The accent was distinctly that of London’s East End.

“ ’Tis ‘paid,’ not ‘pyed,’” a more cultured, urbane voice said tiredly, “as I’ve told you many times. And, yes, we may hope we have. Naturally, the more places we stop at, the better. We shall have to go farther afield, of course.”

“They can’t miss ’em, Guv, the gentry mort and ’im—who is ’e, Guv? I’d loikes to get me ’ands on ’im, I would. Damned arm hurts,” he added, putting his hand up to his arm, where a rough bandage was tied. Good, Charles thought. So he had got one of them, after all.

“I’ve no idea. We must soon find out, however, else all will go wrong. ”

“Eh, I don’t like to think of what ’e’ll do when ’e learns of this.”

Into Charles’s view came two broad-chested horses. His eyes narrowed. Good horses for large carriages, he thought, just as one nickered and stepped toward the trees where he and Serena hid. He could not see the rider, but the quality of his clothes—his boots did, indeed, have a high gloss—proved him to be the more cultured of the two.

“Back, you,” he said now, and Charles could tell from the way the horse sidled that his reins had been pulled hard. “Indeed, no. We must control this situation before he hears of it, else ’twill go hard on us.”

“Don’t trust ’im a bit, all’s said and done. ’E’d see us floatin’ in the river.”

“Indeed.” The man called Guv sounded thoughtful. “What would you suggest, then, Alf?”

“Think we thinks how to take care o’ ourselves.”

“Indeed,” Guv said. The rest of his answer was indistinct as the horse passed farther along the road, and then faded.

Only when the road was absolutely peaceful did Serena raise her head. “They’re gone?” she whispered.

“Yes. Who the hell are they?” Charles said, and abruptly realized that he’d been swearing since meeting Lady Serena, for all the world as if he were still with his troops. But then, in some ways, this was like being in the army.

“I don’t know.”

“And who is this ‘he’ they keep talking about? No, don’t get up yet,” he added, as she began to rise, and again realized something. He had been holding her close to his side since they’d gone to ground. She felt absolutely right there, and that was so disconcerting that he almost wanted to push her away. She was under his protection, he reminded himself, and not in the sense that gentlemen usually used that word, for their mistresses. He had to keep her safe.

“When Guv’s horse came toward us—”

“Odd.”

“What?”

“I named him ‘Guv’, too.”

For a moment they gazed at each other, and then she looked away. “Not so very strange, really,” she went on. “ ’Tis the only thing Alf ever calls him, to my knowledge.”

“Hm. One man was protected, and one wasn’t.” One man was more important to the plot, whatever it was, than the other. Yet both seemed to feel they were in danger. Men in danger, it was his experience, tended to do dangerous things. What worried him was what they had been doing along here.