Kate Moore by An Improper Widow Page B

young highwayman or the Marquess of Warne.
    He was not courting Juliet. Of that Susannah was sure, though her aunt was in a flutter at the prospect and he seemed to want the world to think so. Susannah knew the signs of a gentleman’s interest in a lady and did not see them in Lord Warne’s behavior toward Juliet. He was too rational, too shrewd. No, from Juliet he wanted information about the young man who had given out his card. Perhaps Susannah ought to volunteer what she knew, but she suspected society’s impression of the marquess was accurate. He was ruthless and would offer an enemy no quarter. Their young rescuer had done nothing serious after all, and it had been Evelina who spread the story abroad. The highwayman could not be blamed for that. No, she would not tell Lord Warne anything. The episode was over, the young man had done them a kindness, and in time Juliet would forget him. Susannah would concentrate on finding Juliet a husband.
    ***
    Warne swore at the thick, damp fog that slowed the pace of his morning run. His white running clothes were soaked and clinging to him, and he wanted the burn of a hard run. He needed to push himself today. Yesterday the thief had handed one of the cards to a clerk at Coutts’s bank. The clerk called his superior, but the man slipped away as soon as the alarm was raised, and the clerk’s recollections of the thief’s appearance were vague. It seemed that Warne’s best chance of catching the fellow was still Miss Lacy and his call upon her had only frustrated him. The girl was hiding something. The mother seemed incapable of adding two and two to make four, and he had twice missed his chance to learn anything from the sober chaperone, Mrs. Bowen.
    At the Shalford ball he had been distracted by her obvious desire to dance and had wasted his opportunity to question her, a lapse in concentration fatal to success. And Mrs. Bowen knew it. He would not make the same mistake again. At the very next opportunity, he would question her directly about the incident on the heath.
    ***
    The wet black trunk of a tree emerged from the mist in front of her, and Susannah halted and found the path again where it swerved around the tree’s thick roots. She was picking her way over a gnarled root when pounding footsteps startled her. She lifted her head, trying to locate the sound in the mist. Then a man all in white burst through the curtain of fog at a run. Susannah stepped back, caught her heel on a root, and staggered. The runner shortened his stride and swerved, but Susannah stumbled directly into his path. They collided with a thump and went down in a tangle of skirts and limbs.
    She lay on her back in the thick damp grass and looked up into Lord Warne’s startled blue eyes.
    “Mrs. Bowen . . . good morning,” he said, his warm breath visible in the cold air. She could see the pulse in his throat and the fine dark stubble of beard along his jaw.
    “Let me up.”
    “Of course,” he answered, but he made no move to do so. He was looking at her as if he hadn’t quite seen her before.
    “You’re not wearing your cap,” he said.
    She frowned and considered whether she might push him off of her. His sleeveless cambric shirt was mist-dampened and clung to his body, and the heat of that body, its weight pressed to hers, was melting her limbs. She raised her hands and shoved against his chest, but her arms had no strength.
    When she let them fall, he pushed himself up with a quick pump of his powerful arms, but his hips and legs still held her pinned to the grass.
    His eyes seemed to see her weakness, and she averted her gaze. “You must let me up, my lord,” she said, striving for a command she did not feel.
    He said nothing, and she studied his left arm, noting the course of a dark vein along the smooth curve of muscle as his breathing slowed.
    When she dared to look at him again, the expression in his eyes had changed. “You were with Miss Lacy when the highwayman gave her my