But this job was different. He had not agreed to this humiliating task to please the anonymous director of the Falcon Club or the king. Not even for the sack of gold coins they would pay him. This assignment he had accepted to avenge a death.

A death for a death. One sin to cancel out another.

This time, however, he could not hide the truth of his deed from his friends—Leam Blackwood, Jin Seton, Constance Read, Colin Gray—all once fellow agents in the Falcon Club, the greatest friends a man could have. This time they would all know. This time the world would know.

The rain fell mizzling, sending mist up from the warm earth. But the sky was heavy and it would soon pour down. The filly’s blanket would keep her dry. He took another blanket from the tack room and affixed it over Galahad’s back.

“Now we are off to the races. As it were.”

He set off along the foggy drive on foot, a lead line in either hand and hundreds of guineas worth of horseflesh following docilely behind. The gray day was still young, the walk to the village where a bottle and the Mail Coach could be found only a few miles distant. By the time he reached Yarmouth’s castle two days hence, he would again be dry and suitably clad. In the meantime, to be sodden both without as well as within seemed suitable enough. Here in the middle of nowhere, in the company of none but beasts, for once he needn’t even mimic perfection. And, after all, a man on his way to murder a duke ought to be allowed to enjoy the journey in whatever manner he liked.

In theory, her plan worked splendidly well.

In theory.

Diantha had not, of course, counted on the handsome farm boy. Thus she had not foreseen Annie’s desertion. Neither had she anticipated the rain that soaked the hem of her traveling dress, or the man with the sausagelike fingers sitting in the opposite corner seat of the Mail Coach. The squalling infant in its mother’s spindly arms was not an especial boon either. But at least the little bundle hadn’t caused Diantha any real trouble, only a megrim the size of Devonshire, which actually had its start at the posting house when Annie gave abrupt notice with a “Best of luck to you, Miss Lucas!” thrown over her shoulder. So in truth the babe could not be blamed.

Naturally, from the comfort of Brennon Manor, Diantha could not have anticipated any of this, especially Annie’s defection. Her best friend, Teresa Finch-Freeworth, adored her maid, and quite frankly Diantha had liked her too. Annie had seemed the ideal companion with whom to make her premature departure from Teresa’s home under cover of propriety. Until Annie abandoned her.

Diantha pressed fingertips to temples. The megrim was worsening, but babies would cry, and she liked them quite a lot under normal circumstances. She had always dreamed of having children of her own, and Mr. H liked them. But she didn’t have time to ponder that. Now she must find her mother and wrest her from the den of iniquity in which she was living.

Around the edge of her bonnet she darted a glance at Mr. Sausage Fingers. He scowled at the babe, jowls wiggling with the rough sway of the carriage.

“She is cutting her teeth, isn’t she?” Diantha whispered to the mother. “My sister, Faith, cried buckets when her teeth were coming through.”

“She won’t stop, miss.” The woman groaned softly, rocking the babe against a breast far too narrow to serve as a pillow.

“Poor dear. My mother used to rub our gums with brandy. Sometimes whiskey if Papa had already drunk up all the brandy. It is very soothing.”

The woman looked skeptical and perhaps a bit scandalized. “Is it?”

“Oh, yes. Smugglers were so common on the coast, we’d no trouble finding brandy during the war.” She tucked a gloved finger into the baby’s hand. It latched on and the cries hiccupped. “At the next posting house, dip your finger into a cup of spirits and rub away. She will be asleep in no time.” The infant’s mouth opened again and out of it flew a banshee’s howl. “Then drink the remainder of the cup yourself,” Diantha said louder, to be heard over the din. She smiled and patted the woman’s arm.

The mother’s eyes softened. The babe wailed. Beneath the brim of his cap, Mr. Sausage Fingers was leering again. He had the look of a highwayman about him, if highwaymen had dirty fingernails and shifty eyes.

It was clear to Diantha now that Annie’s elopement was incidental to her troubles. Men like this would populate the road all the way to Bristol and then probably the boat to Calais. The world was made of men, and some were villainous.

She knew this only vaguely, having been introduced at a young age to a nasty man named Mr. Baker to whom her mother had intended to wed her beautiful sister, Charity. Or some such thing. No one had ever told her anything in those days because she was too young and susceptible, they said, which meant that she was likely to get into scrapes if given rein. Now everybody was gone, so there was no one to tell her anything even though she had turned nineteen, with one exception: Teresa, whose stories were scandalously titillating and who had devised the plan for her current mission, which mustn’t be thwarted even by a minor mishap like losing her traveling companion to a farm lad with large muscles in his arms. Annie had especially liked those muscles. She’d mentioned them before abandoning her, by way of justification it seemed.

Diantha hadn’t any opinion of men’s arms or muscles, but now she saw her plan’s fatal flaw. She required a man. But not just any man. She needed a man of courage and honor who would assist her without question.

She needed a hero.

Diantha’s stepsister, Serena, had often read to her stories of knights saving damsels in distress, and the Baron of Carlyle, her stepfather and a scholar, had assured her that these stories were not entirely fictional, rather based in historical fact. Heroes did exist. Now her mission was simply too perilous to undertake with only female assistance. A hero must be found.

In retrospect it all seemed quite obvious. Of course the plan Teresa devised had not included securing the assistance of a man. Teresa had never met a real hero. Her father barely ever looked at his women, and her brothers were most certainly not heroic; a fortnight ago all three of them had taken one look at Diantha and their eyes had gone positively feral. Since none of them had ever noticed her during her visits to Brennon Manor before, they could not be considered heroic.

Heroes cared for more than appearance. They cared about the heart.

The young mother shifted a bony hip, nudging Diantha’s against the portly gentleman to her left. Intent upon his journal, he seemed not to notice. She gave him a quick glance and released a little breath of disappointment.

Too old. A hero ready to defend a lady from the likes of highwaymen must be in the prime of his manhood. Otherwise he might not be able to wield a sword or pistol with sufficient vigor if necessary. This man had gray whiskers.

The carriage jolted. The baby bawled. The mother sobbed quietly.

“May I hold her? My sister is grown now and I miss cradling a babe in my arms.” In truth, Faith had been a fidgety infant. But Diantha suspected God would forgive the fib. “Then you might have a nap before we come to the next stop.”

“Oh, miss, I couldn’t—”

“Of course you could. I will keep her quite safe while you rest.” She tucked her arms around the infant and drew it close. Her traveling bag propped upon her lap made an excellent cushion, and she had more bosom than the babe’s mother against which it could cuddle. The mother tucked the blanket around it.

“Thank you, miss. You’re an angel.”

“Not at all.” That was the plain truth, of course.

She rocked the infant, liking its warm, heavy weight, and shifted her gaze across to the passenger whose knees nearly knocked with hers.

Not a man. Not more than thirteen and, by the look of his blackened fingertips and sallow complexion, a mine worker.

His cheeks flushed with two perfectly round red spots. He tugged on his cap. “Mum.”

She smiled, and the flush spread down his rather dirty neck.

He would not do, of course. Boys could not be trusted with noble missions, even boys who went into holes in the earth every day to dig up metals for everyone else and so should be accounted heroes of a sort, if the world were quite fair about it.

That left only the man sleeping in the corner, the passenger who at the last stop had taken Annie’s spot inside the coach.

The hem of his black topcoat dripped rain onto the floor around his shining black boots. His arms were crossed over his chest and a fine black silk hat dipped low over his brow. He was not a small man, rather tall and broad-shouldered, but seemed to fill the space he inhabited without undue discommodity to his fellow passengers. She could see only his hands, ungloved, and the lower half of his face.

Large, long-fingered, elegant hands, and a firm, clean-shaven jaw and nicely shaped mouth.

She blinked.

She slouched, dipped her head a bit, and peered beneath his hat brim.

Her breath caught.

She sat straight up. Beneath the soft weight of the crying swaddle, her heart pattered. She drew a steadying breath. Then another. She stole a second glance at him, longer this time.

Then she knew. In her deepest heart her final niggling doubts scattered and she knew she was meant to find her mother.

Her plan would not only work in theory. She had wished for a gentleman to assist her on her mission, and God or Providence or whoever it was that granted wishes to hopeful damsels was providing her with such a man. For if anyone could fill the role of a hero, she was certain it was this gentleman.