“Mr. Rampling, I will give you seventy guineas for her if you dismount and hand her over now.”

It was twice the amount the mare was worth, but I did not care.

Rampling’s eyes widened. “Seventy? Well, I—”

Milroy quelled Rampling with a glance, then leaned forward in his saddle. “Too easy, Lady Augusta. How about a wager instead? Your horse and skill against mine. A race along the length of the Row. Winner takes the mare. Surely a lady who rides with the grooms will not balk at a race.”

Even in a world where fortunes were regularly won and lost on the flip of a card or the roll of the dice, Milroy was famed as a hard gambler. I had heard that he had once wagered he could find a man to eat a cat alive. The tale was most probably—and hopefully—apocryphal, but the message was the same: the man would wager a great deal upon anything.

A hot rush of competition surged through me. Leonardo was the superior horse and my own skill was easily a match for Milroy’s. I could beat him. Even so, he was asking me to race for money on public ground. A whole new level of impropriety. Moreover, such a wager in front of the grooms would inevitably bring gossip. I could not afford to attract any attention to myself. Not with what was currently at stake: Julia and I had two fugitives hiding in our house, and Lord Evan—my dear absent Evan—was being hunted by the Bow Street Magistrate for absconding and robbery. Any eyes upon us could put them all at risk.

“I think you are well aware I cannot accept such a wager, Lord Milroy,” I said. “Mr. Rampling, would you consider one hundred guineas?”

A ridiculous price, but we were in competition now and I was not going to lose.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a handsome black horse approach at a stately pace, its elegantly dressed rider instantly recognizable: Mr. Brummell.

Good God, what was he doing here? George Brummell did not usually emerge from his rooms until midday.

“Lady Augusta,” Mr. Brummell called. “Well met.”

I collected myself enough to raise my riding crop in greeting. George reined in his mount beside Leonardo and made a bow in the saddle to the two men. “Good day, Lord Milroy, and Mr. Rampling, is it not?”

Rampling straightened from his lolling slump. It was not every day that a man of his ilk was recognized by the king of fashionable society. “It is, Mr. Brummell. It is, it is indeed,” he stammered, returning my friend’s salute with vigor.

George glanced at me with a lift of his brow. It was plain he knew I was fuming.

“I have just offered Mr. Rampling one hundred guineas for his mare,” I said, as evenly as I could manage.