A driver in a nearby hackney was gesturing and shouting. Her driver seemed to be arguing with him.
“They want us to stop, miss,” said Jarvis. “Oh, my. That’s His Grace.”
The other hackney was slowing, and the duke was leaning out of the window. Through her vehicle’s closed window, Zoe couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she recognized the strong, deep voice that could carry effortlessly across a square.
Her hackney came to a stop.
“Oh, miss, he’s getting out of the hackney.”
Zoe didn’t wait for this news. She was already sliding across the seat and grabbing the door handle. She wrenched the door open. It was a good distance to the ground, but Zoe leapt. Jarvis shrieked.
Zoe ran—not toward the other carriage and the man who’d recalled her existence at last—but into a footpath leading into the area Jarvis had called the Green Park.
Five
It was early afternoon, well before the fashionable hour for promenading in Hyde Park. As a result, the Duke of Marchmont’s acquaintances were denied the entertaining sight of His Grace leaping out of a hackney near Hyde Park Corner, dashing across Piccadilly, and running—yes, actually running—into the Green Park.
He did not have to run far.
His legs were a good deal longer than his prey’s, and he was not encumbered with skirt, petticoat, and corset.
He caught up with her a short distance from the lodge. Most of the park was bare of trees. In the grounds near the lodge and the adjoining area near the smaller basin, though, they provided a degree of shade, as well as a shield of sorts from the observation of passersby in Piccadilly. Those on the footpaths, however, would get an eyeful.
Not that the duke cared who was watching.
He was far too irritated to care.
Though he’d caught up with her, she kept on running, obliging him to trot alongside—or throw himself on her and bring her down.
He was seriously considering the latter course of action when she slowed to a walk, one hand to her side.
She’d given herself a cramp, the little fool.
“You are an idiot,” he said, further annoyed to find himself breathing hard.
Though mentally lazy, he was a physically active man, and he’d run only a short distance. If it occurred to him that emotion was making him breathless, the idea did not get far before being thrust into the special mental cupboard with other unwelcome thoughts. “How far did you think you’d get, running uphill, wearing a corset?”
“If I were speaking to you, I would tell you that the corset does not fit properly.” She stuck her pretty nose in the air and walked on. “But I am not speaking to you.”
Whatever else he was prepared for, it was not this. For one of the few times in his life, he was taken aback. “Not speaking to me? Not speaking tome?”
“You promised you would give me a place in your world,” she said. “You said nothing could be simpler. A week ago you said this, yet you have done nothing.”
This was monstrous unfair. He’d attended the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding last night, where everybody behaved with the utmost decorum and where no one could expect any hint of fun. There never was any fun when the Queen was about. He could have been with his friends or with Lady Tarling, but no. He’d gone to the boring wedding, all for the prime opportunity it offered to enlist the Prince Regent in his campaign.
The campaign for Zoe.
But the Duke of Marchmont never allowed anyone but her father to question his actions. Even then, all he did was pretend to listen. He rarely paid attention and certainly didn’t explain or defend himself.
“I was busy,” he said.
“Perhaps the task isn’t as simple as you pretended,” she said. “Perhaps it’s a joke to you.”
It was no joke. Far from it. When a gentleman agreed to do something, he did it. He had been doing it. He’d been so busy on her behalf that he hadn’t had time to visit his mistress.
But the Duke of Marchmont never complained and never explained. He remained silent, seething.
She glanced at him, then away. She took a deep breath, apparently to calm herself. “I suppose I ought to remember that you are not very intelligent,” she said.
