“Good. I’ll set things in motion then,” Smithe said as they walked out into the hall.

Robert merely nodded, his gaze seeking the parlor door where Lisa and her callers were all having tea. It had gone quiet after that earlier burst of laughter, and he wondered with a frown what they were doing in there, but he turned his attention back to Smithe, murmuring a few more instructions as he led him to the door and saw him out.

He closed the door behind the man a moment later with a little sigh and took a minute to rub his face wearily. He didn’t really want to go back into the parlor. Watching the other men compliment and court Lisa while she beamed smiles and fawned over them all was just . . . well, it was annoying as hell. Nauseating even. However, he was here to keep an eye on her and keep her safe, so he had no choice.

Straightening his shoulders, Robert forced a pleasant expression to his face and headed for the parlor. The expression froze, however, when he pushed the door open and found the room empty. For one moment, he simply stood there, and then he turned from the door with a bellow for Handers.

The butler appeared at once, pushing out of the kitchen door and heading up the hall toward him at the highest speed a good butler ever dared use, a dignified walk. Growling impatiently, Robert strode to meet him, asking, “Where are they?”

“If you are referring to Miss Lisa and her guests, I believe they have gone to the park so that Lord Findlay and Lord Pembroke could prove who had the faster phaeton,” the man answered calmly.

Robert stared at him silently for a moment with disbelief, and then whirled on his heel and headed for the front door. His mind wasn’t silent however. It was having a good old rant. Here he was giving up his bed for a guest room in the Radnor townhouse to look after her, and what did she do? She rushed off to the park with a gaggle of lords, any one of whom could be the mysterious suitor who had planned to kidnap and have his way with her.

Had she gone mad? Because the Lisa Madison he knew and had grown up being chased about by would never be this stupid and reckless. Did she want to be kidnapped and ravished? Was she so devastated by his seeing her as only a little sister that she would risk herself this way? He would wring her beautiful little neck when he found her.