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“Haven’t I already? Your first scheme would never have succeeded without the distraction I provided.” She lifted her hand from his ribs. “Help me up. I don’t want to inflict any more damage on your person.”

He put his hands to her waist and shifted her to a spot on the sofa beside him. She jumped up at once.

“Saline draft?”

He accepted the cup she offered, frowned at it, and tossed it down. She was smart. She knew London society more intimately than he did. And she was not faint of heart. “What are you willing to do to help?”

“Do you mean like leaping from a battlement or hiding with a dead man in his shroud?” She took the seat facing him. Her insubstantial gown was made of muslin trimmed with ribbon as green and golden as her eyes. He could not look away from the merry gleam of relish in those eyes.

“More like observing closely, listening to talk that you’re not meant to hear, and creating distractions.”

“No visits to noxious prisons or encounters with armed villains?” she asked.

“I can’t promise.” Maybe the saline solution was working. The day seemed brighter and his aches less noticeable.

“What can you tell me?”

“A guest at Lady Ravenhurst’s party left with some gloves in his pocket, the gloves in which I found one of Lord Ravenhurst’s missing papers. That guest went directly to the club where Phil and I went last night.”

“So you went to see the place?”

“To see who meets whom there.”

“You think someone from fashionable society is guilty of giving away British information? To whom?”

“Russian agents. There was a fellow, a Count Malikov. Did you ever meet him?”

“Of course. He went everywhere. He was too perfectly amiable for me. I thought he must be the sort who would stab you in the back if he saw a chance.”

“He was. He also had a group of informants feeding him documents, some of whom apparently remain active.”

“Where is Malikov now?”

“In a cell. Not talking, apparently. Waiting for his government to extricate him.”

“So, if someone has stolen papers for Malikov, what does he do?”

“Gets desperate. Tries to find another taker for the papers. Makes a mistake.”

She fell silent, studying the items on the tray. “A person with stolen papers can’t exactly hawk them like a pie seller with his cart. You’ve already thought of that, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “The holder of the papers is likely to go where he might be approached by someone who wants them, someone in the spy ring who has remained in the background so far, letting Malikov be known, but keeping his own identity hidden.”

“But in London that could be anywhere. The park, a club, a party...” A thought seemed to strike her. She stood abruptly and walked to the window, staring out at the street. He waited for her to speak. “So you engaged yourself to me so that you could be in all those places, looking about, without anyone suspecting you of being a...spy.”

The day had advanced. There was enough noise from the street, the clatter of carriages and hooves and the shouts of passersby to make it hard to catch the tone of her voice. He stood carefully, reminding himself that nothing had changed in two days. She was a delightful armful, but he had no interest in women who dreamed of happily ever after. The point of the speech he’d overheard her make in this room was that she did not really want to marry. She’d amused him with her fierceness, and he’d sympathized with her desire not to be managed by her relations. The engagement was made to suit them both. And it still could. If he let her in on the work, maybe he would find himself less distracted by her.

He came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “And now,” he said, “we’ll catch a spy together.”

She turned and faced him, stepping back from his light hold on her shoulders. “As...partners,” she said.

“Partners,” he replied. Looking into the bright sun, he could not read her expression.

She stepped around him. He extended a hand, but she was already out of reach. “Good. I’ll look at my cards of invitation. I think our next event must be a large party.”

“Em—”

She opened the door, and there stood Phil, looking from one to the other of them.