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Unfortunately, the women of the Doncaster bloodline who had the misfortune to be endowed with those particular characteristics had acquired a certain reputation over the years. Tales were still told of the many-timesgreat-grandmother who had barely escaped hanging as a witch during the 1600s. A century later a spirited aunt had managed to disgrace the family by running off with a highwayman. Then there was the aunt who had vanished on a hot-air balloon ride only to reappear as the mistress of a married earl.
    There were other women who had tarnished the Doncaster name over the centuries—and every single one of those who had succeeded in making herself something of a legend had possessed the same witchy coloring and the same nose.
    Amity had heard the whispers behind her back from the time she was a young girl. Everyone who knew the Doncaster family history was of the opinion that there was a streak of wild blood in the female line. And while a bit of wildness was often viewed as a positive attribute in males—it certainly tended to make them more interesting to women—it was considered a decided negative in females. At nineteen Amity had learned the hard way not to trust the sort of gentleman who was attracted to her because of her family history.
    No one, least of all Amity, understood quite how her disreputable female ancestors had managed to land themselves in so many outrageous situations. Their looks were hardly remarkable—except for the nose, of course. As for their figures, there were limits to what even Penny’s talented dressmaker could do with a shape so lacking in feminine curves that when dressed in masculine attire Amity had been able to pass as a young man on more than one occasion while traveling abroad.
    She took a long, fortifying swallow of Mrs. Houston’s strong coffee and put down the cup with some force.
    “I don’t think that Mr. Galbraith will consider the kind of publicity I have attracted to be useful when it comes to selling my book,”she said. “It’s difficult to imagine that people will be induced to purchase a travel guide written for ladies if they discover that the author is in the habit of stumbling into the clutches of terrible killers like the Bridegroom. That incident certainly doesn’t make me look like an expert on how a lady may travel the globe in perfect safety.”
    The stack of newspapers and lurid magazines had been waiting for her on the breakfast table when she had walked into the morning room a short time ago, just as they had been every other morning since her escape from the killer’s carriage. Usually there was only one paper on the breakfast table, the
Flying Intelligencer
. But lately Mrs. Houston—a great fan of the lurid penny dreadfuls—had gone out early to collect a wide assortment of morning reading material. As far as Amity had been able to determine, each new report of her encounter with the Bridegroom was more replete with descriptions of blood-curdling thrills and shuddering horror than the previous one.
    It was quite astonishing, she thought, that however shocking the newspapers portrayed the kidnapping and her narrow escape, none of them managed to capture the very real, nerve-icing terror she had experienced. In spite of two stout doses of brandy before bed every night since the near disaster, she had not been sleeping well. Her mind was filled with nightmarish images, not only of her own panic and desperate struggles but of horrid imaginings of what the last moments of the other victims must have been like.
    This morning—as with every morning for the past three weeks—most of the fear was replaced by a quiet, seething rage. This morning—like the other mornings—she had come down to breakfast, hoping to discover that the newspapers would be filled with assurances that the police had found the body of the Bridegroom. But once again she had been disappointed. Instead, there was a great deal of speculation about his possible fate. Surely the