Free Forbidden to Love the Duke by Jillian Hunter Page A

hands.
    Ivy would have done the same had she not reared back and fallen hard to the cobbles. A crowd drew around her, preventing her from getting to her feet. The driver jumped down to the curb and instructed his companion to move the phaeton from the flow of traffic. As his long brown hair swung against his face, Ivy braced herself for a public scolding.
    Instead, he looked her over for obvious injuries andshook his head in consternation. Ivy wished he would speak his piece and allow her to disappear. She was famished, weak, and worried sick because Rue was acting oddly, and Ivy suspected that her behavior was not due only to the sold pearls.
    The gentleman standing before her spoke in a museful voice. “I almost hit you.” He grasped her by the wrist and helped her to rise.
    â€œIt was my fault, sir,” she said, shaking out her skirt.
    He glanced past her to the pawnbroker’s shop. “I shall write a sonnet to you. What is your name?”
    Ivy studied him. She could hardly hear what he was saying for all the chatter that had arisen. “What in the world is he wearing?” she whispered to the kind matron who was brushing off Ivy’s cloak. “That long coat and ruffled shirt look like the castoffs of a pirate captain.”
    â€œOh, no. He pays a fortune for his wardrobe on Bond Street,” the matron assured her. “It’s essential for an artist of his standing to represent the romantic without appearing to try. He gives me palpitations.”
    â€œIs he an actor?” Ivy asked.
    â€œI am a poet, my dear,” the gentleman answered, apparently amused by this conversation. “You must be from the country not to recognize me.”
    At last, a constable arrived, and the poet’s admirers broke apart. Ivy looked about for an avenue of escape and spotted Rue, waving to her from their carriage. She was laughing helplessly at Ivy’s predicament, a welcome state compared to her earlier despondency.
    Still, Ivy couldn’t help noticing that Rue seemed to be stealing glimpses of people in the street as if she were searching for someone she knew.
    But Rue didn’t have any friends in London. At leastnone that Ivy was aware of. She couldn’t be looking for an acquaintance, unless, against all odds, she had met someone during the night. Her sister in a rendezvous with a stranger? Never. Rue chased away callers from Fenwick.
    *   *   *
    Sir Oliver Linton found it disconcerting that a lady would ignore him in public. The unfortunate woman appeared unaware of his fame. In this case, however, perhaps it was for the best. Upon reflection, he decided that being seen entering a pawnbroker’s shop did not enhance his reputation, and so he drove about for a good half hour before he parked, leaving his adoring passenger to manage for herself. Alone, he walked back, his head bowed, to the shop he frequented more and more these days.
    The pawnbroker did not glance up at his entrance. “Good afternoon,” Oliver said with false cheer. “Any steals today?”
    â€œFor me or for you, sir?”
    Oliver approached the counter, his gaze lighting on the strand of pearls laid out by the man’s gnarled hands. “Are those genuine?”
    â€œYes,” was the curt reply. The pawnbroker rubbed a soft cloth over the necklace and slipped it into a bag. “A sad transaction, though.”
    â€œI’m no judge of jewelry, but that necklace appears to be very old. Did it belong, by any chance, to the lady in the gray cloak I noticed outside?”
    The pawnbroker looked up steadily. “It was her last valuable possession, or so she believes.”
    Oliver laid his elbow on the counter. The pawnbroker nudged it off. “Is hers a tragic tale?”
    â€œAs you shall never meet, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. She lives far from here in an old manor. As legend goes, in days past, a royal visitor to the house hid a