Then she took his arm, not because it was easy, and not because it felt right, but because walking away would not undo what she had done.Because she suspected she would soon have to tell him the truth.And because, guilt or no, she could not deny the pull of standing beside a man who had offered her honesty…and who deserved it in return.
An hour later,they were back in Nicholas’s coach, headed toward her father’s town house.The day had been…well, one of the best of her life.Nearly a dream, if dreams came laced with a sharp, persistent thread of guilt tightening around her ribs.
Bea stared out the window, watching London blur past.Her chest felt too tight.Too full.
Because all she could think about was the cruel precision of her own drawings.The fox’s smirk.The coins in the duke’s pocket.The sly, insinuating lines she’d drawn as if sheknewNicholas.
As if she’d understood anything.
But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.Any of it—why she’d formed such a firm opinion of him, how she’d overheard her father’s conversations.Overheard them and apparently misinterpreted them.Or thatshewas B.Adroit.That secret was dangerous, fragile, and more deeply kept than anything else she possessed.
So she sat there in silence, desperately searching for some appropriate, dignified way to thank him for taking her to Parliament.Something that didn’t sound inadequate.
Soon, the coach pulled to a stop outside her father’s house.
After the footman pulled down the coach steps, Nicholas helped her alight and then walked her slowly to the door.
Just as she gathered her courage to speak, she looked down to see the afternoon’s paper sitting on the top step.
And there it was…on the front page.
The latest caricature.The one she’d delivered this very morning.Hercaricature.
Nicholas looked down at it and then scrubbed his face with a weary groan.
“I can hardly blame you for thinking I was a devout Tory,” he said dryly.“Most of London does.Everyone’s seen these blasted caricatures in the papers.”He nudged the paper with one booted foot.“Whoever this fellow is, he’s got me entirely wrong.”
Bea forced herself to breathe, shallow, careful.
Nicholas shifted his weight, exhaling through his nose.“But don’t worry,” he added with a note of irritation, “I have it on the best authority that the Bow Street Runner I hired is about to run the scoundrel down.B.Adroit is about to regret the day he was born.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
Nicholas had hired the Bow Street Runner?Nicholas was the one hunting her?
He glanced up and met her gaze, his brow furrowing.“Do you know who B.Adroit is?”
Her throat clenched.She swallowed hard, too hard.The guilt punched low in her stomach, thick and sickening.They’d spent the afternoon together.He’d shown her who he truly was, and now he was no longer implying.He was asking her directly.She could not lie.
“Yes,” she whispered.“I do.”
