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“You promised not to follow me.”

“I spotted a fellow in lavender gloves dogging your steps…”

“Oh him. I saw him. A pickpocket, do you think?” She kept her tone light, but she wondered whether his wound was bothering him. There was a stiffness to his posture as if he had made some fragile truce with pain.

“Not in lavender gloves.” He laughed, and winced. “Did he attempt to speak with you?”

“No. I thought he was someone’s footman. He had that look of waiting for direction.”

“It’s a poor footman who neglects his own mistress to follow a stranger. Shall we go?”

“Something’s happened to you.” With one gloved finger she touched the corner of his mouth. She drew her finger back. There was a tiny dot of blood on the tip.

He gave her a tight smile. “I met a fellow who didn’t like my hat. He knocked it off me. I had to set him straight.”

“In Oxford Street? Didn’t you say that that sort of thing didn’t happen here?”

“It was unexpected,” he said.

She tried to read his expression and knew that he was concealing whatever had really happened. “He hit you.”

“But he lacked science.” He straightened away from the rail, but it looked to Viv as if the move cost him some effort.

“Science?” She didn’t know the term.

“Skill, training.”

“And you are a judge of that sort of thing?” She moved to his side to take his arm.

“As it happens, it is one of the things the duke insisted we learn.”

Viv thought we was an interesting word, but she did not press him. “So, all in a day’s work for a duke’s secretary, a bit of leisure and some violent amusement?”

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m just trying to understand who you are.”

“You know who I am. I’m your betrothed, and your partner in these London expeditions.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I do thank you for directing me to Oxford Street. I have lots to write about what I saw today. But first, if you can manage, I think we’d better get you sitting down.”

“If you insist. I’m curious. What did you buy?”

“Ribbons for my sisters. To trim their hats, a bargain.”

*

After the decorative exuberance of the Pantheon Bazaar, Viv found the West End coffee room sober. A clock hung on one wall and hat rail ran around the room above the dark wooden partitions of the booths. The scents of coffee, warm bread, and faint tobacco mingled. Most of the guests were single gentlemen immersed in their newspapers. But at one of the tables in the center of the room, a lady and her daughter, who looked to be the age of Viv’s youngest sisters, the twins, Eliza and Anne, held a quiet conversation with the child’s elderly nurse. Viv wanted to applaud the lady’s serene assurance. From somewhere in the back of the premises came the clatter of pots and murmurings of the staff. A prompt waitress smiled at Mr. Larkin in a familiar way and showed them to a booth. He hung his hat on the rail, and Viv removed her bonnet, cape, and gloves. She pulled out her notebook and pencil. “I should make my notes,” she explained.

He took up the Morning Chronicle. “You write. I’ll read.”

She wrote rapidly, trying to capture her impressions. The street was changing; shopping itself was changing. A shift was happening, so that the merely practical business of finding necessities was giving way to a form of seduction. Goods were displayed in playful abundance. In the bazaar, women with their wide skirts moved between the counters like ships navigating narrow straits, stacks of little luxuries making irresistible siren calls as they passed.

Viv considered what she should say to readers. Whatever the rules of female movement on the street, the shops were meant to give women pleasure and stir their senses. In the Pantheon a counter girl urged Viv to see the ladies dressing room area. Few public places considered a woman’s need for a few minutes to put herself to rights after shopping. The story she wanted to tell was the story of the smart female shopper, who could steer her way through such enticements without getting caught staring, or dreaming of things beyond the capacity of her purse, and who was not so lost that she failed to attend to the perils of unwanted male attention.

Viv had encountered the sort of man to avoid. He had fallen into step with her, observed that she was alone, and insinuated that her singleness meant she was inviting male company. She wished for an umbrella with which to whack him. He looked something like a jacket-wearing turnip. She leveled a critical look at his striped trousers and embroidered green waistcoat, and suggested that he find a new tailor. He abandoned all semblance of gentlemanly behavior and called her a bad name. Now she needed a name for him. Perhaps, Wickersham.

She put down her pen and shook her writing hand. Mr. Larkin lowered his newspaper and watched her. She reached for her coffee, and found it cold. She had plainly lost track of time, but he hadn’t interrupted. “How long have you been waiting for me to stop?”