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hour to take you home.”
    “How very kind, your grace,” Lady Landis said. “Were it not for you, my poor niece would have to wait for the stage tomorrow.”
    Bonny did not like accepting the duke’s offer, but she knew there was no time to waste, and it looked as if her aunt would not do without her own chaise and four for the several days’ journey to the North Country.
    “I will accompany them to expedite matters,” Radcliff said, his commanding gaze meeting Lady Landis’s. “I hope you will allow your daughter to accompany Miss Allan on this sad journey.”
    “But of course.” The woman’s sparkling eyes betrayed her somber countenance.

Chapter Three
     
     
    B efore an hour had passed, portmanteaus had been packed, Emily’s abigail, Martha, had been roused from her sleep to accompany them on the journey, and the Duke of Radcliff appeared at their door, his crested coach awaiting them. Bonny and Emily had changed to traveling clothes and wore over them hooded capes. The duke personally assisted the ladies into the carriage while Lady Landis, still dressed in her turquoise sarcenet ball gown, stood shivering beside him.
    “I hope my daughter will be a good traveler, your grace,” Lady Landis said. “She has such a delicate constitution.”
    “Have no fears, ma’am, for I will personally see to every comfort for the young ladies.”
    “You are so very kind, your grace.” Lady Landis fluttered her eyelashes. “Do you not desire to bring your servants with you?” She looked to see if there were any more coaches.
    “I shall be able to make out without my man.” If Evans is still my man when I return .
    The obstinate valet had been unable to disguise his anger at being left behind. “It is hoped your grace sees no one of consequence in the hinterlands,” Evans had said haughtily.
    “As it happens,” the duke had told Evans, “someone of the most important consequence will be with me, but it is my hope that I will not be judged by the tie of my cravat.”
    Just as Bonny was taking her seat inside the carriage, she remembered she had told the Earl of Dunsford she would be riding in Hyde Park in the morning. The poor fellow could wander around for hours looking for her. There was only one thing she could do. She would have to send a note to him. She leapt from the carriage and met the duke’s quizzing gaze.
    “Your grace, there is something of the utmost importance that I must do. I will be back in just a moment.”
    She ran straight to her aunt’s writing desk, grabbed a piece of vellum, dipped the pen in Lady Landis’s gilded inkwell and scribbled a note to the earl telling him she had suddenly been called out of town. She sealed it with candle wax and wrote his name on the front. She got Styles to wake up the page, for she wanted the note sent round that very night.
    While she waited for the page to get dressed, she went back to the coach, letter in hand, and leaned into the carriage. “Em, do you know the direction of the Earl of Dunsford’s London home?”
    Emily gave her cousin a searching look.
    “I must cancel my morning meeting with the earl,” Bonny said to a still-puzzled Emily.
    “Their—I mean, his—home is on Half Moon Street.”
    When Bonny turned around, not only was the page waiting for her, but the duke gazed at the letter in her hand, his brows creased and the corners of his mouth sloping downward more than normal.
    She quickly looked away from him and leaned down to the lad. “This letter must be delivered to the Earl of Dunsford on Half Moon Street tonight.” She reached into her reticule to find a coin, but before she could, the duke placed two shillings in the boy’s hand.
    A huge smile illuminated the boy’s face. “Much obliged, your highness,” he said, then skipped off.
    Bonny turned laughing eyes on the duke. “Your highness?”
    He shrugged, his face still grave, then took her hand and assisted her into the carriage.
    She thought perhaps he held her hand