Julia shook her head. “No. With all your talk of Luddites in the area, Captain, we just assumed it was that desperate band of men.”

“I see,” Morland said, his eyes narrowing slightly at my sister’s gentle invocation of his own warnings. “It has also come to our attention that the man calling himself Mr. Talbot is in fact Lord Evan Belford, the man Mulholland was seeking to arrest. He is wanted for absconding from a penal colony, highway robbery, and other crimes. He and his companion, Kent, a Runner who seems to have crossed to the side of lawlessness, are still at large.”

“Really?” Julia said, her voice under careful control. “How shocking.”

Still at large. I knew my sister felt as much relief as I did.

“You did not know?” Morland demanded.

“We did not,” I said, arranging my features into some semblance of astonishment. “To think we dined with him and I rode at his side. Shocking. How did you discover such a masquerade?”

“It seems Mrs. Ellis-Brant realized who he was and reported the matter to my superiors.”

Of course she did; it was going to be hard to resist slapping the Ermine when we next met. I glanced at Julia, but she was keeping a polite smile pasted on her face.

The captain leaned forward. “I find it hard to believe you did not know, since Mrs. Ellis-Brant told me you arrived here with Belford’s sister and her companion, the two ladies traveling under assumed names.”

Ah, the Ermine had done a very thorough job.

“Indeed we were traveling with Lady Hester and her companion, Captain,” I said. Always best to stay as close as possible to the truth when lying through one’s teeth. “There is a family matter between her and Lord Deele, her other brother, that we are not at liberty to discuss. But we did not know that Lord Evan had joined the party here at Davenport Hall as Mr. Talbot, and Lady Hester certainly did not tell us. He hoodwinked us all, but I can understand Lady Hester’s reticence.”

Morland sat back. “Can you, now?”

“Indeed. Family loyalties and so forth,” I said, waving an expansive hand. It was time to bring this interview to a close. “We are of course shocked to hear that such a desperate man was among us, but we have no other information for you.”

Morland, however, was not about to be so summarily dismissed. “Why were you in that clearing, Lady Augusta? It seems very odd that a thieftaker arresting a highwayman and an ex–Bow Street Runner would march one lady through a forest and leave the other on the roadside in a phaeton.”

Well, that was a very good point. I glanced at Julia, then bowed my head theatrically under the weight of my ordeal. “I have no insights into the minds of such men, Captain. It was a terrifying few hours, which I can barely recall.”