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By nine the spies had returned to the club. It was the first time they’d returned since the night of Jane Fawkener’s kidnapping. They lit fires and candles in the vast coffee room, and now had sandwiches and coffee to sustain them. After serving them with Miranda’s help, Wilde had slipped away to sit with the girl and her father above Kirby’s shop. Goldsworthy had deigned to join them.

“Well, lads,” Goldsworthy said, “we’ve had a triumph today.”

“Will Chartwell think so?” Hazelwood asked. Chartwell in the Foreign Office ultimately controlled the purse strings for all of them.

Goldsworthy nodded. With his size he took up an entire sofa. “It’s a promising step in getting our operation going again. And with...”

“With?” Blackstone prompted.

Goldsworthy waved one of his great hands in the air. “Never mind. You lot have done well. You’ve done your duty. It’s time to put down your weapons. A year and a day. That’s the term of service England asked of you, and you gave it in full measure. A man should do no more.”

He frowned, and for a moment looked weary. “Any longer and a man changes, loses himself,” he said. He heaved himself up from his couch.

“Mountjoy,” he said to Harry. “You’ll be off tomorrow?”

“I will,” Harry agreed. In the morning he would begin his new life. He had a brother to bury and an estate to reclaim from ruin. In time, he supposed, duty and work would fade his memories of a golden girl with laughter in her eyes.

The blacksmith Will Wittering had stood in the crowd in the inn common room, watching Harry’s departure. If Wittering had an ounce of patience in his nature, he would bide his time and wait for the rhythms of the Tooth and Nail to draw Lucy back into her old life. Compared to Brook Street the inn might look shabby, but compared to Mountjoy, it was a palace.

* * * *

The day after Mountjoy again walked out of her life was a beef day, wet and windy outside and smelling of Mrs. Vell’s roast inside. The inn door banged frequently as neighbors and strangers alike came to view the broken Waterloo case and hear one of the bench sitters tell the tale of Geoffrey Radcliffe’s dramatic end. Little groups gathered in the entry looking down at the common room, with John Simkins or Will Wittering pointing to the spot where the rich man had died.

She sat with Adam on the bench. She gave him silver to polish, but his hands fell idle every few minutes as if he’d forgotten his work. He cocked his head to listen to the talk whenever Harry Clare’s name was mentioned. When Adam began to doze, she led him back to his bed. He lay down willingly, and she set Hannah to watch over him. The girl had not fully recovered from the fright of the day before, and Lucy gave her mending to keep her busy.

She retreated to her own room to write some necessary letters to her friends and to her uncle, explaining her discovery of her mother’s name and background, and telling them firmly and lovingly that her new knowledge did not alter the fixed attachments of her heart. In her letter to her uncle she mentioned that she had in her possession a painting of her mother, and should he wish to visit the inn, he would be most welcome to see it.

She looked at the laughing lady on her wall, her mother, with new eyes now. She was, after all, a spy, and Lucy was a spy’s daughter. You and I, she told the lady in the picture, must become better acquainted.

She folded her letters and sealed them. She understood Harry Clare, Mountjoy, better now. He had not abandoned the idea of marrying her because he thought an innkeeper’s daughter beneath him, but rather because he thought the proprietress of a thriving inn could look higher in life than a spy and the ruined son of a disreputable earl.

The second day of her life apart from Harry Clare she woke to a regular snowstorm with whirling flakes. It was a pork day.

On the third day another heavy fall of snow in the night had silenced the birds. Lamb again. And a second proposal from Will Wittering.

In the end the husband hunter must choose one gentleman. She must put to rest all other possibilities for her happiness. In that moment of declaring her acceptance of a gentleman’s proposal, she seems to be making a momentous choice that fixes her identity as the wife of a particular man. It appears that she is no longer to be Miss Potential, but Lady Defined. Yet the truth of her choosing is really quite different. Dozens of handsome, witty, charming men will remain in London. She will be as lovely and captivating herself with a ring on her finger as she was before her wedding day. The moment she chooses her husband is but the first time she chooses him. Far from ending the necessity of choosing, that day commits her to a path on which she must choose him again and again all the days of their life together.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 24

Harry opened the inn door at that quiet hour before the afternoon stage arrived. Cold air swirled behind him, warmth met him. He stood in the shadows of the entrance landing, breathing Mrs. Vell’s roast, snow on his hat and greatcoat. He glanced at the Waterloo case. The broken glass had been replaced, and his old sword returned to its place. The last battle had been won.

Across the room Adam sat on his bench, his head tilted toward the open door, alert as a sentry. Beside the old man Lucy reached a hand to recall him to his task. Harry took a moment to watch her unobserved. Then he shook the snow from his hat and coat and hung them on the familiar hook. It was time to claim his love.

First he had to pass through the common room and the tap. One of the few bench sitters spotted him at the foot of the stairs and gave a shout.

Lucy lifted her head from the needlework in her lap. He met her gaze, and the cold of the journey left him.

The bench sitters rose to surround him and shake his hand or clap him on the back. He let them buy him a drink, surprised at how at ease he felt in their company. He was home now.

“Do you make a long stay this time, Captain?”

He nodded. He did not correct them about his title. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. He put his ale cup on the bar and crossed to where Lucy and Adam sat.

“Hello, Adam, it’s Harry,” he said.

“You like your ale very dark, Captain,” Adam replied.