Gareth knew he was right, and he took a deep breath and went on reading. "'The last time I went to Madame Delphine's, I happened to see Gareth there'..." Gareth paused, not wanting to read the next sentence—enjoying a tryst with Evangeline Benedict. Good God! How did Ruth know who that really was? Flora must have told her, of course. He searched frantically for a less damnable place to pick up reading. "...'and I knew I was as good as dead. I fled the place at once without ever making our appointed rendezvous, and only then did I realize the danger and the foolishness of what we were doing. I don't know if he saw me, since he'..." seemed quite taken with Miss Benedict. But not as much as Lord Forrestal was with me.

"Even if you don't read it aloud now, I'm going to read it anyway," Owen said sharply. "Would you prefer if I sent Ethan out of the room?"

"I don't think that would make any difference," Gareth replied. "But if there's one person I don't want to see or hear or read this, it's the addressee—even if it is the last thing her beloved sister ever wrote to her."

"Even if she does, Lady Flora will never have the chance to spread its contents," Owen said. "She's attended her last ball, wherever that was."

Gareth's sigh came out as a growl. "Very well, if you insist. Here goes. 'I don't know if he saw me, since he seemed quite taken with Miss Benedict. But not as much as Lord Forrestal was with me.'"

"Ah! So maybe that's why you mistakenly believed Miss Benedict was the traitor," Owen said. "But what was she doing there?"

"Lady Flora took her there." Gareth slowly refolded the letter. "Miss Benedict thought they were going to Lady Whitbourne's masquerade ball, but they ended up at Madame Delphine's."

Silence fell over the book room for a long moment before Owen said, "I suspect Lady Flora tricked Miss Benedict in hopes that if something went wrong, the blame would somehow deflect to Miss Benedict herself."

Anger at Lady Flora's deceit—at her own betrayal of Evie herself—blazed within Gareth. "That would seem to be exactly what she did. And Lady Ruth must have known it." He gestured to the ashes in the fireplace. "Ruth must have seen me with Miss Benedict before she was able to pass that secret document to her sister to slip to Madame Delphine. She took it with her on her journey to flee England. En route to Bristol, she stopped at Kingsley Hall in Wiltshire, where the late earl was an old friend of her family's."

"Then the late earl shot her dead, after he overheard her admitting her treason to me," Ethan put in. "Ruth knew the game was up. That's why she wrote this letter to her sister only hours, perhaps mere minutes before her death, and left it at Kingsley Hall. The new earl gave it to Miss Benedict to pass to her cousin, apparently not knowing the importance of it."

"We need—or rather, I need to return to AshdownPark posthaste. Lady Flora is there now with her husband." And if Gareth was lucky, Evie was still there, too—unless she'd heeded his rash advice to flee England.

His only hope was that she stayed true to her character and ignored his advice, refusing to be dictated to by anyone.

That independent spirit was the one of the many reasons he loved her.

"You can't do this alone," Ethan said. "I'll come with you. We'll come with you. I don't doubt Charlotte would like one more chance to see her sister, without their parents casting their usual pall over the proceedings. We have plenty of time before we sail—that's why you happened to find us here. And you may need help."

"I appreciate that," Gareth said. "But in case either of you are wondering, I do intend to marry Miss Benedict—if she'll forgive me and have me."

"We're not wondering," Owen said. "You're a gentleman of honor, or you wouldn't have worked for me during the war."

"And I believe she will forgive you and have you," Ethan added. "On our journey here yesterday, Charlotte told me all about Evangeline Benedict. She'll forgive you and have you—if we can get back there in time."

"Then go out and find your wife, wherever she's walking," said Gareth, "and let's go."

"You look exhausted," Owen said. "And considering it's midday, I'm hard pressed to believe you started out from AshdownPark first thing this morning, unless your horse is now dead. It's almost a hundred miles."

"I rode most of the night," Gareth confessed. "I wanted to get that document to you before anything else happened."

"You could have nodded off to sleep in the saddle," Owen said. "And then you might have fallen off and into a ditch. You might have been accosted by highwaymen."

"But I wasn't."

"The Benedicts are certainly still there," said Ethan. "Which way were they going when you saw them?"

"I assumed they were headed north to Tyndall Abbey in Derbyshire," Gareth replied. "It's Benedict's ancestral seat. Evie's, too."

"Then they're not exactly fleeing the country. If we don't find them at AshdownPark, we'll just continue to Tyndall Abbey. But I agree with Owen—we shouldn't leave until tomorrow. You look ready to drop, and you'll want to be well rested for whatever awaits us."

"As it is, I don't know how it is that you're still able to stand up," Owen said. "I keep telling you to sit."

"He can't stand up, Uncle Owen, look at him." Ethan's voice suddenly seemed to come from far away, as Gareth's vision blurred. "He's swaying and he can barely keep his eyes open. Any minute he's going to—"

Gareth didn't recall much of anything after that.

He awakened in a strange bed with his boots off, but it was still light out, so he must have napped for a few hours. He donned his boots and ventured downstairs, following the sound of clinking silver and china to the dining room.

"Well, look who's back from the almost dead!" Ethan exclaimed, as Gareth stood in the dining room doorway. "Have a seat. We've only just started."

Gareth found his way to an empty chair. "I daresay I needed that nap. A good thing I woke up in time for dinner. I'm famished." He swept his gaze over the platters of sausage and kippers and eggs and—he inhaled deeply the divine odors of bacon and freshly brewed coffee. "Breakfast for dinner? Singular, but since I feel as if I slept all night long, I do believe I'd rather have breakfast than dinner right now, though I'm not sure about the coffee. I don't want to stay awake all night long when we have that long journey ahead of us on the morrow."

"Tell him, Uncle," said Ethan.

"I should think you'd prefer to tell him," Owen replied.

"Then I'll tell him," said Charlotte. "Lord Gareth, you feel as if you slept all night long because you did sleep all night long—and before that, a good portion of yesterday afternoon."

He gaped at her across the table, a platter of bacon between them. "You mean I didn't just nap? And it's not evening, it's—" He glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the fireplace mantel behind her. It read ten minutes to eight. "It's almost eight o'clock. But which eight o'clock?" He craned his neck to survey the window. "At this time of year, who can tell?"

"It's almost eight in the morning," said Ethan, "and as soon as we've finished here, we shall leave for AshdownPark."

"Good Lord," Gareth muttered, as he helped himself to the food. And he did have that cup of coffee, after all.

Fully rested and fed, the four of them set out in a carriage an hour later. They were halfway to Oxford, out in the open countryside, when the carriage was forced to a halt by a crowd of people on the road.

"Looks like an overturned carriage, m'lords," the coachman told them through the trap door in the ceiling. "They're just trying to clean up the debris, but it could take a while."

Gareth promptly rose from his seat. "Three of us are able-bodied men. Let's help."

"I fear I'm not as able-bodied as I used to be," Owen said ruefully. "You and Ethan go. I'll just stay here with Charlotte."

It was a dreadful sight, as they drew nearer. The smashed carriage appeared to have missed a sharp curve in the road and barreled straight into a deep ditch, only to flip upside down. The horses drawing the carriage had already been put out of their misery. The sight tore at Gareth's already ragged heart. Two bodies lay next to each other on the side of the road, covered with blankets. A third person lay on a makeshift stretcher and was being loaded into a farmer's cart.

"Take him to the village smithy," said a man clad in black, with white Geneva bands fluttering around his throat. Clearly he was the local vicar and in charge of the disaster.

Gareth and Ethan introduced themselves to the vicar, who called himself Mr. Dryden.

"Must have happened some time during the night," he said. "That's usually when people tend to miss that turn in the road. So it's happened before, but never this bad, with two fatalities and all the cattle having to be put down. The carriage must have been speeding as if the Devil himself was in pursuit. Haven't had a chance yet to speak with that man they just put in the cart, to tell him the others are dead. A woman and another man, probably his wife and their coachman. They're under those blankets over there."

Out of curiosity, Gareth stepped over to the cart and looked down at the injured man, thinking at once that he looked familiar. He shot a glance at the upended carriage, where the battered door hung by a single hinge. Gareth bent his head to one side to scrutinize the upside-down crest.

There was no mistake. This carriage belonged to Evie's family. He glanced back into the cart at the bruised and bloodied Mr. Gerald Benedict. One knee was a mass of bloody pulp and splintered bone. He was going to lose the leg if somehow he managed to survive the trip to the smithy. The only visible steeple appeared to be more than a mile away.

Gareth stepped over to the two blanketed bodies at the side of the road. He lifted one of the blankets to reveal a barely recognizable Lady Flora Benedict with a broken neck.

"We've already done a thorough search for any others who might have been thrown from the carriage," Mr. Dryden said. "'Twould appear no one else was with them, but they must be important, judging by that crest on the door."

That meant Evie was still at AshdownPark. With a sigh of relief, Gareth told the vicar who the victims were before striding back to the cart where Gerald Benedict lay groaning. He blinked up at Gareth as if he, too, thought he was looking at someone familiar.

"Benedict, can you talk? Do you know who I am? We saw each other at AshdownPark."

"She didn'...wan' t' stop," Benedict rasped, every word an effort. "She wan' t'...speed straigh' t' Bristol...'s if we're in...mail coash. Pistol...she shot me...knee...then she open' the trap door...in the roof...threaten' t' shoot coashman...'f he didn' kee' goin'...brea'neck speed." He coughed, and to Gareth's alarm, a trace of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "She stood there...pistol 'n hand...head through door...then the crash. She dead?"

"I'm sorry, but yes," Gareth murmured.

"I didn' know," Benedict said. "You mus' tell Ross. I didn' know. Didn' know any till she shot me. Didn' know she an' her sis'er...spies..."

Gareth believed that. Gerald Benedict had too much mutton between his ears to suspect what his wife was up to during their brief marriage. Then again, it was undoubtedly the mutton that landed him in the parson's mousetrap. He recalled his brother telling him that Flora tried to trap him into marriage at a house party, only to get caught with Gerald Benedict, instead. All she saw was a blond man, Dane had said. A blond man too deep in his cups to know which bedchamber was his. He stumbled into mine. I'm the one who found them.

"Promise me," said Benedict. "Tell Ross..."

"I promise, but with any luck, you'll get to tell him yourself," Gareth replied, as he firmly clasped Benedict's hand. "We'll stay with you."

Evie, he knew, would want him to stay with her cousin.

If she truly loved Gareth, she would wait for him.