He looked up at her. Was she worried about him?

  “I thought you had—”

  He didn’t like what he saw in her eyes. “Adelaide,” he said, firmly. “Look at me.” She did, staring down at him, and he held her pretty brown gaze for a moment before saying, “I am here.”

  She nodded as he climbed into the wreckage to rescue his bags. It took longer than he would have liked, having to pick apart the detritus—so much for the brougham being the best conveyance for a modern gentleman, as the salesman had promised him. It had fallen apart like a child’s toy.

  “What happened?” she asked, and he stilled at the words.

  You happened.

  I couldn’t look away from you.

  Even then he stared at her, failing to learn his lesson.

  “It appears you won the race,” he said. “Why not press on and claim your winnings?”

  A room of her own. A soft bed.

  No. He wouldn’t think of her in beds any longer.

  “What? I am not leaving you.”

  He ignored her as he continued his search, willing her to do as he asked. Finding his bag at long last, he climbed back out of the mess. “I do not require you to linger.”

  Her brows furrowed, the fast waning light casting her skin in an orange glow. “You absolutely require me to linger. Who else is going to get you to the nearest inn?” She paused. “Who else is going to get you to your brother?”

  “So now we are a team?” he said.

  A pause, and then she said, “Perhaps, but I shall drive. You can’t be trusted.”

  He stiffened at the teasing. “That accident had nothing to do with my skill on the box.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “I was distracted.” It was all he would allow himself to say.

  “By what?”

  By your hair. “By your hat.”

  Something flashed in her eyes. “By . . . my hat.”

  “Indeed. You lost it.” Christ. He sounded idiotic.

  “I lost my hat and you crashed your carriage.”

  “It’s a brougham,” he clarified, hoping he’d change the topic and instead simply sounding pompous.

  “Is that relevant to my hat?” Were her lips twitching?

  “I see nothing amusing about this situation, Miss Frampton.” Her lips were definitely twitching. He scowled. “I’m saying you should go—” he began, turning away from her before he revealed entirely too many thoughts.

  He stopped when he looked to the horses, only to discover that they’d been collected by two men, one white, one Black, both broad as houses, who seemed fully disinterested in Clayborn’s presence. “Oy!” he shouted, pushing Adelaide to the side of the wreckage before dropping his bag and heading for them. “Leave off!”

  They didn’t pause.

  Fucking hell. His entire body ached, and he was going to have to fight these men.

  “Clayborn—” Adelaide began just as a woman’s voice sounded from the shadows.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He turned to find a tiny woman coming out of the brush, dark eyes twinkling and a bright smile on her brown face. In one hand, she held a pretty silver pistol, gleaming like fire in the setting sun.

  “What in hell?” He moved immediately back toward Adelaide, putting himself between her and the weapon. First she crashed his carriage, now she was going to get him killed.

  The woman with the pistol didn’t hesitate. “A surprise, am I not?”

  He blinked. “Who are you?”

  “That isn’t important. What’s important is that you are the Duke of Clayborn, and you’ve taken a bit of a header, haven’t you?”

  His brows shot together. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Your crest is on the outside of—” She waved a hand in the direction of his former conveyance. “You really ought to have better wheels for these roads, Your Grace.” Before he could reply to the dry words, she added, “Didn’t you tell him that, Addie?”

  Of course she knew Adelaide. They likely had a weekly whist game during which they discussed which of the great houses in Surrey had the most easily nicked silver.

  “To be honest, I didn’t,” Adelaide replied as though they were all at tea. “We are in competition.”

  The newcomer smiled. “Well, good news. It looks like you’ve won. Now, Duke, you seem a decent fellow, and Adelaide hasn’t done you in, which means you likely are a decent fellow—they’re rare. So what say I take that bag and those horses and whatever blunt you’ve got in your purse, and leave you to it?”

  His brows rose. “Highwayman. Of course.”

  She tutted her disapproval. “Highwaywoman, if you don’t mind.” She waved the pistol in his direction. “Empty your pockets, please.”

  He spread his hands wide. “And if I told you your friend fleeced me last night? Stole my purse right out from under me?”

  “She’d know you were lying,” Adelaide said at his shoulder. “I didn’t take his money. At least, not all of it.”

  “Goin’ soft, eh?”

  Clayborn cut Adelaide a look and gave her his best ducal censure. “I take it you work with these fine people?”

  The highwaywoman snickered. “Doesn’t sound like he thinks we’re fine.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t take it personally, he doesn’t think most people are fine,” Adelaide said casually before nodding at the pistol in the smaller woman’s hand. “Though the weapon likely doesn’t help your cause.”

  “You say it like you don’t carry as deadly a weapon on you.”

  He looked to Adelaide. “Don’t tell me you’ve a pistol as well.”

  She shook her head, but did not look at him, instead considering the wreckage. “I don’t like guns. They’re too often more trouble than they’re worth. Lucia, meet the Duke of Clayborn. Clayborn, meet Lucia.” She waved a hand in the direction of the two brutes who were now walking Clayborn’s horses toward them. “And Tobias and Rufus.”

  The men tipped their hats in reply, as though everything going on were polite and aboveboard.

  “Ach,” the highwaywoman scoffed. “It’s just for show. We weren’t out for blood. We were simply doing our part.”

  “And what part is that?”

  Lucia turned a bright smile on him. “Redistribution of wealth.”

  Of course.

  She lifted the bag in the air. “This one is locked, which tells me there’s something worth thieving inside.”

  “There probably is,” Adelaide retorted. “Dukes don’t travel light.”

  “Wot say, Duke?” Lucia played along. “Is it a gold bar or something within?” She looked to Adelaide. “No chance you’ve your keys with you?”

  “Of course I have my keys with me,” Adelaide said. “But this one ain’t for thieving, Lucia.”

  Lucia raised a brow. “Under Duchess’s protection?”

  Adelaide lifted a noncommittal shoulder.

  A second brow matched the first. “Under your protection?”

  Clayborn had had quite enough of being spoken about as though he weren’t there. And certainly not like this, as though he were a child requiring a governess. “I require absolutely no one’s protection.”

  “Are you sure?” Lucia asked. “My boys could easily rob you blind.”

  “I am perfectly able to fight,” Clayborn said, ignoring the ache in his shoulder from where he’d taken the impact from the leap off the carriage. “I boxed for six years at school.”

  “You don’t say?” Lucia tilted her head. “Six years of school boxing?”

  Adelaide’s lips twitched. “And such a straight nose to show for it!”

  Clayborn slid her a look. “Perhaps I’ve a straight nose because I didn’t make a habit of losing.”

  “More like no one was willing to let fly with a duke, but whatever gives you comfort at night, Your Grace.” Before he could say more, Adelaide looked to Lucia and tipped her head at the carriage. “Can’t be repaired, can it?”

  “It’s matchsticks and metal at this point. That’s what your duke gets for coming this far north with a ride made for Hyde Park.”

  “Not my duke,” Adelaide retorted.

  It was true, but he didn’t like how quickly she said it, as though she couldn’t wait to be rid of him.

  Her gaze flickered away, and she moved around to inspect the back side of the wreck, crouching down, reaching a hand into the broken slats, searching for something.

  “At odds again, are we?”

  She didn’t look to him. “Aren’t we always?”

  He supposed they were. But there were moments—last night, today as they’d raced, on the docks as they’d kissed—when it seemed there was another path. “And yet, you remain with me instead of leaving me to . . . whatever this is.”

  “A little gratitude wouldn’t be out of line, Your Grace, considering what Lucia and her boys would have done to you.”

  She turned to smile as the brutes neared. The enormous men smiled back, as though they were all at a holiday fair, and not lingering about a carriage on the side of the road.

  Clayborn clenched his teeth at the ease among the trio. He didn’t want her smiling at other people. He wanted her smiling at him, dammit.

  It didn’t matter that the last time she’d done it, he’d been so dazzled he’d flipped a carriage.

  No. It did matter. The woman was mayhem.

  Clayborn pulled himself straight and looked down his nose at her. “I do not require your protection, Miss Frampton.”

  Everything stilled at the words. Tobias and Rufus froze. Lucia looked up from where she was rummaging through another bag, this one unlocked.

  “Of course you don’t. You were perfectly fine out here with your brougham tumbled into a ditch,” Adelaide said, extracting a lantern from within the wreckage.

  Dammit, he could have done that.

  She shoved it into his hands. “Let me be clear, Duke. On the list of people I am interested in protecting, you are at the very bottom. But the absolute last thing I need is Lady Havistock telling half the world that the Matchbreaker is the reason the Duke of Clayborn lies dead in a ditch. It would be extremely bad for business.”

  “And here I was thinking you’d miss me if I were gone,” he retorted, reaching into his pocket to fetch a match and light the lantern.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you.” The words were full of frustration, and something else that he did not like.

  Once more, he felt like an ass. “Adelaide.”

  She looked away. “Next time you decide to race someone across Britain, you should choose better wheels.”

  Silence fell between them, heavy and uncomfortable, and Clayborn had never been more grateful for a highwayman—highwaywoman—than when Lucia interjected, “You should know, Duke, your brother passed through here about six hours ago. Had a pretty girl with him, and they were gazing at each other like there was nothing else in the world for them.” She cut Clayborn a firm look. “He’s better looking than you.”

  “He’s a decade younger than me.”

  “It’s probably the broken nose,” Adelaide added.

  Lucia turned away, considering the dark road that turned to inky night outside the pool of light from the carriage.

  Clayborn slid Adelaide a look. “Never fear. Between The Bully Boys and my luck when I am near you, I expect my nose to be broken in no time.”

  Lucia held up a hand. “Shush.”

  He shushed and heard the sound in the distance.

  “Single rider,” Lucia said softly, not looking away from the darkness. “Coming at a clip. Best hide your toff.”

  “Not my toff,” Adelaide said quietly, already moving, pulling him to crouch low behind the wreckage and reaching for the blade in her boot.

  Every ounce of Clayborn resisted her. “I don’t need hiding.”

  “Out here, with your carriage in tatters, you don’t need finding, either,” Adelaide said with another tug. He allowed her to pull him down next to her, ignoring the pain from the crash in his side as he slipped his hand into his pocket, extracting a blade, which gleamed sharp and wicked in the light.

  “Impressive,” she said quietly.

  “I should be insulted. Did you think yourself the only one who carries a blade?”

  She was staring through the wreckage, close enough to touch. If she turned to look at him, she’d be close enough to do more than touch. When she replied, it was barely a sound. “Pretty enough, Duke . . . but can you use it?”

  He clenched his jaw but did not reply as the rider came into view, slowing to take in the wrecked carriage.

  Tobias and Rufus came around to the front, placing themselves between the vehicle and Lucia, massive guards. Clayborn stiffened, hating that he was hiding like a child. He might be an aristocrat, but he did not require protection. He protected, dammit.

  He made to stand, to head round and face the rider. But, as he came into view—a tall white man in his late twenties, cloak heavy on his shoulders, cap low on his brow—everything changed. Adelaide turned to stone beside Clayborn, her soft gasp summoning all his notice.

  She recognized the man. And she didn’t like him.

  Which made Clayborn absolutely despise him.

  He stared at the man, memorizing his weaselly face as he touched his cap on his high mount. “Bad luck.”

  None of the trio moved as Lucia’s reply rang out. “Or good, if you’re us.”

  The rider laughed, too loud, and inspected the carriage, his gaze narrowed directly at the place where they hid. He couldn’t see them, Clayborn knew, but Adelaide’s hand tightened into a fist on her thigh.

  He didn’t like that, either. Without thinking, he reached for her, settling his hand over hers. Feeling the tremor there. Nerves.

  He really didn’t like that.

  Lacing his fingers through hers, he held her tightly, wishing they were not wearing gloves, watching her. Waiting for her to look at him. She didn’t, but her grip tightened, and he was grateful for that tiny movement—for the infinitesimal proof that she trusted him . . . at least more than she trusted the newcomer.

  “None of you look like a duke,” the man pointed out.

  Clayborn gritted his teeth. He’d recognized the crest.

  “Nonetheless, they that find, keep,” Lucia said, bold and bright. “This loot is ours; carry on.”

  A pause, while the rider considered his next move—madness, considering Rufus and Tobias were big as houses. Still, it seemed the whole of the assembly held their breath.

  Finally, he rode off, and Clayborn waited for Adelaide to release her breath before he did the same. When she stood, he followed, the urge to keep her safe screaming through him.

  “Adelaide.”

  She shook her head, hearing the question he wanted to ask before it could form. Her reply was soft steel. “No.”

  Lucia came around the edge of the carriage before he could ask for the man’s name. Insist on it. “Let Rufus take you to the Hen,” the highwaywoman said.

  Adelaide adjusted her spectacles. “That’s not necessary. My carriage isn’t five minutes from here.”

  Lucia looked as though she had something to say, her gaze tracking to Clayborn and down to their hands, where their fingers remained intertwined.

  Until Adelaide dropped his like it burned, and he wanted to curse. The whole night was getting away from him.

  Lucia looked to him again. “And Lord Six-Years-at-School-Boxing is your body man?”

  “When was the last time I needed a body man?”

  The other woman gave a little laugh. “You don’t have your girls with you tonight, Adelaide Frampton.” She lifted a chin at Clayborn. “He might be your best bet.”

  He resisted the urge to enumerate The Bully Boys he’d dropped three days earlier. “How much to disappear this carriage?”

  Lucia considered him for a moment. “And the crest?”

  “Especially the crest.”

  She smiled broadly. “Five quid for the carriage. Another ten for the crest.”

  A fortune. “I suppose I’m getting the best of service.”

  “The very best, Your Grace.”

  He reached into his pocket to pay Lucia. “I’m taking the horses. And my bag.”

  She handed the bag off happily. “What do I want with a sack of cravats and a pot of shaving soap, anyway?”

  He turned to Adelaide. “How far to the inn?” He was sure she’d knew precisely where their race ended. Was sure, too, that the people there would welcome her with open arms.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  He nodded, holding back a groan. He needed a bath and a bed and possibly a needle and thread after the leap he’d taken. He did not want another hour on these roads. But he wasn’t about to give these four the satisfaction of acknowledging his weakness.

  “I assume it is rife with people well paid by the Duchess of Trevescan and full of secret passageways for your escape?” At least she had the grace to look chagrined. “Excellent. I shall be right at home. Not to mention prepared for whatever is to come.”

  Having had enough of whatever this madness was, he turned back to Lucia with a quick nod. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Lucia.”

  Her brows rose with an amused smile. “Any friend of Adelaide . . .”

  “He’s not my friend,” she protested.

  “Absolutely not,” Clayborn agreed. “We are at odds.”

  “There, you see?”

  “I’m simply the man she came back to save when she could have disappeared into the night and won the day.”

  Her jaw dropped, and if he weren’t in pain, he might have enjoyed it more. “That’s not—”

  Filing the memory away for later consideration, he hefted his bag over his shoulder, and looked to the men at a distance. “And you two. Thank you for not stealing my horses.”

  Tobias tipped his cap.

  That sorted, Clayborn looked to Adelaide. “Your carriage, if you will, Miss Frampton.”

  There was a beat while everyone realized that the Duke of Clayborn had taken control.

  “I’ll say this—” Lucia began.

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Adelaide cut her off.