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In the hall at the foot of the grand staircase, Harriet and Wynford found a busy scene of leave-taking, with servants scurrying to do the bidding of numerous lofty and impatient persons. Wynford spoke with the man in charge of the cloakroom first and made sure that he understood he was to satisfy Harriet’s questions. While Harriet conferred with him to secure their cloaks and hats, Wynford strode out into the cold to question the footmen and grooms attending to various vehicles in the lane.

As Harriet feared, the servant readily found her cloak and Wynford’s greatcoat but not Octavia’s. He admitted he had handed over Octavia’s cloak earlier in the evening to a gentleman. He remembered because he had been rewarded with a gold coin.

“Was the man an officer?” Harriet asked. Sick dread filled her at the thought.

“Yes, miss,” the footman answered.

“Did you see the girl?”

“No, miss.”

Harriet thanked him and turned to find Wynford coming back to her. Her face must have betrayed her anxiety.

He seized her shoulders at once. “No luck?” he asked.

“A footman gave her cloak to an officer, but he didn’t see her.”

“I heard that Fanshaw left,” he said. “More than thirty minutes ago. No markings on his coach.”

“How do we pursue them?” she asked, handing Wynford his coat, hat, and gloves.

He took them from her with a faint smile, quickly donning his outerwear. “I pursue them. You go home and wait to hear from me.”

“Do you think I can sit safe and idle at home not knowing where Octavia is? Knowing the marchioness may have her?”

“I can find you at Luxborough House more easily than I can find you here.”

At that moment, a young man joined them. He had a handsome face; white, white teeth; and an air of brisk efficiency. “Sir,” he said. “No sign of the marchioness or Captain Fanshaw.”

“Lady Harriet,” Wynford said, “this is Wilde. He will see you home.”

Wilde bowed.

“And Perry?” Wynford asked him.

Wilde shook his head. “Haven’t seen him, sir.”

Wynford took him aside, gave him instructions, and sent him off. Harriet slipped into her cloak, and when he turned back to her, he tied the strings under her chin. Their dance had been a brief moment out of time when she was not a governess and he was not a spy. When they separated, the moment would fade away, like a half-remembered tune one could faintly recall but not play again.

“You couldn’t wear the mistletoe?” he asked.

She lifted her empty hand, realizing that she’d lost the little sprig somewhere in her pursuit of Octavia or discovery of the dead man. It had been the frailest of hopes, a bundle of brittle twigs, easily crushed.

“If you cannot leave the Luxboroughs for me,” he said solemnly, “you must still leave them. You do not belong in yellow back rooms, in borrowed shawls...” He took her by the shoulders to draw her close.

She put up a hand, her palm flattening against the plane of his belly to hold him back, but her fingers closed around the silk of his waistcoat and clung. She leaned her head against his heart. His arms slipped around her. His chin rested on the top of her head.

“Your brother is wrong about you. You are above your company, not beneath it,” he said. He lifted her face to his and kissed her, a kiss full of longing and regret.

He pulled back from their embrace. “I cannot tell you why the marchioness has come after us, but I will stop her. Wilde will see that you get home.”

She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. He had called her back into the world, out of the safe refuge in which she had hidden herself. He had violated the principles of protecting and guiding by which she had lived for ten years. He was dangerous, and he had involved them all in danger. He would do so again. She watched him stride off to face that danger and knew that she loved him.

* * * *

Ashton had been stabbed by an assailant who knew his or her business. His body lay on a table in an anteroom at the back of Hardwicke House while Charles waited for a constable Goldsworthy trusted. The marchioness had disappeared. She had had Charles’s measure from the first. Hers had been the grand design. He meant to distract her with flowered waistcoats and gallantry, but it was she who had seen his weakness and distracted him by embroiling Octavia in her schemes. Now she would make her move against her real target. He still did not know where she would strike, but before he could stop her, he had to find Octavia.

He returned to Dover Street before dawn and received a chilling message.