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Mariah shook her head, unable to keep from watching Harry walk away. Harry, who had emerged from the darkness like a silent, deadly angel with a knife in his hand to protect her from Lord Dexter. Harry, who had pressed her up against a tree and kissed her as if it would kill him not to. Just the memory of it made her skin feel hot.

Papa took her chin in his hand and inspected her face. She dragged her eyes away from Harry’s retreating back. “Wroth wasn’t impertinent, was he?”

She blushed. Harry had been impertinent in a dozen wicked ways and she only wanted more. Her body still hummed with satisfaction.

But she mustn’t betray any hint of that to her father, who cast another suspicious glance after Harry. “Not at all!” she said. “But Papa, Lord Dexter is not a gentleman. I don’t wish to see him again.”

“What did he do?” her father demanded, successfully diverted.

“He—he tried to kiss me when I didn’t want him to.” The wobble in her voice was unaffected. It gave her serious pause to think about what might have happened, out there in the dark with Lord Dexter. “And I think he was foxed. He also tripped in the dark, and never got up. I heard him snoring when Lord Wroth came upon me.” There—no one could possibly suspect what Lord Wroth had actually done. She said a quick prayer that Harry was correct, and Lord Dexter would have no memory of the evening.

“I see.” Papa looked grim. “Let us find your mother. Perhaps we should return home early.”

“Oh, yes,” blurted Mariah. Harry had to come see her tonight after what had happened. “Let’s go now.”

Her father nodded. “Very good,” he replied, and led her back into the house.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Uncle! I have shocking news!” Tobias burst into the room, flushed and breathless.

Crane glanced up from his leaves. “Oh? Have we no watercress for dinner?”

His nephew shook his head, oblivious to the sarcasm. “No, it is far more serious than that. An attempt was made on Lord Liverpool’s life.”

Harry’s pen stopped mid-word. Crane put down his magnifying lens with a soft clink. His eyes never left Tobias. “Indeed... ?”

Tobias drew a deep breath. “Someone attempted to poison him. He was to dine at a dinner party given by the marquis of Bethwell, and the soup was found to be tainted.”

Harry abandoned his pretense of working and put down the pen before ink ran all over his page. Was this part of the plot he had been meant to discover? Was Bethwell their man, plotting against the Prime Minister?

“Attempted,” Lord Crane repeated. “He is alive, then? And well?”

“Completely unharmed,” Tobias confirmed. “But it was a very near thing, I believe. The villain was a cook—imagine! He was caught attempting to put a fatal herb into the turtle soup. Not only the Prime Minister and Lord Bethwell, but all their dining companions would have been poisoned.”

“The cook,” Crane exclaimed, his color fading. “It cannot be.”

Tobias nodded. “I am afraid it is, Uncle. Naturally, Lord Liverpool wishes to keep the news to a small circle. It wouldn’t do for the populace to know how close to danger the government was.”

Crane just looked at his nephew as if he spoke a different language. Tobias seemed to swell with importance at having rendered his uncle speechless. He glanced at Harry. “Of course I must ask you to keep this news in strictest confidence, Towne.”

“Of course, sir,” Harry murmured, watching Crane. The old man looked thunderstruck, even though Harry suspected he didn’t hold the Prime Minister in as high regard as Tobias did.

“The villain was carted away to Newgate at once,” Tobias went on. “No doubt he’ll be tried and hanged for murder within the month. Imagine! A cook in the man’s own kitchen! His housekeeper must be quaking in fear for her position.”

Crane pressed one hand to his forehead. He was deathly pale. “Who told you this?”

“Lord Liverpool sent a man to inform you, Uncle.” Tobias pasted on a smile probably meant to look comforting, and instead appeared self-satisfied. “I insisted I should break the news to you myself, delicately, for the sake of your health.”

Crane only nodded, sinking back into his chair. He looked frail and unwell all of a sudden, in stark contrast to his demeanor only a few minutes ago.

Harry moved forward. “Perhaps you would like to rest now, sir,” he said quietly.

“Oh, yes, Uncle,” Tobias rushed to say. “Do rest. You must have a care for your health in the wake of such a shock. How appalling that assassins penetrated Lord Bethwell’s very own kitchen! I intend to go into our kitchen and question all the staff myself. If there are any poisoners in our midst, never fear, Uncle, I shall catch them out.” Without waiting for his uncle’s reply, Tobias left.

In the quiet in his wake, Harry collected the leaf specimens and put them away. Crane still sat slumped in his chair, fortunately silent. Harry’s mind raced. If the villains had been caught, Stafford would soon notify them all, and they would begin disengaging themselves from their posts. He would be his own man again, free to pursue his own interests...

He didn’t dare let himself think further. He could hardly present himself in the drawing room of Doncaster House, a penniless commoner without a handful of dirt to call his own, and ask for the hand of the earl’s daughter. But at least his part in spying on Doncaster need never come out. He could rest easy that he’d only acted in a protective fashion toward the earl. That alone lifted a monstrous burden from his shoulders.