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all else fails, I will personally pay a visit to every last one of you bastards. Do you understand?” The knife back in his hand again made his meaning fairly obvious. The guard nodded.
    Rex glanced toward the bulge of the leather purse at the man’s waist. “I am taking her. Make it right, make it legal, or make peace with your god.”
    No one stopped Rex as he limped through the halls of the prison carrying his slight burden. Then he was out in the fresh air, headed for his . . . horse.
    Damn. If ever he needed Murchison and his father’s coach, this was it. They were an hour outside of London, though. Two hackney drivers sped away, rather than take up a sickly passenger from Newgate.
    “Now what?” Rex asked. The woman did not answer. She was so quiet he would have wondered if she still breathed, but he could feel her chest rise and fall even under his uniform jacket, which enfolded her. For how long? He knew he could not stand outside the prison gates waiting for a messenger to fetch Murchison and the carriage. Miss Carville needed help, now, and his bad leg could not support her for so long. So he draped her limp body over his horse’s neck until he mounted and gathered her up again, silently apologizing to both the woman and the horse for such rough treatment.
    Then he cursed again, turning the horse in a wide circle while he thought. What the devil was he going to do with Miss Amanda Carville now that he had her? He could not take her to the house, where she had—perhaps—shot the owner. If Sir Frederick’s household had cared about the chit, she would not have been in such mean accommodations in prison. She’d had no visitors, the guard had said, confirming their belief in her guilt. Rex could not take her to his inn, not with the riffraff there, or the lack of a physician or an apothecary or a decent woman. He could try a hotel in Town, but Lud, he’d be laughed at for trying to bring his filthy, fetid burden into a respectable place. Daniel’s lodgings were out of the question, even if he know the location. The girl needed tending, not likely to be found at whatever rough bachelor digs Rex’s cousin had claimed. No, Rex had one choice. One blasted, blighted choice: Royce House. Where his mother lived.

Chapter Four
    T he knocker was off the door, which indicated that the resident was away from home. Good. That meant Rex did not have to face Lady Royce. Not that he never saw her, simply that he saw her as rarely as possible, more often by accident than design. When he was at university, a scholar on a spree, or later, a young man about Town, avoiding encounters was easy. Countesses seldom frequented gaming hells or whorehouses or sporting events. Young bucks and beaux did not attend debutante balls and afternoon teas and musicales unless dragged by their female relations. Lady Royce knew better than to try to drag Rex anywhere. She did send him letters, which he answered politely on his father’s orders, and packages while he was in school or with the army. Often there would be warm socks, tins of tea, a coin or a pound note tucked in, so the other lads thought Lady Royce was the best mother in the world.
    She was no mother at all. Right now Rex was pleased he did not have to make stilted conversation with the stranger who gave him birth. It was enough that he was here at her bidding, cradling an unconscious convict.
    On the other hand—the one holding his coat closed over the young woman’s torn gown so he had to kick at the door instead of knocking—with the countess away, who was going to take charge of Miss Carville? He almost dropped her, panicked at the thought that no one was left at the London town house to answer his call. No, the housekeeper would be somewhere, Rex decided, or the cook. There were competent women in most households, experienced with invalids and infants. He kicked at the door again.
    Both were away, the butler announced when the man finally opened the door, aghast at the