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“I tried.” Georgie made a face. “But I was surprised too. It took me several minutes to piece it all together. Harry was already gone, and Phipps was thronged with volunteer seconds. I couldn’t get near him, and then he was gone. A bevy of bachelors hustled him through the courtyard and into a coach. I spent all night between the town house, the Albany, and every other establishment I could imagine either of them frequenting. I found neither. Just before sunrise, I returned to the Albany to beg a ride to the duel itself. A fellow drove me in his curricle, drove far too slowly, and to the wrong spot. He jumped down to poke among the trees, but we were alone, I could tell. Dawn was breaking. The sudden light in the sky pulled a trigger inside me. I seized the reins and drove wildly across the heath, and I finally spotted them, my brother and Phipps. They were halfway through their twenty paces. I urged the horses to a gallop, aiming right between them, but a wheel hit a rock, and I flew the final yards. I saw Harry’s face as he turned, and that was the last thing I saw for several hours.”

Elfreda shook her head. “And he sent you here? I can’t believe he didn’t pack you off to St. Helena, with Napoleon.”

“Where’s your fellow feeling?” Georgie shot her a look of mock offense. “I could have been killed.”

“My fellow feeling is for your brother, and the horses.”

“The horses were fine. I inquired.”

She was still shaking her head. “It must have been terrifying.”

“It was.”

“I mean for the people who care about you.” She imagined Georgie crumpled on the ground, face blanched, body broken. Her heart clenched.

Georgie was observing her closely and raised an intrigued brow.

“Would you have been terrified?”

She looked away. There was smoke in the air.

“The lime kiln is over there.” She gestured. “We should search in earnest now.”

Not far from the kiln, the river flowed around a bend, and the banks rose in brambly hillocks. Georgie insisted on wading across so they could search the other side.

Elfreda focused all her attention on the bank before her. She crawled up and down the sloping terrain, parting ferns, patting the moss, feeling around the edges of every large stone.

At last, she came to a shelf of rock in the hillside, and as she pushed aside the vegetation, she saw the void beneath. A cave. A den. A lair. From the dark came a hoarse cry.

“Stand and deliver! Your money or your life!”

Her pulse exploded. She sprang forward, crashed into the bandit charging out of the cave, and went down, hard. The breath left her lungs. She was sprawled across the bandit’s wet body, struggling for the pistol, a vibration beneath her transforming, unmistakably, into laughter.

A laughing bandit.

A laughing, wet bandit.

She lifted up. Through the murk, she saw blue eyes sparkling with mirth, a wedge of luminous white teeth.

“My God, you’re bold.” Georgie’s voice was appreciative. “I wouldn’t attack a bandit.”

Her hips were flush against theirs, and her thighs, and the wet was seeping into her skirt, the cold shocking against her overheated skin. She wouldn’t have been surprised if steam billowed up. She’d already begun to go foggy, her heart beating everywhere, her eyes on their smile.

“That wasn’t funny.” Her breathing was unsteady.

“No,” they agreed, mirth fading. They had hold of her hips.

“We must search the cave,” she whispered.

“I already did. It only goes back a few feet.”

“We must search elsewhere, then.”

“Right now?”

Slowly, she nodded, which had the unfortunate effect of bringing their faces into closer proximity. She stilled, every muscle in her body locked.

“Aye aye, captain,” they murmured, and tightening their hold on her hips, tipped her off them.