“We’ll find out, and go,” the earl promised her, laughing.

“Good,” she said.

Leland raised an eyebrow, and then exchanged a look with Daffyd.

“I can’t,” Daffyd said, “I’m going home tomorrow. Fireworks are fine, but my Meg’s finer to my eyes. When you come visit us, Daisy, I’ll order up some for you. Until then, you’re on your own.”

“Not at all,” the earl exclaimed, “She’ll see more. Spectacles are common in the summer in London.”

“Oh,” Daffyd said. “So, you’re going to skip your usual trip to Egremont, stay on in London for the summer, and be her constant companion here, are you, Geoff?”

There was a significant silence, and then the earl smiled down at Daisy. “Why not? Does that suit you, my dear?”

“Oh yes,” she breathed.

“Lovely,” Leland remarked sourly to Daffyd when they reached the main road again, and Helena Masters had thanked him and went to stand by her charge. “That’s set the seal on it. Well done. Or was it quite enough, I wonder? Maybe you’d prefer to come right out and say, ‘She’s all alone, will you protect this beautiful, vulnerable creature forever, Geoff?’ ”

“Damn,” Daffyd said. “I just wanted to know. Suppose I could have been more subtle. Well, what can you do?”

“You, my dear little brother, nothing. But I’ll continue to try. Her getting Geoff is like trapping a fish in a barrel. The man’s lonely, and she’s done everything but move in on him. I’ll be here to find out why and perhaps prevent that from happening.”

“For his sake?” Daffyd asked.

He got no answer.

The earl paused at the end of the lane, at the edge of the crowded road. “Here we are in the thick of things again,” he said. “What a mob. Shall we wait, and have an ice or some such?” he asked Daisy. “That way we can let those in this crowd who are bent on leaving right away do so. Most of them have to work tomorrow morning; we don’t. We can let them go first if you’d like. My carriage is waiting. We don’t need to hurry.”

People crowded the paths, moving forward like a living river, the crowd surging toward the exits to the park. Daisy hated being jammed in with a crowd. Anyone who’d been in Newgate prison would feel the same. She looked up at the earl. But before she could answer, she saw movement from the corner of her eye. The viscount came lunging toward her. She gasped and shrank back.

Leland had seen a man plunging toward Daisy and dived forward to intercept him. He felt a shove as the fellow pushed against him, and reached out to grab him. But the man ducked and spun, and ran away too fast for him to get hold of.

Daisy felt a sudden lightness on her arm. “My purse!” she shouted, looking down, “the bastard cut the strings and nicked my purse! Stop thief!” she shrieked. “Stop him! The bloke with the red kerchief ’round his greasy neck. The bloody bugger clipped my purse!”

Then she picked up her skirts and plunged into the steam of humanity, shouting as she ran after him.

If there was anything Londoners liked better than a fireworks display, it was a chase, especially one in defense of a gorgeous lady. This lady cursed like a trollop and ran like an athlete, but that only added to the theater of the moment. They loved theater, too.

Leland usually enjoyed a spectacle, but not tonight. His long legs ate up the distance between him and the thief, whose red bandana was like a beacon urging him onward. Too soon, Leland felt his strength draining. Still, he kept on, frowning as he did, pushing people aside with no ceremony, wasting no breath on apologies.

The culprit heard the ruckus behind him and looked back to see a sea of Londoners chasing him, shaking fists and shouting curses. The little beauty whose purse he held ran after him, screeching. He put on a burst of speed, leaving her behind. The tall, lean gentleman who had been with her cut through the mob, bloody murder clearly written on his face.

The thief flung the purse he’d cut into the crowd, causing them to part and scramble, fighting like spinster bridesmaids to be the one who grabbed the bouquet. He bent double and barreled through the crowd ahead of him, pushing any hapless people who blocked his passage. When he came to a thicket at the side of the road, he ran away down a dark path.

“That’s it, oh, thank you,” Daisy managed to pant when a rumpled red-faced fellow who looked like a grocer on holiday proudly presented her with her reticule.

The earl came along a few minutes later. He was clearly winded, but recovered his breath enough to delight the crowd by presenting a golden guinea to the fellow who had retrieved the purse.

“He’s gone,” Daffyd said in disgust, as he emerged from the dark path the thief had taken. “There’s another path it led to, and a few hundred people on it, but not a sign of him.”

“Let him go,” the earl said. “No sense pursuing now. He did throw it back. Anyway,” he said, still catching his breath, “wouldn’t want to see a fellow face a noose for trying, would you?”

“Aye, you’re probably right,” Daffyd said regretfully.

After much mutual congratulation, the crowd slowly melted away, and went back to pushing toward the exits again.

“Don’t brood. You almost had him, Lee,” Daffyd said, seeing a peculiar expression on the viscount’s face. “He was ahead by a long shot but you were gaining on him. Then you slowed down and he took off. But it was a near thing.”

“Well, yes,” Leland said. “It’s hard to run in evening shoes. Had I been wearing my boots, I’d have gotten him.”

“You look very pale, my lord,” Helena said with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Pale as a sheet,” Daisy pronounced. “Sit down.”

“No,” Leland said. “I’ll do better standing.” He put a hand to his heart in his usual gesture of sincerity, but then lifted it, looked at it, and frowned. His hand was covered with blood.

Daisy gasped as she saw the widening stain on the front of his jacket.

“I see the fellow was after more than your purse,” Leland said as he stared at his gory palm. “It appears he tried to take my life as well. If I sit, I doubt I’d stand again. So, shall we go?”

Chapter Nine

“You should lie down,” Daisy told the viscount.

“If I did everything I should, I’d be a very different man, and a much unhappier one,” Leland said. “Don’t worry,” he added more gently, “not only is there not enough room in this carriage for a maypole like myself to lie down, there’s no need of it.”

The viscount had gotten a knife thrust in his chest, and no one could be sure he was as well as he insisted he was. He sat in the carriage, head back, the earl and Daffyd close on either side of him so he wouldn’t be shaken by the ride. Daisy worried because he was so pale, and because of the amount of blood she’d seen. She sat opposite him, alongside Helena, and they stared at their wounded companion.

“Nothing vital’s been punctured,” Leland reassured them with a faint smile. “Or I couldn’t be sitting here arguing with you. Nothing’s bubbling or spurting-sorry, but you force me to be graphic. How can I say it politely? However I put it, I’m not in distress. I’ve got handkerchiefs and my neck cloth binding up the wound, so I won’t be shedding any more blood. My only concern is being seen in public with a bare throat. That I’d never live down. I ought to have taken your neck cloth when you offered,” he told Daffyd, “because I’m convinced you wouldn’t have cared half so much as I do.”

“You’re right. I’d have just tied a handkerchief ’round my neck like the Gypsy I am,” Daffyd said. “Don’t worry about being seen. No one will see you but the doctor. He’s already been sent for.”

Leland peered out the coach window. “This is not the way to my house.”

“No,” the earl agreed. “It isn’t. You’re coming with me. I don’t trust you to care for yourself, Lee. You’re too casual with your life. You get a knife in your chest, diagnose the wound, whip off a neck cloth to blot up the gore, and pronounce yourself fine. That won’t do.”

“Worse if I pronounced myself dead,” Leland muttered. But though he joked, his voice was fainter, his pallor pronounced, and those in the coach with him exchanged worried glances. “Any rate, even if it were bad, it’s always best to greet the devil with a quip. I hear he likes that… Only jesting,” he said into the sudden silence. “Would you rather I moaned?”

“I’d rather you took it seriously,” the earl said.

“I’ve survived worse,” Leland murmured. “My poor heart must be impervious to insult by now, what with all the fair maidens who have rejected me, and the rivals who stabbed me in the back. But thank you, Geoff. I think I will take advantage of your hospitality, because…” He paused, and his eyelids fluttered down.

Everyone in the coach stiffened.

Leland opened his eyes, and laughed. “… because my valet would surely suffer a heart attack if he saw me in this state.”


They waited in the earl’s salon, not saying much because they were too anxious. Daffyd paced and Daisy looked out the window, while Helena sat quietly waiting. They relaxed when they saw the earl’s expression as he came into the room.

“He’ll do,” the earl told his guests. “The doctor says he’s lucky, the knife missed heart and lungs, but we guessed that. He might run a fever, and that would be another story. I’ve sent for his valet. Lee’s agreed to stay on here until I’m sure he’s well, but not with good grace, I might add. He’d still be complaining if the doctor hadn’t given him a draught so he’d sleep.”

“I’ll postpone leaving in the morning, as I’d planned,” Daffyd said. “I’ll stay on, too, if you don’t mind. At least until I’m sure he’s better.”

“Do that, and he’ll rage himself into that fever we don’t want to see,” the earl said. “In fact, he mentioned it to me just now. ‘Send Daffy on his way,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine.’ ”