She glanced at the clock. Perhaps Benedict had changed his mind about letting her take part in Johnstone’s capture? She unfolded the missive with shaking hands and squinted at the scrawled, almost illegible writing. It took her a moment to decipher it. Meet me in the park. Copse near Tyburn tree. B.

Georgie frowned. She’d never actually seen Benedict’s handwriting, except for his signature on their marriage documents, but she’d have thought it was neater than this. He must have written it in haste.

She donned her pelisse, cloak, and bonnet and accepted Charlotte’s offer to accompany her “for a breath of fresh air.” As soon as they entered the park, however, she told the elderly maidservant to rest on one of the benches overlooking the ornamental lake and headed north, toward the strand of trees as she’d been instructed. She let out an amused huff as she searched the vista for Benedict. Mysterious assignations in parks were more Juliet’s style.

There were very few people around at this unfashionably early hour. The ton wouldn’t make an appearance until around four o’clock this afternoon when they would stroll down the walks and parade along Rotten Row in their curricles as slowly as possible in order to show off their latest fashionable acquisitions.

A cloaked figure loitered amongst the trees, and Georgie left the gravel path and headed that way. He disappeared behind a trunk, and she hastened forward, soaking her leather boots in the dew-damp grass. She entered the copse, peering around, and gasped when a hand shot out from behind a tree and captured her wrist.

“What’s—?” She recoiled in horror. “Josiah! What are you doing here?”

Her cousin’s smile turned her stomach. She’d been hoodwinked. Benedict hadn’t written that note at all.

“Well met, Cousin. You look a little peaked. Did you have a late night?”

She tugged on her wrist. “I did, not that it’s any of your business.”

His lip curled. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. It is very much my business.”

At this close distance, she could smell stale alcohol fumes on his breath and clothes.

His fingers tightened cruelly. “I saw you. At the Tricorn. I may have been drunk, but even four sheets to the wind I can still recognize my own cousin.” His eyes glittered. “You little tart! You were going to Wylde, weren’t you?”

She pressed her lips together.

Josiah shook his head. “At first I thought you’d taken a fancy to him after he defended you at Vauxhall. That you’d fallen into his arms out of gratitude,” he sneered. “But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she tried again to free her wrist, but his hold was inescapable. “I don’t know what you mean.”