Regency: Mischief & Marriage: Secret Heiress / Bartered Bride. Anne Herries

finger. He thought the inscriptions were identical, though he could not be certain the same person had commissioned them. It was perfectly possible that two different individuals had asked for a similar inscription—and yet in a certain position there was a definite likeness.

      When Daniel held up the marquis’s coach, his first thought had been that she was on her way to become Cheadle’s mistress. Eliza had denied it. Her ring came from her mother. The marquis was merely doing her employer a favour by conveying her in his coach. He had accepted her explanation and given the coincidence of the rings no further thought. Now he had begun to wonder.

      Was it possible that Eliza was Cheadle’s bastard? She was not so like Marianne Cheadle that it struck you immediately, but for a moment in the sunlight he had seen a likeness.

      It was possible that he had stumbled on the truth. It was also possible that the marquis had recommended his bastard to a friend as a companion.

      So who was her mother? Eliza said the ring was all she had of her mother. Daniel frowned as he puzzled over the mystery. Her parents had been happy together. Obviously her father could not have known his wife had conceived a child by another man… or was he making a mountain out of a molehill?

      Daniel smiled at the foolish notion. Of course Eliza was not Cheadle’s bastard, though if she were… it crossed his mind that he might use the information as blackmail. He dismissed the idea instantly. He still had Cheadle’s ring, but in the morning he would return it and discover what the marquis had to say concerning his cousin Marcus’s suspicious death.