After the Kiss by Joan Johnston

chance to explain in person the series of catastrophes that had caused their roundabout journey. “Not necessary,” he told Diebold. “I have sent a note myself.”
    “Very well,” Diebold said. “I will see you—when?”
    “Soon,” Marcus said evasively.
    As Diebold drove away, Miss Sheringham glanced at Marcus with judgmental eyes. “You have a talent for telling clankers. I suppose one must expect that from a rake.”
    “You put me in an impossible situation, Miss Sheringham. What else could I have done?”
    “Let me answer for myself.”
    “How would you have introduced yourself?”
    “I would have made up a name.”
    He raised a supercilious brow. “You seem no stranger to Banbury tales yourself.”
    “I value honesty above all things,” she retorted.
    “Then why this charade?” he asked in a steely voice.
    She was caught off guard by his attack and stared at him a moment too long, long enough for him to see the uncertainty, and fear, in her eyes. Miss Sheringham was not nearly so confident as she wanted him to think.
    He wished she had not revealed the depths of her vulnerability. It brought out his protective instincts and made him ask, “What are you running away from, my dear?”

Chapter 5
    “ I must speak to my ward!” nigel sheringham ranted. “I know she is here. Why are you keeping her from me?”
    Charlotte, Countess of Denbigh, had been unable to placate the ill-humored man. She stood by the mantel in the Duke of Braddock’s drawing room, her hands clasped tightly before her, resisting the urge to shout back. “Miss Sheringham never arrived, my lord. The duchess and I expected her yesterday, but as you can see, she is not among the company here this evening.”
    “You’re hiding her from me!”
    “Why would I do such a thing?”
    The Earl of Ravenwood’s face turned from red to purple, and he sputtered, but no answer was forthcoming. “I am staying here until she arrives … or until she
appears
,” he said, emphasizing the last word, as though Charlotte could produce Eliza Sheringham from thin air.
    “I am sure the duke and duchess will make you welcome,” she said in a frigid voice.
    Charlotte left the drawing room without another word. She headed straight upstairs to Olivia’s bedroom, where she found the duchess sitting in awooden rocking chair beside a gold brocade-canopied bed nursing her son.
    Olivia cried out in alarm when the door burst open.
    “It is only me,” Charlotte said, closing the door behind her. “I know I should knock,” she said as Olivia hastily rearranged the wool blanket to completely cover her bared breast, “but I could not wait.”
    “What is it?” Olivia asked.
    “I am afraid something terrible has happened to Eliza. Her guardian is here looking for her. She left home the night before last without a word to him and without requesting a carriage. Ravenwood checked at the White Ball Inn and discovered that Mephistopheles is missing. It sounds to me as though Eliza might be running away. That dastard must have done something to make her flee without a word to anyone.”
    “Now, Charlie, we do not know that.”
    Charlotte dropped to her knees beside the rocking chair and gripped the wooden arm, stopping its movement. “Eliza should have been here by now, Livy, unless she met with disaster somewhere on the road. What if Mephistopheles threw her? I will never forgive myself.”
    Olivia shook her head. “You told me you watched her on Mephistopheles, and she rides like a centaur. However, there is something odd …” Olivia’s lips pursed, and her brow furrowed.
    “What is it?”
    “I was with Reeve when the Duke of Blackthorne asked to speak with him. The duke’s brother, Lord Marcus, was supposed to have arrived yesterday withBlackthorne’s twin daughters, Lady Regina and Lady Rebecca. They seem to have disappeared, as well.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “Their whereabouts are presently unknown.”
    “Oh, no! What if a highwayman has