But Ewan hadn’t cared about the French spy. He cared about Lorraine and now, on the second day of the search, the hours seemed to fly by. It was almost dusk, and Jasper still hadn’t found where Lorraine was being held. In the wooded area where they tromped through damp leaves and ducked under low branches, the light faded quickly.
In front of them, Jasper held up a hand, then dismounted. Ewan’s arse was sore from sitting in the saddle all day, and he dismounted as well. But before he could follow Jasper into a cluster of trees, Neil stepped in front of him.
“Crowding him won’t find her any faster.”
“What if I thump him on top of the head?” Ewan asked.
Neil gave him a wry smile. “Also not helpful.” He placed a hand on Ewan’s shoulder. “Jasper will find her. He always finds his man—or in this case, woman.”
Ewan looked at the sky, a mottled gray through the canopy of branches.
“There’s still time,” Neil said.
“Only a few hours, and we have no rescue plan, no visual on the prisoner’s location.”
“The rescue plan is my mission. I think fast. That’s why you wanted me here. Jasper tracks. That’s why you wanted him. Let us do our jobs.”
Ewan blew out a breath of frustration. Neil was right. But that didn’t stop the clawing panic scratching away inside Ewan’s chest. What if she was injured? What if her captors had abused her or killed her? Yes, the note claimed she hadn’t been hurt, but once the men had the money, there was nothing to stop them from running. Nothing to force them to return Lady Lorraine.
Jasper walked back to where Ewan and Neil stood. “Some cull came through here recently. I don’t know if it was the rogues we’re after, but the odds are strong.”
Odds. Ewan scowled. He didn’t want odds. He wanted Lorraine back in his arms—rather, the arms of her family.
“What’s nearby?” Neil asked. “Where might they be heading?”
Jasper stared into the distance and thought about it. Ewan’s hand itched to thump him—just once—on the head. Maybe he’d think a little faster. As though reading his mind, Neil gave him a narrow-eyed stare.
“There’s an estate about two miles north. I forget what nob it belongs to—an earl, I think. He bled a lot of money on a canal scheme—”
“The Marquess of Wight,” Neil supplied. “He invested all his money in a canal scheme in Birmingham, where he owns property with…” Neil scratched his head. “Was it limestone deposits or some mineral?”
“Iron ore, I thought,” Jasper said.
Ewan growled low in his throat. Jasper gave him an odd look.
“Whatever it was,” Neil said with a warning glance at Ewan, “the locals opposed the canal, and the scheme failed.”
Ewan pointed in the direction Jasper had indicated he saw tracks. “Go.”
Jasper and Neil ignored him.
“He’s been living in Town for the last few years,” Neil said. “Not enough blunt to keep up the country estate.”
“Wight House.”
Neil smiled. “Clever.”
“If he was clever, he wouldn’t have sunk all his yellow boys into a canal scheme.”
“Can we discuss canals later?” Ewan demanded.
“In any case,” Neil said, holding a hand up when Ewan looked like he wanted to interrupt again. “His lack of funds means Wight House has been closed up for some time.”
Impatient for the conversation to cease, Ewan wandered to the patch of leaves that had so interested Jasper. He saw nothing indicating anyone had passed this way.
“A good place to plant yourself if you don’t want to be found,” Jasper said, coming up behind Ewan. He pointed to a broken twig. “There. See it?”
Ewan grunted. It was a broken twig. A fox or a deer or a boar might have broken it.
“And there.” Jasper pointed to a bush, apparently seeing a sign Ewan didn’t. “Some cull came this way. We follow the trail and see if they’re still nearby.”
Finally, someone was talking sense. He walked back to his horse and prepared to mount, but Neil shook his head. “Jasper says the estate is about two miles from here. Better to leave the horses. They make too much noise, and we don’t want anyone to know we’re coming.”
Ewan took a slow breath. Neil had a point, but it would mean hobbling the horses, and that would be yet another delay.
“Since we’ve stopped, we should pull out the grub,” Jasper suggested.
“No food.”
This time Ewan caught the smile Neil and Jasper exchanged and realized he’d walked right into that one.
As Neil went about unloading the packs from the horses and securing them, he kept up a steady conversation with Jasper, who, despite Ewan’s injunction, had pulled out an apple and munched on it. Ewan ignored them, taking what he’d need for the walk out of his pack.
He stood, arms crossed and booted foot tapping, as Neil took his bloody sweet time. Neil glanced at him once. “Never seen him like this. Have you?”
Jasper glanced at Ewan, and he realized they’d been discussing him.
“Can’t say that I have. I thought he would throw me onto the saddle this morning.”
“Your life has been in danger more than once today,” Neil said. “Do you think he’s that loyal to Ridlington?”
Jasper pretended to consider. Ewan rolled his eyes at the way Jasper rubbed at the stubble on his chin in mock thought. He should have thrown the man over his saddle this morning. Maybe he would have landed on his head and sense would have been knocked into him.
“I don’t think it’s the duke who has him so out of sorts,” Jasper said.
“I am not out of sorts.”
“Well, you’re not…in sorts,” Neil remarked. “Why does no one ever say ‘in sorts’? Wouldn’t that be the converse of out of sorts?”
“The converse would be sorted out,” Jasper declared. “Out of sorts implies a cove is all muddled.”
Ewan started for Jasper. “I’ll muddle you if you don’t bloody lead us on this invisible trail in three seconds.”
“Definitely out of sorts,” Jasper said, then ducked when Ewan threw a punch.
“And discombobulated,” Neil remarked. “There is only one power known to man that inflicts so much disruption.”
Jasper rubbed a hand on his chin again. Ewan wanted to break it. “Volcano?”
“Woman.” Neil raised his brows at Ewan. “I’d wager it’s not the duke Ewan is concerned about, it’s the duke’s daughter.”
“Obviously,” Ewan said. “She’s the one abducted.”
“And you wish to save her because…”
“I don’t want her harmed. Can we walk?”
“That time in Egypt, when I was taken by Turkish soldiers.” Neil threw his pack over his shoulder, which Ewan considered a good sign. “You didn’t want me harmed, but no one said you threatened violence while Lord Phineas took a week to bribe half the local sheik’s men.”
“You aren’t as pretty as Lady Lorraine,” Jasper said, starting in the direction of Wight House.
Finally! Ewan wanted to scream.
“No one but Beaumont is that pretty.”
Ewan rounded on Neil. “Don’t insult the lady.”
“Then I take it you consider her prettier than Beaumont?”
Ewan said nothing.
“Does she kiss better than Beaumont?” Neil asked.
“How the hell would I know? I never kissed Beaumont.”
“But you have kissed Lady Lorraine.” Jasper paused and looked over his shoulder.
Ewan didn’t say a word. He knew a trap when he saw it—even if he was already snared.