A chill breeze scudded the dry grass along the path. A pair of young gentlemen on horseback galloped toward them, slowing their mounts to a walk, grinning and touching their hat brims as they passed. They certainly were not bashful in their bold looks, and Juliette merely inclined her head and walked on. Brash in the extreme. Daniel would never behave in such a manner.

Agatha lowered her chin and walked more quickly, and when the riders were out of earshot, asked, “Have you heard anything more from Mr. Swann?”

“Your pardon?” Juliette hadn’t said her comment about Daniel aloud, had she? The thought brought a tinge of heat to her cheeks.

“About the book we found at the bank. Has Mr. Swann read it? Did it help at all in the investigation?”

Relief pushed the air out of Juliette’s lungs. “I have not heard anything regarding your father’s journal. If I see Mr. Swann anytime soon, I will ask.”

“I’d like to have it back. I wasn’t ready to read it when we found it, but I think I am now. I feel reading my father’s thoughts in his own hand might be comforting. I mentioned the book to Mr. Earnshaw and that we had retrieved it from the bank vault. He was most surprised to find my father kept a journal. No previous volumes were found amongst his papers, so the diary must have been a new habit? Perhaps I will send a note around to Bow Street to see if Mr. Swann has finished with it.”

“I could go on your behalf, if you wish. After all, I delivered the book in the first place. I could retrieve it for you. It would be no trouble.” And possibly she would see Daniel once more. Her heart thrummed even as her emotions waffled. Would Daniel be businesslike, or would he treat her differently? She both dreaded and anticipated seeing him, and she wanted it over, that first meeting after sharing such an explosive kiss.

And she wanted to explore her newly discovered feelings for him, to see whether they were merely girlish fantasies brought on by a few moments outside a chandler’s shop and not real.

Though if they were real, what could she do about them?

“This is ridiculous.” Daniel had barely made it through the Bow Street door when he was handed a summons. “My life is my own. I thought I was finished with such demands.”

The envelope bore the mark of Coles, Franks & Moody, and the note—in the strongest terms possible—requested his attendance at their offices at nine o’clock sharp that morning. How was he supposed to investigate a murder when he was forced to spend so much time sitting in a law office?