Page 14 of Exiled Duke

He stepped around to stand in front of her. “Life is a lot easier when you know everyone’s secrets. So I watch people. Our past together doesn’t make you exempt from that.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “Life is easier how?”

“Easier to control people, blackmail them. Easier to know true intentions, what people most desire. Easier to know what my enemies’ next steps are.”

Her head cocked to the left. “Blackmail? Enemies? What has happened to you? You sound like a blackguard. The kind your mother would have ushered us across the street from.”

His mother? She thought to invoke memories from eighteen years ago? She had another thing coming if she thought the past and long dead people held any sway over him.

Strider’s mouth pulled to a thin line. “I am what I am.”

She heaved a sigh and stood from the bench, her body far too close to his. Her hands stayed clasped in front of her. “But enemies? I’m not your enemy, Strider.”

He stared at her, silent.

He didn’t know what she was yet. But he did plan to find out.

“How did you get away from them?”

“That is why it has to be today that we leave for Bedfordshire.” Her hand motioned to the surrounding park. “That’s why I needed to meet you here. I wrote you that in my last note.”

He’d read the note, but he hadn’t planned on leaving today. They worked on his time, not hers. “We’ll go when I’m ready, Pen.”

“No, it has to be today. Mrs. Flagton is sending me to her cousin in Hampshire to deliver a package. It’s something she didn’t trust her son to do for her. But she’s expecting me to be gone for five or six days.”

“Hampshireis in the opposite direction from Bedfordshire.”

She gave him a withering look. “I know that. I got on thestagecoachout of London, let the driver go a distance, and then threw a fit and demanded he stop so I would be let off after we were well away from Walton.”

“Who’s Walton?”

“The footman your man sees trailing me about.”

“Won’t Mrs. Flagton know that the package wasn’t delivered?”

She sighed. “I paid a woman to deliver it for me with a note saying I am ill at a coaching inn and couldn’t make it to the house. It’ll be enough.” She nodded her head to herself. “It’ll have to be enough.”

“Who is delivering it?”

“I’ve already found a woman, her name is Fiona.”

“Where does she live?”

“OnNewton Street.”

He exhaled a scoff. “That’s Ole Ona and she’s not going to deliver the package. She took your money, Pen.”

Her clasped hands started to agitate up and down in front of her belly. “No, she did not. The fishmonger knew her—he sent me to her days ago and said she could do it. I talked to her again this morning on my way here and she said she had already bought her ticket on the mail coach.”

His lips pursed. “When was she supposed to leave?”

“Today at noon.”

“Mail coaches aren’t stagecoaches. Mail coaches for Hampshire don’t leave at noon. They leave London atnight.Not noon.”

Her body froze. “Oh, well, maybe she was mistaken.”

Strider’s forefinger flicked out tothe east.“Bring me to her place.”

---