A tap on the door at Nicholas’s back had him turning. He opened the door, saw Rory and Young Gillies, and pulled the door wide and waved them in. “What did you find?” Over the grooms’ heads, Nicholas met Dickie’s eyes. “Our grooms and two of the estate’s stablemen have been searching through the town for any sign of the thief.”
When Nicholas looked at Rory and Young Gillies, who had lined up facing their master, mistress, and Dickie, Young Gillies reported, “We couldn’t find anyone who’d seen our thief or the horse.”
“We tried all the other hostelries.” Rory looked at Adriana. “We even woke the master of the jobbing stable to check if the blackguard had thought to stable the horse there, but no.”
Dickie glanced back and forth. “Where was the last sighting?”
Adriana told him. She frowned. “Much as I can’t see it, perhaps the thief went the other way. Toward Lincoln.” She grimaced.
Rory shifted his feet. When the others looked at him, he colored, but doggedly offered, “If he was far enough ahead of us, he might have passed right through Grantham and headed straight on. If he’d timed it right—about dinnertime—it’s a small enough town that, even leading The Barbarian, he might not have been noticed by anyone.”
Dickie hummed in agreement and glanced at Adriana and Nicholas. “One thing I can vouch for is that no man leading The Barbarian passed us as we rode up on the London road. We only got here just over an hour ago, so if the thief had been that far ahead of you and had headed for London, he would have passed us, but I assure you, he didn’t.”
Nicholas nodded. “That’s good to know. Our teeming metropolis is the last place we want the thief to take that horse.”
The clocks about the inn started chiming. They all counted eleven chimes.
Nicholas glanced around the circle. “It’s late, and there’s nothing useful we can accomplish at this time. Let’s get some sleep and meet again over breakfast in here.” He met Adriana’s blue eyes. “We can discuss the next stage of our search and how best to go about it.”
Everyone agreed. Rory and Young Gillies bowed and departed, then Nicholas held the door for Adriana and her brother and followed the pair into the inn’s foyer.
Dickie paused to get a candle from the sleepy-eyed youth now manning the counter, then the three of them turned toward the stairs.
Dickie pointed to the corridor running beside the stairs. “My room’s down there.” He saluted Adriana and Nicholas. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
They murmured goodnights, and Adriana settled the heavy train of her riding habit over her arm and started up the stairs.
Nicholas followed two steps behind, fighting to keep his eyes on the stair treads and away from the enticing hips, sheathed in teal velvet, swaying in front of his face. Their rooms were in the same wing, his closer to the stairs than hers.
She reached the last step and lowered her arm. As she stepped up to the floor of the gallery, her train slid free, and her bootheel snagged in the material, and she pitched forward.
In a family full of ladies who rode, Nicholas had seen the same thing happen so often that he reacted instinctively, leaping up the extra steps and looping one arm about the toppling figure’s waist. He hauled her up against him as he straightened with his boots firmly planted on the gallery floor.
As usually occurred, they ended up breast to chest, pressed tightly together at the head of the stairs.
Not as usual, he wasn’t holding one of his female relatives.
He was holding Miss Flibbertigibbet, whom a large part of him found utterly fascinating.
Her eyes, wide, met his, her gaze captivating.
She’d stopped breathing.
So had he.
Swathed in shadows, with no one else anywhere about—no one likely to interrupt—they stared at each other, transfixed, pulses pounding, while something undeniably primal stirred and swelled and filled the air around them, almost suffocating in its intensity, unspeakably alluring in its promise…
They teetered on that unforeseen, unexpected brink.
For long seconds, neither moved a muscle.
Then Nicholas drew in a slow breath and felt her breasts pressing even more provocatively against his swelling chest.
And in his mind, he heard his sister’s voice.Whatever you have to do, get that horse!
This…wasn’t one of the things he had to do.
Uncertainty prodded, and he eased his hold and took a small but definite step back.
