The blasted woman was right Emotionally Giles believed in his brother, yet he was uneasily aware that Robin could not have survived a dozen years of spying in the heart of Napoleon's empire without a capacity for ruthlessness. "Robin has been shaped by forces different than the English beau monde, but I am sure he would never injure an innocent."

Lady Ross shrugged and turned away. "We shall see. I will not stop searching until I find my niece. And if your brother has harmed her, may God help him."

Then she was gone. Giles stared at the closed door for a long moment, feeling as if the church steeple had fallen on him. No one had ever made him so angry in his life, but even so, he was not proud of the way he had spoken to Lady Ross.

He turned back to the room, shaking his head. To his secretary, who had been watching in horrified fascination, he said, "What did you think of all that, Charles?"

The other man hesitated, then said tactfully, "I think that I would not like to have Lady Ross angry with me."

"And that if Robin is dallying with the lady's niece, he may find himself up to his chin in boiling water?"

Charles smiled ruefully. "I'm afraid so, my lord."

The marquess settled deep in his leather upholstered chair and considered. Preposterous though the idea seemed, the missing Maxima must be traveling to London by foot. Otherwise, Lady Ross wouldn't be so sure that her niece was in southern Yorkshire a week after leaving Durham.

It was hard to imagine a gently bred female undertaking such a journey; the chit must be desperate, depraved, or mad. Or perhaps it was merely that she was an American.

On the day he disappeared, Robin had planned to visit the west woods. The road that cut through the area might have been chosen by someone heading south from Durham. Robin had been emotionally drifting; if he had encountered an attractive, madcap girl, he might have decided on impulse to go with her. While Robin was no rake, he was also no saint, and he couldn't know the potential for scandal in taking up with this particular female.

Robin would have had little or no money on him. Maxima Collins must not have any funds, either, or she would have taken a coach to London. Giles thought that a romantic interlude without a feather to fly with sounded deucedly uncomfortable, but of course he was boringly conservative.

Could Robin have decided to escort the girl to London? Giles seized on the thought with relief; it was exactly the sort of quixotic thing his brother might do. However, if the wench was twentyfive and willing, they might soon be on terms far more intimate than the girl's aunt would approve of.

Lady Ross seemed more agitated than the situation warranted. Perhaps there was more to the story than she was admitting. Then again, maybe she was merely a termagant who enjoyed thundering about like a March storm.

Remembering the woman's rage at the suggestion, he acquitted her of conspiring with her niece to entrap Robin, but that didn't mean the girl herself was innocent of such intentions. Between his fortune and his personal attractions, Robin was a very good catch indeed. Possibly the wench had recognized that fact and decided to take advantage of the situation.

The marquess frowned as he reviewed his thoughts. The facts were that Robin had gone missing, and so had Miss Collins, and they had tentatively been identified as being together. The assumption was that they were traveling south toward London. If trouble befell them on the road, Robin would be handicapped by lack of money and identification.

Lady Ross was pursuing the fugitives, breathing fire and brimstone. If she found them, the results would be damned unpleasant. A scandal would injure the girl far more than Robin, but a vengeful Lady Ross might be too angry to care.

Robin might be indifferent to the prospect of scandal; the marquess, however, was not. Though he would face down the gossips if necessary, it would be far better to keep the affair private if at all possible. Which meant that he must go after the runaways himself. With luck, he would find them before Lady Ross, in time to head off disaster.

If the Sheltered Innocent insisted that only marriage would save her from ruin-well, the marquess would have something to say about that. Quite apart from Robin's personal happiness, his brother's wife would likely be the mother of a future Marquess of Wolverton, and Giles would not permit the line to become tainted with the blood of a vulgar, scheming hussy.

Gloomily he thought about how much he hated travel. Long hours in a jolting carriage, damp sheets, barely edible meals. And he didn't even have a proper valet at the moment since his previous one had just left and not yet been replaced.

In addition to the routine discomforts, he was going to feel like a damned fool chasing across the countryside after an American doxy, a retired spy, and a firebreathing reformer.

As he considered the prospect, the Marquess of Wolverton realized that he was smiling.

Chapter 6

Maxie adjusted her hat against the sun, using the gesture as an excuse to slant a covert glance at her companion. Once again she was caught in one of those strange, breathless moments that occurred frequently when she looked at Robin. He was too beautiful, too enigmatic, to be real.

Not that he was hard to talk to. On the contrary, he was the only man she had ever met who was as easy to converse with as her father had been. When Robin tired of silence, witty words flowed from him like a burbling brook. He had drawn her into conversations about the passing scene, the fine weather, the late regrettable war between their countries.

Yet he never said a single blessed thing about himself that Maxie felt sure she could believe. Lord, she still didn't know what his real name was. Never again would she assume that mysterious meant silent.

Stranger yet was the fact that he was behaving as a perfect gentleman-so perfect that she was beginning to wonder what was wrong with her. Not that she wanted to be assaulted, but at least that was behavior she could understand.

Instead, she had a charming companion who was utterly incomprehensible. It was all quite unsettling, and far too easy to forget that in spite of his charm, Robin was basically an unreliable rogue.

As the road wound into a small grove of trees, Robin broke the silence by asking, "Did I tell you about the time I worked in a circus in Austria?"

She smiled, wondering what he would come up with this time. "Not yet. Your repertory of entertaining and wholly unbelievable tales seems to be limitless. Tell me about the circus. No doubt you were the star of the high wire act."

"Not at all," he said affably. "Horses are much easier, so I confined myself to daredevil riding tricks. My Cossack routine was much admired."

"Robin, do you ever tell the truth?"

He gave her an offended glance. "Any fool can tell the truth. It takes real talent to be a good liar."

She was laughing when two horsemen burst from the underbrush in a clamor of shouts and thundering hooves. The riders separated, one jolting to a halt in front of them and the other behind, the horses kicking up clouds of gritty dust. Both wore half masks and held pistols in their hands.

The leader bellowed, "Stand and deliver!" He was wiry and blond, with ferret like eyes gleaming behind the mask.

Maxie's heart spasmed with fear. Though she was willing to face the perils of the road, she had not truly expected armed highwaymen. These two looked nervous and very, very dangerous.

Beside her, Robin raised his hands in the air. "You must be right hard up to rob folks like us," he said calmly, his accent that of a laborer. "We've got naught worth stealing. You'd do better over on the Great North Road, with the fancy carriages."

"Too damned much traffic there," the man behind grumbled. Darkhaired and beefy in build, he kept his pistol trained on Robin's chest. "Easy to get killed."

"Times are hard," the blond man said. "You might not have much, but a couple of shillings are better than nothing. Jem, see what they got."

Jem dismounted and searched Robin's pockets, where he found a handful of coins. After pawing through the knapsack, he said irritably, "He weren't lyin' about not having much."

The blond man gestured with his pistol. "Do the lad.He might be carrying valuables because he seems less likely."

Maxie stood rigid while Jem searched her, praying that he would not feel the unboyish curves concealed by her loose clothing. Though she had mentally accepted the possibility of rape, such detachment was impossible when a criminal was running rough hands over her body and breathing boozy breath into her face.

Luckily, the binding on her breasts prevented him from realizing the sex of his victim. He didn't find the knife in her boot, either. However, he quickly located her inner coat pockets. He pulled out her harmonica. "What's this, Ned?"

"Some kind of mouth organ," Ned replied. "Probably good for a shilling or two."

Maxie bit her tongue against her automatic protest. At least he hadn't found the earrings that were in the same pocket.

It was harder when Jem found her father's watch. He whistled when he pulled it out. "You was right, the lad has the valuables. This is gold, and worth a pretty penny."

"Give it to me." After inspecting it, Ned gave a nod of satisfaction and tucked it inside his coat. "Now check the boy's neck. He's wearing a silver chain."

As Maxie cringed back, Jem stuck a dirty finger under the chain and fished out her cross. "Well, I'll be damned, this is our lucky day." He flicked open the latch and pulled the chain from her neck, then dropped the cross into his pocket.