She turned and offered him a strained smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Are you serious?” Alex wasn’t referring to her guise of ignorance so much as her ridiculous use of the phrase, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” when they clearly both knew she was lying.
“Of course I’m not serious,” she responded calmly. “I am merely trying to be polite.”
“What the devil for?”
“I rather like you, that’s what for, and while I can’t depart a secret that is not my own, I thought I might at least explain as much in civil terms.”
Alex felt his fists clench tightly at his side. He took a deep breath and made sure his words came out even and calm. Mirabelle didn’t respond well to intimidation or threats. “I like you very well too, Mirabelle. I’m also rather fond of Sophie. In fact, we’re both fond of Sophie. So, why don’t we—why are you shaking your head at me?”
“I’m not going to tell you where Sophie is. I can’t. I gave her my word.”
Alex decided a forward tactic might work best. “She may be in danger, Mirabelle.”
That certainly caught her attention. She looked at him askance. “May?”
“Is, is in danger. I’m certain of it.” Certain that she could be in danger, traveling alone. Absolutely positive she would be in danger once he got his hands on her. “So, please—”
“What sort of danger?” she asked, narrowing her eyes even further.
“The dangerous sort!” he snapped, suddenly beginning to see what Whit had been complaining about all these years.
She tilted her head suspiciously. “As in the ‘female walking unescorted for half a block in broad daylight, in a respectable neighborhood’ sort of danger, or ‘the ship is sinking and—’”
“The second sort, Mirabelle!” Alex cut in, exasperated.
Mirabelle studied his face for an agonizing ten seconds, and Alex was torn between admiration for her loyalty to a friend and the nearly irresistible urge to shake her until she started talking. The latter was a mere second away from winning out when she finally sighed and said, “She’s gone to London.”
“What! Why?”
“Keep your voice down. You can ask her that yourself. There are only so many promises I’m willing to break in one night.”
“Right.” He turned to leave.
“Alex? You might consider waiting for her at her town house. It’s not the only place she could possibly be headed, but it seems sensible she might stop at her own home. Don’t you think?”
Alex grinned—he couldn’t help himself. He turned back and dropped a quick kiss on Mirabelle’s forehead. “Thank you.”
She smiled grimly. “Just bring her back safely. I’ll not have broken my word for nothing.”
He gave her a reassuring nod and then took off down the hall at a dead run.
Whit is an idiot, he decided. Mirabelle Browning is a lovely girl.
Alex and Whit saddled their horses themselves. Not only was it faster and quieter than asking for help, it also gave Alex something to do other than worry. He couldn’t allow himself to think about all the harrowing things that could happen to a woman between here and London. All the things that could happen to her in London. All the added danger she might face being cousin to a suspected traitor.
Later he would let himself feel. For the moment, panic at her disappearance and self-recrimination at his failure to keep her safe and sound at Haldon would only serve to distract him.
“I can’t believe she broke your nose,” he commented. He couldn’t conceive of a more effective, or enjoyable, way of distracting himself than tormenting his friend. “That must be a first.”
“No ith nod,” Whit grumbled. “Rememba da billiardth ball?”
“Good Lord, I had forgotten. Who would have thought the girl had such a fine aim?”
“Obwiously not I, or I woud hab mobed.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Moooobed. Em. Oh. Bee…you’re endjoying dith, awent you?”
Alex adjusted a stirrup and smirked. “Immensely.”
“Bathard.”
“Come again?”
Whit responded with a vulgar gesture.
Alex moved to the other stirrup. “You shouldn’t have let her jump out that window, you know. She could have been seriously hurt.”
“I wood hab liked to thee you twy and thop her.”
“She didn’t know about the bookcase door?”
Whit shook his head, then groaned and gingerly prodded at his nose.
“Amazing, I would have thought she knew every nook and cranny of Haldon Hall by now.”
Whit grunted noncommittally. “How did you find oud aboud Thophia?”
Alex grinned. “Mirabelle told me.”