Still swearing under his breath, Ro headed for the inn’s main door.

“My lord-your breakfast…?”

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” Ro growled. “You can serve me then. In the damn parlor!”

Pushing through the front door, he paused for an instant on the stoop to gauge the condition of the lane, then stepped down and, avoiding the worst of the churned morass of mud, picked his way across to the verge bordering the wood.

Once on the sodden grass, on firmer footing, he turned left and jogged in the opposite direction to which Lydia had gone.

She wasn’t going to Buckworth; as she’d no doubt discovered yesterday, a rarely used rear drive from Upton Grange joined the lane just a little way along. Ro knew of it because he’d used that approach on the many occasions he’d driven down from Gerrard Park to visit his fellow notorious hellion, Stephen Barham, during the days of his misspent youth.

Now Lord Alconbury, unlike Ro, Barham hadn’t reformed. Indeed, if the rumors were correct, he’d sunk even deeper into debauchery.

Ro estimated that by now Lydia would be nearing the house. He had to reach her quickly, which was why he was making for the more direct path Barham and his male guests used to visit the inn.

Reaching the path, he turned up it. Overhanging trees had protected it from the worst of the storm, but it was still slippery; striding, jogging, running whenever he could, he tried not to think of Lydia being found by Barham’s men and dragged inside to face their master-or potentially worse, being discovered sneaking about the house by one of Barham’s lecherous male guests.

Passing through a clearing, he squinted up at the sky. Overcast though it was, it nevertheless confirmed that the hour was, as he’d thought, a ridiculously early one for him-or any of his ilk-to be awake, let alone about. He doubted it was yet seven o’clock.

Lips tight, he dived into the woods beyond the clearing, the last band of trees before the lawns surrounding the house. He slowed as he reached the edge of the trees. Upton Grange lay before him, a squat gray stone pile with few redeeming features, placed in the center of an open expanse. Judging by the overgrown state of the lawns, Barham wasn’t as plump in the pocket as he once had been.

Behind the leaded windows, Ro caught glimpses of movement, both on the ground floor and on the floor above, in the bedchambers assigned to guests, and even, he noted, in the master suite.

Inwardly snorting, unsurprised, hands on his hips, Ro looked around, searching along the tree line. Catching his breath, conscious of his heart thudding-knowing it wasn’t from exertion alone-he prayed Lydia hadn’t been so foolish as to go up to the house.

Finding no sign of her, he debated, then started to follow the trees around the house, keeping sufficiently back under their cover so that no one glancing out from the house would see him. He headed toward the rear drive, quietly searching.

He glimpsed her through the trees from some distance away. The relief that washed through him was shocking. Jaw clenching, he circled around to come up behind her. She was standing just inside the tree line, well-wrapped in a blue pelisse, her furled umbrella held before her, her hands folded over the handle as she stared at the house.

Her expression suggested she was supremely irritated.

Lydia literally leapt when hard fingers closed about her elbow. Yet even before she’d swung to face Ro, she’d known it was he; he was the only man whose touch could reduce her to breathlessness in less than a second.

His face was set, utterly immobile; his gray eyes were hard. “Come away.” He turned and proceeded to drag her-haul her-deeper into the woods, away from the house.

“No!” she hissed. She tried to dig in her heels.

His next tug very nearly lifted her off her feet, reminding her how strong he was-deliberately, she had not a doubt. She narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn’t stop her feet from stumbling in his wake. “Ro-I warned you-”

“There’s nothing you can do at present.” He didn’t even glance at her. “No need to stand there waiting for someone to notice you.”

She glanced back at the house, rapidly receding behind the screen of trees. She frowned, faced forward, and reluctantly started walking of her own accord. He eased his grip on her arm; he didn’t let her go but shortened his stride to match hers. His hold on her arm was now more to steady her over the rough ground than anything else.

Frown deepening, still puzzled, she said, “I thought they’d still be asleep-that I could slip inside and start searching while everyone was still abed. Who would have thought they’d be up so early?”

Ro gritted his teeth. “They’re not up early. They haven’t yet gone to bed.” Or, at least, not to their own beds. Not to sleep.

Lydia glanced at him, then her frown was erased by dawning comprehension. “Oh,” she said, and looked ahead.

“Oh, indeed.” Ro told himself to stop talking; instead he heard himself say, “Can you imagine what would have happened if you’d gone waltzing into that?” The likely outcome didn’t bear thinking about.

She sniffed and elevated her nose. “I’m perfectly aware that Barham’s entertainments are popularly described as being one step away from an orgy.”

“One step away…?” His incredulous tone would have done credit to Kean. Gripping her elbow more tightly, he swung her onto the path to the inn, instinctively steadying her as she teetered on her pattens. “For your information”-he bit the words off-“there is no such thing as being ‘one step away from an orgy.’ You either have an orgy, or you don’t-there are no shades of gray when it comes to orgies. And you may take it from one who knows, Barham’s entertainments very definitely qualify as orgies.”

He felt her sidelong glance, then she looked ahead.

“You’re trying to scare me.”

“Am I succeeding?”

“I’m going to search Upton Grange for Tab’s letter-you might as well accept that. I won’t change my mind.”

They strode along the path in silence.

A silence that seemed full of whirling thoughts, plans, hopes, emotions; Lydia wasn’t sure what, but she could feel the atmosphere between them thickening with every step.

She’d dreamed of him last night. For the first time in years, he’d come to her in that shadowy world, a figure conjured by her heart, by her deepest yearnings. That, of itself, was hardly surprising; she’d dreamed of him for more years than she cared to count, just not recently. But what had unsettled her about this latest dream was that he had no longer been the twenty-two-year-old who had stolen her heart with just one innocent kiss in an orchard; last night, he’d been as he now was-and his kiss had been anything but innocent.

With a wrench, she hauled her mind from reliving the dream; if she did, she’d blush, and he-far too quick where she was concerned-would see, and very likely guess the cause.

The mortification she would feel didn’t bear dwelling on; she’d much rather walk in on a full-blown orgy.

Apropos of which…She glanced at him. “When would be the best time to search Barham’s house? The best time today.”

His face was already set; it couldn’t get any harder. They reached the lane; he turned her along the grassy verge, heading back to the inn. “Later. Early afternoon is usually quietest. The guests are all abed, and the staff have cleaned up, and are back behind the green baize door resting before the evening rush.”

She nodded; that made sense. “Very well. I’ll go back then-”

“No. You won’t.” Ro halted. They’d reached a point opposite the inn; the muddy river of the road lay between them and the front step. He met her gaze. “I’ll go. I know the house. I know where Barham’s most likely to keep any notes of hand.”

She looked up at him, entirely fearlessly, as she always had. Studied him in that calm, collected way of hers; then, it seemed, she looked inward.