which