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both hit ’im.”
    â€œDid you see what the blackguard looked like?”
    â€œNo. He stayed mostly to the shadows. But he would have made two of Lord Dunstable, I can tell you that.”
    A watchman had already gathered together a search party. “Follow me,” he called, waving his torch in a smoky arc.
    Rand tried to calculate where the parish boundaries were. He figured the demarcation would take place no more than three streets north, which meant that if Zak could reach the other side, neither the watchman nor the constable would have jurisdiction. Zak should be at least temporarily safe. But Rand must find him before the mob did.
    â€œI’m joining the hunt,” he told Elizabeth, who had remained by his side throughout.
    â€œWhere do you live? I want to see you again.”
    â€œThat would not be wise for either of us.” Rand traced her profile with his fingertips, lingering at her lips. Then he walked briskly across the street, untied his stallion’s reins, and vaulted up into the saddle.
    Belatedly, she called, “What do you mean? I must see you!” But he had already joined the crowd surging toward the juncture of Stratton Street.
    â€œJohn!” Helplessly, Elizabeth watched the shadowy wave of men, on foot and on horseback, as they followed the bobbing eye of the watchman’s torch. Then the torch and the men disappeared down a side street and she saw nothing at all.

Four
    Hour after hour, Elizabeth listened to the watch call out the time. She heard the rumblings of the early morning delivery carts and saw the first traces of dawn, but still sleep eluded her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the memory of John Randolph.
    Despite his words to the contrary, she had hoped he would come calling. Three days had passed since the night of her drum, however, and John appeared to have vanished as completely as the mysterious highwaymen who had robbed Lady Avery. Moreover, when Elizabeth had questioned the Beresfords and others at the drum, not one person had known anything about John. Since London numbered nearly a million people, she had no idea where she could begin a search.
    She accepted invitations to stroll in Vauxhall Gardens and visit Pall Mall’s fashionable shops, but during each outing she had to restrain herself from racing back to the townhouse to determine whether John had appeared in her absence.
    Had his interest in her merely been a ploy? Did he possess a perverse sense of humor? Perhaps from her books he had deduced her version of the ideal male and decided to act the part. No. If John had copied her heroes, he would have been perfumed and painted, his speech affected. Furthermore, why would he concoct such a scheme? He had never even met her.
    Or had he?
    The suspicion that they had met before still gnawed at Elizabeth, like a mouse gnawing at a piece of trap-cheese. Although she didn’t care to ponder the possibility, perhaps John was akin to Walter Stafford, the Dales’ Justice of the Peace. Lord Stafford had long pursued her, but his interest stemmed primarily from his conviction that she was a wild horse in need of being broken. “You are unappealingly masculine in your attitudes, my dear Elizabeth,” was one of Stafford’s most oft-echoed comments.
    She knew that most men shared his sentiments, but the truth was that few women could afford to be so openly opinionated. Even her Aunt Lilith, a strong personality, docilely allowed her husband’s mistress to sup with them. Conventional wisdom, which Elizabeth suspected was merely a phrase concocted by men to keep women in their place, held that if a husband strayed, his wife was at fault. Had she been more loving and subservient, her spouse would never have been forced to find solace elsewhere.
    Perhaps John had shown interest in Elizabeth Wyndham, Authoress and Spinster and Champion of Unpopular Causes, out of some evil-intentioned desire to prove his