“Keep your eyes open for Lady Charlotte,” he told deVille. “Let me know when you see her.”
“Last I saw her, she was with the lawman.”
Hmm. According to Preston, she was with the lawman when he was shot. What was she doing with this stranger? Telling him their secrets? Telling himhersecrets? Was she falling for this man? Perhaps it was time to warn her to keep silent. He would see to it himself.
“Roger!” he called out into the air. “Have my carriage brought around!”
He’d dropped by Judge Whimsey’s manor house unannounced before. He and Charlotte were friends. Her father, the duke, knew it. Judge Whimsey didn’t mind him. It was Preston the judge didn’t like. According to her father, ever since Charlotte met Sutton, she began getting into trouble. Her father believed Preston was the cause of it all. He was partially correct. But there was no proof. And how could there be? Preston was paying off just about everyone—except Judge Whimsey and a few others, and those never saw a side of Preston of which they could grumble. He did not commit the crimes but had others do it for him.
The men paid him what they robbed in exchange for a small percentage and protection if they were caught.
John deVille being proof of Preston’s long-reaching arm, even held in a mill in a village, he had been rescued.
By her.
Sebastian grabbed his cloak and hat and left the house. He didn’t have to wait for his driver and carriage as they were waiting there for him by his front gate. “Judge Whimsey’s,” he said, stepping into the carriage. The journey wouldn’t be long to the much larger manor house in Croydon. He wasn’t home in Surrey, but staying in Preston’s lair further west in Sutton. It wasn’t far.
Charlotte’s father likely hired this lawman to keep his daughter out of trouble. He might be there with her now.
A quarter of an hour later, the carriage pulled up to the front gate of a spacious house. There was a man at the front doors waiting for him.
“Ah, John, my friend!” Sebastian sang, matching the happy spring in his step. “Is there magic at work here? Why, you have not aged a year!”
The old man’s face broke into a wide grin. “Lord Surrey, this is unexpected. Do come in.”
“Kind of you to offer, John,” Sebastian said, stepping inside. “Is Lady Charlotte in?”
“Yes, my lord. She just finished breakfast and is in the sitting room with Detective Pendridge.”
Sebastian paused and turned on the heel of his shoe. “The lawman?”
“Aye, my lord,” John told him. It was a warning. The old butler knew of Charlotte’s goings on.
“Excellent!” Sebastian looked down the hall. He knew where the sitting room was. “No need to announce me, John. I told her I would stop by sometime today. She’s expecting me!” Or, she should be. She had abandoned Preston with his wounded leg. Why? He was about to find out.
He walked along the hall getting closer to the room. The door was ajar. She was laughing. He could hear her.
He reached the entrance just as a man spoke, his voice heavy with amusement and desire.
“What’s pleasing to me is—” He leaned in and spoke in a softer, quieter voice, something that made Charlotte turn a dozen different shades of scarlet.
Sebastian cleared his throat and had a good look at the lawman, who had been talked about by his men, for the first time. Sebastian would admit the man had a dangerous look to him. He wore white hose and fitted black knee breeches on his long, muscular legs. Though he leaned his arse on the back of a chair, it was clear he was tall, about the same height as Sebastian. He wore a black, padded jacket across his broad shoulders and flat belly. His raven hair was pulled back into a queue, but much of it was loose and falling around his face.
The way Charlotte glowed when she looked at him said much, as did how close she was standing to him, almost cradled between his legs. He was handsome. That much was obvious. She was taken with him.
This could be much worse or better than he thought.
“Lord Surrey!” Charlotte greeted and stepped away from her guest with a shocked looked on her face when she saw him. “What brings you?”
“I was worried about you, my lady,” he said sweetly.
“Worried?” she asked, wearing her most well practiced smile.
“Some wonder where you are.”
He caught her eyes flicking to the lawman.
“Lord Surrey, let me introduce to you, Detective Michael Pendridge of York.”
