have announced it to the world. There would have been no reason to keep it secret.”
“According to Mr. Entwhistle, she told my father that she’d been tricked into believing she was married. That, in fact, she wasn’t married at all. I suspect this Father Tuck or Friar Tuck or whatever it is he was called at the time may have been part of it.” Maggie frowned. “Either that or Jenny simply asked for him on her deathbed because he was an old friend—someone who had once been kind to her.”
“There,” he said. “Do you see? You may be making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Perhaps,” Maggie replied. “There’s only one way to find out.”
His brows lowered. “Market Barrow.”
“It’s unfortunate that I can’t use my own carriage. But Jane has her carriage here, and her servants answer to her, not Fred. I’m certain she won’t mind if—”
“I hope Miss Trumble has more sense than to aid you in such a dangerous enterprise.” He tightened his grip on Maggie’s hand. “Can you not imagine what might happen? A beautiful creature like you—a young, well-to-do lady—arriving at a hedge tavern in an expensive coach with a matched team of fine horses and no one but her maid to protect her? What do you suppose the villains thereabouts will think when such a plump-pocketed victim walks willingly into their lair?”
Maggie said nothing more. She merely looked at him, a challenge in her blue eyes that fired his blood as much as it frightened him for what she might do next.
He stifled an oath. “Very well. I’ll go myself if it will put the matter to rest.”
She brightened. “And take me with you?”
He gave her a forbidding look. “On no account. I told you, it’s too dangerous. I’ll go at night, and I’ll go alone.”
“You can’t go alone,” she said. “You have your injured arm to think of.”
“Maggie—”
“And besides,” she continued determinedly, “I’m the one who discovered the existence of Father Tuck. It’s not fair that I should wait at home while you get to enjoy the adventure.”
He recognized that subtle lift of her cleft chin. Her mind was made up. She wouldn’t be swayed, neither by threats nor reason. He nevertheless made one final effort. “It’s not about fairness. It’s about your safety.”
She smiled up at him. “You’ll keep me safe. I have every confidence in you.”
That afternoon, just as he’d threatened to do, St. Clare paid a formal visit to Beasley Park in company with his grandfather. It was the polite thing to do when one was newly arrived in the district, paying calls on acquaintances from town. Everything aboveboard and proper.
Indeed, there was nothing out of the ordinary about it at all. Nevertheless, when climbing the wide stone front steps of Beasley Park, St. Clare felt distinctly out of his element.
As a boy, he’d never been admitted to the house through the front doors. He’d been obliged to use the side entrance by the kitchens. Maggie may have relented on this point, but the rest of the household had not. Nicholas Seaton was never permitted to forget his place. He’d belonged below stairs, with the servants.
“You belong with me,” Maggie had said.
The memory of her words—of her kisses—heartened him as he applied the brass knocker to the door.
“A pleasing prospect,” Allendale remarked, glancing about the grounds. “Surprising.”
St. Clare’s mouth curved. “You expected a tumbledown country pig farm?”
Before Allendale could reply, the door was opened by a footman in dark green livery. He was a young man, and one who St. Clare didn’t recognize.
“Viscount St. Clare and the Earl of Allendale to see Miss Honeywell,” St. Clare said. “We’re expected.”
The footman looked at each of them, glanced past them to the earl’s stately carriage, with its crest emblazoned on the door, and then—with a deferential bow—bid them enter. After taking their hats and gloves, he ushered them up the stairs and into the drawing room.
Maggie stood from the sofa as they entered. She was wearing a simple muslin dress with a ribbon sash at her waist. Her hair was caught up in a high knot, a few strands left to curl about her face. She looked extraordinarily young and extraordinarily beautiful.
St. Clare’s heart thudded hard. He felt the same warm, vaguely breathless feeling he did whenever he looked at her. As if his surroundings had narrowed to a point, his entire world reduced to a single person. To her.
He endeavored not to show it and flattered himself that he succeeded. It was bad