Lisa quickly explained about waking up, the bobbing branch and her investigation and then the attack. Once finished she sat back to await his next question. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Did you see his face?”

“He was wearing some sort of hood with holes cut out for the eyes, but I didn’t even get a good look at his eyes. I’m sorry,” she murmured, but he shook his head.

“It’s not your fault. He obviously had no desire to be recognized,” he murmured, his gaze moving past her to the window, his expression thoughtful.

“You think it was my suitor,” she said quietly. “Someone I would recognize if I’d seen his face.”

“Or someone who works for him that you might have recognized as well,” Robert said with a shrug.

Lisa nodded, not arguing the point.

“I want you to stay away from Pembroke in the future,” Robert said after a moment and she glanced up with surprise.

“Pembroke? Why him?” she asked with surprise. He was second on her list of possible husbands, right behind Findlay. The man was handsome, thoughtful and trying very hard to try to please her by arranging the picnic and such.

“Because if it weren’t for his pastries making you sick, you would have been at the ball tonight.”

“It is hardly his fault if his cook’s pastries made me ill,” Lisa pointed out with amusement.

“It is if he added something to make you deliberately ill, Lisa,” he said quietly and she blanched in dismay.

“You think he put something in the pastries to make me ill?”

“All the other men were expecting you to be at the ball tonight,” Robert pointed out. “In fact, most of them are probably only realizing now that you aren’t going to attend tonight. But whoever attacked or sent someone to attack you knew you would not be attending the ball before that.”

“Oh, surely it is late enough that—”

“It has been exactly one hour since I left you sleeping in here, Lisa,” he said quietly. “I doubt Christiana and Richard have been at the ball for more than a matter of minutes. If they have even made it through the lineup of disembarking carriages to the door yet.”

“Oh,” Lisa murmured, recognizing the truth of his words. Getting into the more popular balls could be rather tedious. The narrow streets were always crowded and the carriage traffic slow on the way there, and then the lineup of disembarking carriages was always long. That was then followed by the long lineup at the actual ballroom entrance as guests waited to be announced. It could take a while to get in. Leaving was never quite as bad, but it was something of a trial as well if you waited until everyone else was leaving to head home.