The shoe disappeared and she blushed, which confirmed that Ned had caught her at something she shouldn't be doing. Probably he ought to have politely pretended not to notice. Sparing her feelings and not calling any attention to it seemed the most chivalrous thing to do. Instead, he found himself grinning at her with a spark of mischief in his eye. Aha! his look seemed to say — the same sort of look his father had used to give him and Nick when they were children and he saw them sneaking out the door of the shop to go adventuring in the alleyway. Maybe it was just that the evening was winding down and he'd run out of patience for polite and bland; maybe it was that she was obviously young and this seemed like such a charmingly harmless blunder for a girl in her first or second season.

"Just exercising the horses for us, hm?" he quipped, as he walked through to where she'd indicated and took a look. It was indeed their carriage, which resolved one mystery — the next one being where hers was.

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