Free Knaves' Wager by Loretta Chase

is odd."
    He stepped away from her towards Lord and Lady Enders, and stopped the latter as she was about to enter the carriage.
    Lilith saw him whisper something to Matthew and gesture towards the coachman. At that moment, to her very great surprise, the coachman toppled sideways onto the seat.
    "What the devil is wrong with the fellow?" Matthew tried.
    Lord Brandon inspected the head dangling over the coach seat. "Drunk, it looks like," he said coolly.
    "Drunk?" the others chorused.
    "I am sorry to say the man reeks of gin." The marquess retreated a few steps from the head, and turned back to Matthew. "He will not recover for many hours, I'm afraid. May I offer my own carriage as substitute? Ezra has taken a vow of abstinence from strong spirits, and the vehicle is commodious. What good fortune," he added, with the barest flicker of a glance at Lilith. "My curricle is in pieces, or else I should have taken it and been unable to accommodate you."
    After making the obligatory objections to inconveniencing his lordship and receiving the obligatory chivalrous responses, the three climbed into his carriage and were quickly on their way.
    Lord and Lady Enders promptly began to quarrel regarding Nathan's future. The lady insisted he be turned off at once without a character. The lord, being more forbearing, was all for a sound scold, a signed oath of abstinence, and a second chance.
    Lord Brandon pointing out the merit of both sides of the debate, it continued at full spate during the entire journey.
    Lilith was too painfully conscious of a dove-grey wool-encased knee three inches from her own to formulate any opinions, let alone give voice to them. The knee was giving her a headache.
    Thus it happened that Lord and Lady Enders were deposited at their front door before they knew it, and Lord Brandon's carriage had travelled merrily down the street and was turning the corner before Rachel realised what had happened.
    "Good heavens!" she cried, interrupting her spouse mid-harangue. "He is alone with Lilith — in a closed carriage!"
    It was a curious circumstance that the loss of two passengers rendered the vehicle more confined than it had been, as though the masculine presence opposite Lilith possessed the power to expand to fill all available space.
    She quickly thrust this fancy aside and tried to quell her rising anxiety. There was nothing in taking Rachel and Matthew home first, she told herself. The coachman had merely taken the shortest route, and certainly he seemed in a hurry, for they'd arrived at Enders House precipitately. Which was just as well. Lilith was eager to be home, to lay her throbbing head upon her pillow. She would travel in greater comfort and doubtless arrive more swiftly than she would have in the Enderses' coach.
    She had scarcely formulated the thought when the carriage began to abate its spanking pace. Lilith glanced out the window.
    "I do not believe this is the correct turning,'' she said. "This is South Audley Street."
    "And you are alarmed. Perhaps I mean to abduct you and hold you for ransom.''
    She suppressed a gasp, and instantly took refuge from anxiety in anger. "You would get precious little, as you well know, my lord," she snapped. "While we are on the subject — "
    "Of abduction?"
    "Of money — "
    "I did not know that was our topic. I hope not. It is exceedingly dull."
    "I am a dull person, as I have mentioned before. My man of business tells me your representative refuses to discuss terms of repayment."
    "Yes, and I wish you would stop plaguing them both, Mrs. Davenant. It hints of a disordered mind, not to mention a woeful want of consideration for poor Mr. Higginbottom."
    "He is well paid to engage in such work."
    "Another lamentable waste of your resources. Really, your affairs are in such a muddle it is a wonder the man hasn't hanged himself — or that you haven't been deposited in the King's Bench already. Did your previous agent not do sufficient damage? Or was his disease