“Your sister is telling the truth, Lord Duffield,” Evan said. He moved to take his hands from the horse’s bridle, but one of the riflemen stepped closer to me, the barrel of the gun aimed squarely at my midsection. Evan froze.

“My sister is delusional, Belford, and you are taking advantage of her,” Duffy snapped. “I am a magistrate, Augusta. Mr. Mulholland is hardly going to murder a man in front of me.”

“As his lordship says, my lady, I am hardly going to murder a man in front of him.” Mulholland’s wolf smile appeared again. He scratched his sandy-red stubble as if making a decision. “I will take Mr. Kent, too, my lord. He has assisted Belford and so must answer for that crime back at Bow Street.”

“No!” Julia said. “Duffy, you must see something is wrong,” she implored. “Mr. Kent is a Bow Street agent. Not a criminal.”

“All I see are two desperate men who have been using my foolish sisters for their own nefarious ends,” Duffy said. He had, it seemed, settled upon our womanly weakness as an explanation. “Where do you take them, Mulholland?”

“To Wrexham. It has a lockup house. We will take a shortcut through the woods.”

Duffy waved them into action as if he were in charge. “Go about your business, then. We will be on our way too.”

Mulholland nodded, as if receiving the order. He knew how to manipulate a man as pompous as my brother. “Thank you, my lord.” He nodded to his men. “Bind Belford and Kent.”

One of the riflemen brought out rope and stepped closer to Evan.

“Hands behind your back,” he ordered.

Evan’s jaw muscle bulged with his desire to turn and fight, but he complied, his eyes upon me: Do not follow us.

I drew a breath through my teeth: Try to stop me.

He lurched back a step as the binding wrenched his shoulders back, but his eyes still did not leave mine. His lips curved into the smallest of smiles: My darling Renegade.

I drew a shaking breath. Good God, that was a good-bye.

I shook my head: No, I will find you.

Julia had twisted in her seat, her hands clenched on the sides of the phaeton. “Duffy, Mr. Kent is a Runner! Please—”

“Be quiet, Julia. You are embarrassing yourself,” Duffy said.

Mulholland leaned against the side of the phaeton. “No bleating on behalf of your own man, Lady Augusta?” he asked me sotto voce. “Maybe you don’t really care.”

“If you hurt him, I will kill you, although you will wish I had.”

He ran a surreptitious finger along the outside of my thigh, the light pressure sending a sickened blaze of fury through my body. “Follow me and my men, Lady Augusta, and I will finish what I started in the laneway, and let my men have their turn too. And I will not kill you, although you will wish I had.”