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“Funny diagnosis from a man without a heart.”

“Come, Neal, don’t be an ingrate.” He had the nerve to sound irritated. “I delivered to you the object of your desire.”

Neal wanted to scream, took a deep breath.

“Indeed,” he said. “Delivered her in front of Muriel, Bidmead, Hitchens, yourself—”

“Dramatis personae,” murmured Alan, shrugging.

Neal’s voice was a growl as he kept on. “—my foremost competitor, a handful of my father’s fustiest colleagues, two dozen medical students, some Society grande dames, and last but not least, her bloody husband.”

Alan started. “Husband?”

Neal’s hands were fisted. “I suppose I was meant to punch him for the sake of performance.”

Before Alan could respond, a small woman with hair like a Cornish hayrick burst through the crowd.

“Have you seen Lavinia?” She addressed Alan breathlessly. “I’ve circled the whole room.”

Alan indicated Neal with his walking stick. “He has. Neal Traymayne. Lucy Coover. Or that’s how she’s known to the haute bohème. In polite company: the Duchess of Weston.”

The diminutive duchess scowled at Alan before turning her fierce gaze on Neal. “Where did you see her?”

Who is she to you? Neal wanted to ask. Or better: Who is she?

Instead, he bowed. “Over there. Your Grace. With her husband.”

Alan shook his head. “Would you believe me if I told you his presence was not my doing?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that I’m not interested in splitting hairs?” Neal looked from Alan to the duchess. She’d gone white, which made her face appear even more densely freckled. Cinnamon sprinkled on milk.

“Husband?” she echoed.

“Tall, blond.” Neal resisted the urge to accumulate adjectives. Unworthy. Unappreciative. Unfaithful.

Lavinia had chosen to go back to him, and she seemed content to stay with him. It was none of his business.

“Try shriveled, gray, and liver spotted.” The duchess picked up her skirts. She was still deadly pale. But her eyes shone with determination. “He must have sent a hireling. Well, I can deal with that.” She bolted for the door.

Without a word, Neal gave chase. The duchess was propelled by some great emotion, and untroubled by propriety, but she was also short-legged and hindered by heavy skirts. Neal caught up to her easily and flanked her as she exited the building. She was swearing like a barmaid in an accent no one would ever describe as aristocratic.

At first, the sun hurt Neal’s eyes and washed out the scene before him, so that the visitors to the Royal Botanic Society gardens moved like pastel shadows against a background of pale green. Then he focused, gaze sweeping from the observatory to the arboretum.

Lavinia and the tall blond man were nowhere to be seen.

The duchess confirmed this at the same moment he did.

“I would have bribed him.” She groaned as she turned off the promenade, cutting across the corner of the rose garden. “I brought a wad of money in my skirt for just this eventuality. Dammit. Damn him, for a filthy, whoreson villain.”

“That blond man . . .” Neal was just a step behind her, but his mind was still lagging, struggling to incorporate the new facts.

“He’s a no-account minion,” the duchess snapped. “I’m damning Lavinia’s husband. She’s been running from him since the very day they married. And now he’s got her back. The beast. Dammit, dammit.”

She started to trot, weaving around the statues. “We shouldn’t have gone out in the first place. We knew he had his bloody police detectives crawling all about.”

They reached the line of carriages, a black cavalcade stretching down the street.

“I need to get home.” The duchess had begun muttering to herself. “I need to tell Anthony.”