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You can prevent your sister’s ruin if you are willing to meet me when and where I shall direct you. Any delay, any involvement of other parties, and she will be lost to you forever.

In Octavia’s hand—or a hand that closely resembled hers—was scrawled the added note—

Charles, I implore you, please do as our cousin says. I am wholly in the captain’s power.

Though it is a rare occurrence, it must be said that on occasion a woman in possession of that peculiarly feminine gift for noting and reflecting upon her feelings may yet misread the state of her heart. She has perhaps studied to be collected and calm, and from the long habit of subduing unwise feelings, does not recognize how sincerely attached to her a gentleman has become and how necessary to her happiness he is. In such a case, only the direst threat of the loss of his presence in her life is likely to awaken her to the true nature of her feelings.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 20

The day dawned clear and cold after the snow of the evening before. Harriet, looking out her window, watched Mars rise in the east in a sky as deep blue as the shawl she had envied in the arcade shop. She had not slept. Her letter of resignation, addressed to Lady Luxborough, lay on her little writing desk. The borrowed ball gown had been restored to her ladyship’s wardrobe. Harriet’s packed bag stood by the door. No word had come from Wynford.

Through the whole of their acquaintance, she had had before her evidence of his true intentions. She, who prided herself on clear-headedness, had allowed sentiments and sensations to cloud her judgment. His attentions had seemed sincere even in the face of those appalling waistcoats, which she now knew signaled where his true purpose lay. Attaching her regard had been an accident. The mistletoe had been to blame, an unfortunate consequence of Jasper’s fall from the tree and Harriet’s foolish hanging of the boy’s trophy in the second-best drawing room.

She laid her hand on the cool paper of her letter, as if she could feel its sense and logic. Resolutions made in the heat of strong feeling were harder to keep when they required action. But she knew, as she hoped Octavia would discover about Gresham, that one could not cut out a hurt the way surgeons could cut out a tumor, and that changing oneself, one’s hair and face and clothes, even one’s manner of speaking or moving, did not distance one from pain. But changing one’s place, the very scenery of one’s daily life, could lessen the power of memory. Harriet had done it before, and she could do it again. She straightened her shoulders. Through the window, Mars glittered brightly. If only she could change the sky. Perhaps in one of the great manufacturing cities, the smoke of the mills would hide the stars, and some family, rising in gentility in the world, would need a governess. Lady Luxborough might wish for Harriet to accept Wynford, but she would not be so unkind as to withhold a letter of introduction.

A whimper and a scratch at her door reminded her that before she could change her life she must walk the dog.

* * * *

Charles stumbled into Goldsworthy’s office as the sky lightened. His captor’s pistol scraped the side of his head as he righted himself and came to a halt. The man, who spoke with the language and accents of London’s rookeries, had earlier relieved Charles of his coat and wallet.

There was no sign of Octavia. It made him hope that the plot against her had been a ruse after all, the message a forgery, to entrap him.

His gaze took in the disarray: canvas curtains pulled down, glass-fronted cabinets broken open, maps ripped from the walls, and papers spilling from file drawers. Perry, coatless like Charles, sat bound, gagged and shaking in one of the green leather chairs. In his battered face with its blackened eyes and swollen, bloodied mouth, his eyes flashed both warning and entreaty. Charles’s gaze flicked from Perry to Goldsworthy. The big man lay slumped over his desk, his huge hands splayed over the documents there, as if he could shield them with his fallen bulk. Under his shaggy locks a small pool of blood stained his papers. They had thought him indestructible, like a mighty oak, or like the Green Man of legend who one Christmastide invited a knight from Arthur’s court to cut off his head. When Gawain swung the axe, the Green Man simply picked up his severed head and rode away. Goldsworthy was mortal after all. Charles tasted failure. He had protected neither his sister nor his friends.

Standing over Goldsworthy, pistol in gloved hand, was the marchioness, her face flushed with triumph. She wore a heavy dark cloak and chinchilla fur hat. Charles’s mind went to work instantly. She had two accomplices, the man with the pistol to Charles’s head and a fellow rifling through Goldsworthy’s cabinets, tossing papers into an open valise on the floor. The odds were unpromising, but there would be a weakness somewhere in his opponent.

“Good morning, Lord Wynford,” she said. “You’ve stumbled into a tragedy. Your friend Mr. Goldsworthy is bankrupt, you see. He’s failed to revive the club into which he sank his fortune. There was no gentlemanly way out for him, alas, but to take his own life.”

Charles said nothing. His mind went on calculating distances and odds.

“I almost gave up on finding this nest of vipers. My friend in Paris did not wish to believe that such an operation existed, a club for gentlemen spies run by a rude, rustic mountain of flesh.” She shrugged. “Now your Goldsworthy will no longer trouble us.”

“How did a London merchant trading in coffee trouble your friend?” Charles asked blandly.

The marchioness laughed a short, dry laugh. She pointed her pistol at Perry. “Your friend has been most inconvenient, seeking to know more than he should about me, but your sister told me it was Mr. Pilkington who kept you in those waistcoats. So I watched him. How intriguing that he went in and came out of a chemist’s shop on Bond Street with a waistcoat.

“Naturally, I am curious about this shop, but it is not a true shop, is it? More like a bit of scenery on a stage managed by a mere child. It is when one goes behind the red velvet curtain that one finds the old man’s tailoring room and the path through a garden to this...club.”

Charles made himself meet the marchioness’s gaze. The pieces of the puzzle had come together. Goldsworthy and the club itself had been her target all along. Charles tried not to think of Miranda and old Kirby. It was possible that they were beyond his help. But Perry was not, and he could not be sure that Goldsworthy was dead. If Wilde had escaped the trap, help might arrive. First, he had to find out whether the marchioness had Octavia.

“You don’t have Octavia, do you?” He stepped further into the room, almost close enough to reach Perry. The man with the pistol followed, keeping the steel mouth of the gun against Charles’s head.

The marchioness’s smile widened with satisfaction. “She’s ruined. Fanshaw will see to it.”

Charles made himself answer carelessly. “I doubt it. Fanshaw is not Ashton. He’s a calculating sort of fellow. He won’t risk his position over a woman with friends in high places.”

“Friends in high places?” Her laugh was bitter. “When has that ever protected a woman? She was most helpful, your sister, so artless, so trusting, so willing to share her little confidences.”

Charles kept his face impassive. It was plain that the marchioness had no more use for Octavia. “You never meant to establish yourself in London, did you?” he asked. He saw her plan more clearly now. She was a break in the Russian pattern. In the past the Russians had used agents like the charming Count Malikov, who had spent years moving in the highest ranks of London society while recruiting its members to pass along English secrets. The club had been England’s defense against such men. Charles understood now that the marchioness had been sent to destroy the club itself.

The only advantage to their side that he could see lay in her mood. He noted the flush in her cheeks, the glitter in her eyes, and her loose hold on the pistol. She was in the grip of triumph, a curious and untrustworthy emotion. It made one feel quite unconquerable, while one’s foe appeared helpless, crushed beneath one’s boot heel. By a strange paradox the defeat of an enemy left one hungry for more. She was dressed for travel, for escape, and yet she lingered—caught in the heady rush of her success. If he had any chance of disarming her, it would have to be before her mood changed.

He lowered his gaze to the big man’s slumped figure and counted the guns in the room. If the marchioness had shot Goldsworthy, she would need to reload. The man with the pistol to Charles’s head would have one shot. The man rifling the cabinets must have another. The guns in the cabinets would not be loaded, but the swords were ready for use. He needed only a diversion.

Goldsworthy’s right thumb twitched.