The minx, having taken it into her head Lo run off again, had somehow managed to induce a passing band of gypsies to take her with them. For which the poor fools were more to be pitied than condemned, Justin reflected, having had past experience of his ward's seemingly uncanny ability to persuade supposedly reasonable men to do her bidding. After calming the hysterical Miss Chevington, who stated quite categorically that she wanted no more to do with Miss Kinkead, earl's ward or no, Justin had set out in pursuit of the gypsies. He had come upon them after a day's hard riding, only to discover that Megan had run away from them, too, after determining that life with the gypsies was not quite as she had imagined it.

Justin was as alarmed as was angry (well, almost!) to think of her jaunting about the countryside alone and unprotected, but as he followed her trail, anger gradually gained the upper hand. It was not long before he deduced that she was headed toward Ireland, and seemed blithely prepared to take up with any chance-met stranger who offered her a ride. He supposed he should be thankful that she had made no apparent effort to cover her tracks. Wherever he went, everyone from hostlers to proper farm-wives remembered the "pretty little miss, so sweet and well spoken, and traveling on her own like," and were able to tell him in which direction she had set off. Justin could not quite believe that she did not expect to be pursued, so he could only conclude that the thought of being followed, and eventually overtaken, with all the accompanying consequences, bothered her not at all. The thought made Justin's jaw clench.

In the past it had been Charles Stanton who was sent to repair the damage wrought by the little witch, and no doubt Megan expected Stanton to be the one who came after her, to take her back to school, as he had twice before. But this time would be different. It was time to teach her a lesson she would never forget. The girl had been an irritant ever since that day, twelve years before, when Richard, his feckless younger brother, had drowned along with Moira, his appalling mistake of a wife, when a packet taking them from Liverpool to Dublin had sunk.