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Miranda took a candle and led Jane through the curtains, along a hallway and out a door into cold so sharp her chest ached when she drew breath. She concentrated on her steps over a patch of icy grass that crunched under foot. They reached another set of steps at the back of a larger building. Miranda opened a door and they descended into the basement of the house, where Jane could hear servants stirring in the kitchen. She could smell bread baking.

They turned and began to ascend the servants’ stairs. Miranda moved quickly and surely, and Jane stayed right at her heels. At the top of a third flight of stairs, Miranda opened a door into a carpeted hallway lighted with sconces. She led Jane to a door on the left and nodded. She mouthed the word, here.

Jane mouthed back, locked?

Miranda shook her head. She turned and headed back for the stairs.

Jane let Miranda’s footsteps die away. She listened carefully at the door, and when she heard no sound from within, she put her hand to the knob and turned.

* * * *

Hazelwood woke on his back in the darkness in a state familiar from his Cambridge days, his body ready for female companionship of the most intimate sort. Jane. He recalled no dream of her that had stirred him, so he could only blame his present discomfort on the folly of kissing her the night before. He lay staring at the invisible ceiling, waiting for his brain to take over his thinking processes.

He became aware that his feet were cold, colder than the rest of him. He must have kicked the counterpane aside in whatever unremembered dream he’d been having. In the next moment he realized that he wasn’t alone in his room. Even as he had the thought, he steadied his breathing, wondered how the club’s defenses had been breached, and weighed the chances that the book still lay on the table beside his bed.

“Shall we have some light, so that I may see you?” he asked the invisible presence. He tried to guess the time and whether anyone would be stirring yet. He had no weapon, but Clare was sleeping just down the hall. A shout would bring him.

“No need.” Jane’s voice answered. “I have what I came for.”

His body had an instant and enthusiastic response to her presence in his room. His mind applauded her boldness. “Have you?”

She must be cold. He could hear it in the little quaver in her voice. He could warm her. A rapid succession of images passed through his mind of taking her hand, drawing her to the bed, pulling her down, removing her cloak and gloves, opening the covers, and letting her slip in beside him. Her clothes would be cold against his skin, but he would remove those too. All the veils would fall away. They could sleep skin to skin.

He tried to push upright and discovered that his feet were bound together and to the end of the bed to judge from the pull on them.

“I’m just leaving now. Do not trouble yourself to rise.”

“You took pains apparently that I should not.” She had been touching his naked feet. No wonder he’d awakened as he had. It occurred to him that Jane was the sort of intrepid girl he’d dreamed of as a boy, not a sleeping princess to be kissed awake after all, but a girl who would pick up a dropped sword and face the dragon.

“I’m afraid I’ve ruined one of your cravats, but you have others, I’m sure.”

He tried to shift his feet to see how much give there was in the binding and found none. “You could stay, you know. We could work out the book’s code together.”

He couldn’t see her in the dark, but he imagined her shaking her head.

“I’ve left the hotel. I will remain with my cousins until the investiture.” Her voice sounded sad. It was a farewell she was offering.

An open carriage such as a Landau or a Barouche is essential to the Husband Hunter’s quest. In fine weather, and any day without rain must be considered fine, such a vehicle is the velvet box in which the Husband Hunter appears as a rich jewel. The open vehicle allows her to make the best use of her time in the public parks, for while she might appear to advantage on a horse or in a curricle, each has its peculiar disadvantages. On horseback, she risks drawing attention to the horse itself and must be an accomplished rider to show herself to advantage. In a curricle, she will inevitably be perceived as fast, in that either she is driving, and thus vying with her potential husband in one of the manly arts, or she is riding in such close intimacy with one gentleman as to discourage the attentions of any others. Therefore, this guide recommends that the Husband Hunter contrive to appear in the park in the front-facing seat of a Landau or Barouche.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter Eighteen

Jane allowed her cousin Clive to help her into the waiting barouche with the firm intention of making the most of this attempt to connect with her cousins. For one afternoon at least their interests and concerns would be her interests and concerns. She would try to see London as they saw it, and learn its customs from them. She would banish Hazelwood’s mocking voice from her mind. They were her cousins, and she would honor the family connection, no matter the size of Allegra’s hat. They were going to see a man attempt a rare feat—driving a loaded wagon over a frozen lake in the middle of Hyde Park. From the way her cousins talked nearly everyone in London would be there.

“So, who is this man who proposes to race his van and horses over the Serpentine?” she asked Clive as they pulled away from the hotel.

“He’s quite the popular hero. Hunt, or rather Hunt the younger. His father is a famous radical orator, jailed more than once for his attacks on the king.”

“Attacks?” Jane had not heard of the king being attacked.

“In print only.”

“He’s hardly a hero,” Allegra said. “Though he is a notable whip. That’s why fashionable people come to see him.”

In the intense cold, the horses wore blankets, and the coachman was invisible in his greatcoat and gloves, a long brown woolen scarf wrapped around his face, so that only his eyes showed beneath his hat. They entered one of the northern gates of the park, and its vast sloping expanse stretched before them.

Pock-marked mounds of glittering snow with dirty edges like yellowed lace dotted the bare brown hillsides. Carriage wheels made dark tracks in the drive. Distant trees arched in charcoal smudges against the low gray clouds. Jane tried to get her bearings, but she hardly recognized the icy landscape as the place where her father had taken her fishing on the Serpentine in the rain.