“So what do you think, Hazlit?” Nick asked almost two hours later.

“These were not common thugs,” Hazlit said. “Not just fellows hired for a morning’s lark. You’re dealing with somebody of means, who can keep a matched team of decent coach horses, frequent the more expenses houses of vice enough to know which ones are procuring, and use not just two, but five men to subdue a single woman.”

“Wilton,” Nick hazarded. “Or Hellerington.”

“We’ll start there,” Hazlit agreed, “but it shouldn’t be hard to find somebody who saw something, then too…”

“Yes?” Leah prompted.

“I always have somebody watching the park,” Hazlit said with a modest shrug. “A great deal goes on there, right under the nose of Polite Society, that you wouldn’t suspect. Lovers meet, illicit notes are passed, purses are snatched, crimes negotiated, blackmail payments made. It’s a busy place and worth keeping an eye on.”

Nick regarded his discreet investigator with no little respect. “You scare me, and I’m glad you’re not my enemy.”

Hazlit looked Nick up and down. “I’m glad we are not competing for the favors of the lady,” Hazlit remarked, “for I rather enjoy having my teeth and the ability to walk upright. I’ll report back as soon as I know something. Lady Leah.” When he’d bowed his farewell to her and left them alone, Nick hunkered on the low table and faced Leah, his splayed legs falling outside of hers.

“He’s a useful fellow to know,” Nick said, “and I like him.”

“I did too, but I think you have the right of it. His enemies had better run fast and far, and hide well.”

“You want to run and hide too,” Nick said, only to have her gaze slide away from his. “Why? I want only to keep you safe.”

“I was going to refuse your proposal today.” She smoothed the pleats of her walking dress down but could not hide the slight tremor in her hand. “I want a real marriage, Nick, not some polite caricature of the institution. I want all the foolish, romantic, impractical things I knew five years ago were not ever going to be mine.”

“They aren’t foolish, and you deserve them.”

He could be patient and reasonable, despite the panic her words set off in his gut, because she’d used the past tense in a conditional sense. She had been going to refuse his proposal, and this alone gave him the resolve to keep his wayward embraces to himself.

Still, he had to be sure.

“You were going to refuse me,” he said, “but you won’t now—will you?”

Nine

“My lord.” Nick’s butler tapped on the door but did not open it. “Lord Amherst and the Honorable Mr. Darius Lindsey, come to call.”

Nick held Leah’s gaze for one moment longer, then went to the door and spoke quietly to his servant before turning back to her.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Nick said. “You aren’t. I will not have it, and you don’t want to go. Leave your brothers to me.”

She said nothing, and then Trenton and Darius Lindsey joined them in the library.

“Gentlemen,” Nick offered in greeting.

“Leah.” Darius held out his arms to her, while Amherst watched, his expression impossible to read. Leah was in Darius’s embrace in two swift strides.

“She has a bruise on her jaw,” Amherst said with quiet menace. “Leah, tell us you’re all right, save for that.”

“I’m all right,” Leah managed, though her words were muffled against Darius’s coat. “It’s just a bruise, and I’m all right, now, but oh, Trent…”

Nick summarized the events of the afternoon, the threats made to their sister, and the steps he’d already taken to track down the culprit.

“Leah and I had made arrangements to meet in the park at three of the clock.” The day was temperate, but Nick had had a fire lit. He stabbed at it with a wrought-iron poker as he spoke. “The footman told Leah a note had been delivered to Wilton’s kitchen, asking her to come to the park at two, though the note was not signed. Had I not gone to the park quite early to enjoy the day, this kidnapping might well have been successful.”

He crossed the room and passed a brandy to Leah, making sure their fingers brushed as he did. Her hand was ice cold, but her eyes lacked the bruised, wary look they’d had two hours ago.

“That doesn’t prove Wilton’s involved,” Amherst observed, sipping a brandy.

“It doesn’t,” Nick allowed, “but neither did he require that William attend Leah on this outing, when he has on every previous one.”

Leah spoke up. “Nick is right. I was so preoccupied with my own thoughts and pressed for time to make the earlier hour, I left the house without an attendant. Though I doubt William would have been a match for five grown men intent on mischief.”

“I suppose we must wait to hear more from your investigator,” Amherst concluded, “but Leah can stay with me until we have some further word. Even Wilton would not object to her spending some time with my children.”

The look of relief on Leah’s face sliced at Nick’s composure. He told himself her brothers were not kidnappers, and yet the fire received another assault with the poker.

“I can’t allow it,” Nick said, “for several reasons. First, if somebody means Leah harm, then you are bringing that danger to a household with small children. Second, Wilton’s guilt is not something you want to see objectively, my lord, and nobody can blame you for trying to think the best of your father. Third, both in my considerable person and in the bachelor nature of my household, I have more strong arms and hard heads with which to protect the lady.”

“That is logical, Trent,” Darius said. “Wilton makes a bitter enemy, as I well know. You and I can’t afford to antagonize him, and Reston can. I don’t like it”—Darius turned his gaze to Nick—“but I like even less what would have happened to my sister had you not been with her this afternoon. Then too, from my perspective, Hellerington is sniffing around Leah’s skirts because Wilton encouraged it, and to that extent, Wilton is complicit in this mischief if Hellerington is behind it.”

“What do you mean ‘if’?” Nick pressed.

Darius shrugged. “Frommer’s family might have gotten word Leah was to make a match, and taken steps to obstruct it. Wilton might have made an enemy who seeks to take from him his most salable asset and make him look like the miserable excuse for a father he is. Leah might have offended somebody who thought to set her cap for you, Reston. Desperate women are a force to be reckoned with, occasionally a deadly force.”

There was a bleak sort of knowledge in Darius’s dark eyes, and Nick studied the man for some moments in silence.

Nick recalled Leah’s comment that younger sons as a breed tended to shrewdness. “I will pass these thoughts on to my investigator. You make sense, Lindsey, though I wish you didn’t.”

Darius drew Leah against him, pressing his lips to her hair and closing his eyes. “If anything had happened to you, Leah, I don’t know how I would have gone on. You’ll stay with Reston? He’ll have Lady Warne here in no time, I’m guessing, and it won’t be forever.”

Leah’s gaze shot to Nick, who nodded once.

“I will stay here,” Leah said, “with Nick and Lady Warne.”

“So what do we tell Wilton?” Darius asked, turning Leah loose.

“I sent him a note,” Nick said, “telling him Leah had run into Lady Della in the park and would be taking a late tea with her.”

The look Amherst gave him was not exactly friendly. “Believable,” Amherst said, “so why not throw Wilton off the scent further by sending another note saying she’s with me, visiting the children for a day or two?”

“That will serve,” Nick agreed, though he could see matters were moving too quickly from Leah’s perspective. He was not kidnapping her. He was keeping her safe. “Leah, can you live with this plan?” Asking her if she liked the idea didn’t seem prudent.

“I can live with it,” Leah said, “but then what? I can’t hide here forever.”

“Let’s deal with this one day at a time,” Nick suggested. “We are all tired, upset, and flustered. Gentlemen, can I offer you sustenance?”

“I think not,” Amherst said. “I’ve seen with my own eyes that Leah is safe, and we’ve made interim arrangements. If Leah might be visiting me later in the week, I’d best return to home and hearth, and I will want to have a word with my staff as well.”

“I’ll take my leave too,” Darius said, “and go about my usual haunts this evening. There’s always talk, and I can listen for it in a few low places that might yield some useful information.”

After Leah’s brothers had hugged her tightly, Nick walked them to the front door, though leaving his intended alone for even those few minutes flayed his nerves.

“No brooding,” Nick chided when he returned to the library. He sat beside her and laid an arm across her shoulders. “Talk to me, lovey. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I am upset,” Leah said, getting up to pace. “I am not keen on being alone, but I don’t want anybody to hover. I feel angry, but also tainted, and I am tired, Nicholas—tired to my soul—of feeling like an embarrassment, a useless, shameful appendage to my family. My brothers don’t know what to do with me, Society doesn’t know what to do with me, and my father’s plans for me don’t bear mention.”

“And then there’s me,” Nick added, sensing the direction of her ire. “I want to marry you, but only by half measures.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know you mean well, you mean to give me refuge from what my life has become, but it doesn’t feel like that, Nick. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

He wished it did too, but the only thing he knew to do—take her in his arms and kiss her witless—was a direct road to disaster.