He steered the pair of blacks he was managing into Avenue Road. Both the coachman and James peered ahead.

“Yep-that’s them,” the coachman said. “But they’re a way ahead of us now.”

Given the blacks were Cynster horses, Breckenridge wasn’t worried about how far ahead their quarry got. “Just as long as we keep them in sight.”

As it transpired, that was easier said than done. It wasn’t the blacks that slowed them but the plodding beasts drawing the seven conveyances that got between them and the traveling coach. While rolling along the narrow carriageways through the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis, past Cricklewood through to Golders Green there was nowhere Breckenridge could pass. They managed to keep the coach in sight long enough to feel certain that it was, indeed, heading up the Great North Road, but by the time they reached High Barnet with the long stretch of Barnet Hill beyond, they’d lost sight of it.

Inwardly cursing, Breckenridge turned into the yard of the Barnet Arms, a major posting inn and one at which he was well known. Halting the carriage, to the coachman and James he said, “Ask up and down the road-see if you can find anyone who saw the coach, if they changed horses, any information.”

Both men scrambled down and went. Breckenridge turned to the ostlers who’d come hurrying to hold the horses’ heads. “I need a curricle and your best pair-where’s your master?”

Half an hour later, he parted from the coachman and James. They’d found several people who’d seen the coach, which had stopped briefly to change horses at the Scepter and Crown. The coach had continued north along the highway.

“Here.” Breckenridge handed the coachman a note he’d scribbled while he’d waited for them to return. “Give that to Lord Martin as soon as you can.” Lord Martin Cynster was Heather’s father. “If for any reason he’s not available, get it to one of Miss Cynster’s brothers, or, failing them, to St. Ives.” Breckenridge knew Devil was in town, but he was less certain of the others’ whereabouts.