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His mouth tightened. “You are not the same person as my mother.”

“I should hope not!” He smiled reluctantly, and Mariah beamed back. She took a step after him. “Did your mother regret it?” she asked again. “Is she happy with your father still, with you and your brother and sisters?”

“She had to learn to cook, you know, and mend and clean. It wasn’t easy for her.”

“So she’s miserable, and wishes she’d never met your father?”

He sighed, but his eyes crinkled. “No, she’s very happy. But you should consider the risk.”

“Hmm.” She clasped her hands behind her back and took a nonchalant step after him. “So to warn me off, you tell me about a woman who ran off with a remarkable man who adores her, and she’s blissfully happy decades later. That is a terrible consequence indeed. Unless...” She sidled another step closer. “Unless you are trying to let me know, delicately, that you don’t really care for me.”

“You know I am not.”

She lifted one shoulder, still inching toward him. “But you’ve never said anything on the subject one way or another. Perhaps it’s all my imagination—perhaps you would rather I had never come onto the balcony that night of my parents’ ball. Perhaps you came creeping into my room all those nights after because you felt sorry for me⁠—”

Finally, ruefully, he laughed. “Sorry? The last thing I have ever felt for you was pity, darling.”

“Good,” she said, “because I’ve been in love with you since you kissed me in the garden at Chelsea.”

Harry looked at her for the longest time. If she hadn’t felt the rapid beat of his heart beneath her cheek when he’d held her, she might have doubted; she might have begun to worry. Instead she waited, sensing he was arguing with himself. He thought he was beneath her. He would try to tell her he was nothing to her, or a danger to her, or some other nonsensical idea Mariah didn’t even want to hear unless it was to reject it so firmly and clearly, he would have to believe her. She had seen more worth and admirable qualities in Harry than in most other men of London, even before he threw himself in front of an exploding powder keg to protect her.

Abruptly, Harry walked away. He picked up the lone candle she had left burning on the dressing table and began lighting the other lamps. As light filled the room, Mariah watched him greedily, his face and form materializing in living, vibrant flesh as the shadows fled.

When the room was filled with light, Harry put down the candle and turned to face her. His hands fell to his sides and for a long moment he just stood, letting her look her fill at him without disguise or subterfuge.

“My name is Henry Sinclair,” he said quietly. “My father is Thomas Sinclair, manager of the New Towne Theater in Birmingham.” He paused, as if waiting for her response. Mariah managed a tiny shake of her head, at a loss. “He is a commoner—an actor. Nobody of consequence, no family, no fortune, no connection to speak of. And I...” He paused again. “And I am a spy.”

She had guessed as much. “For whom?”

“The Home Office.” He was picking at the sleeve of his heavy woolen coat. To her shock, he slid a long slender blade from the cuff, rapier thin and glittering sharp. He placed it on the dressing table. From his pocket he produced a pair of small thin tools, and from somewhere inside his coat a small pistol. He shrugged out of the coat to reveal a leather sheath strapped under his arm, the dagger she had seen the night he pulled Lord Dexter off her. All this he placed on the dressing table. Then he faced her, in his shirtsleeves, and raised his hands wide. “You’ve always had questions, and I have never answered you, never as completely as you deserved. Ask me anything, and I will tell you, even the ugly, unpleasant parts. You cannot declare your heart”—his voice caught for a second—”without knowing.”

Mariah looked at the weaponry, so foreign and so dangerous amid her feminine toiletries and hair combs. Deadly weapons for a dangerous man, whispered a little voice in her head, but the shiver that went down her spine wasn’t fear. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Perhaps. I have certainly wounded a few men badly enough they could have died.”

“Whom do you spy on?”

“Everyone.”

“Why?”

A bitter smile cracked his somber expression. “My patriotic duty.”

She stared at him. “My father?” she asked incredulously, a number of curious coincidences falling into order. “Of course... You were at my mother’s ball. You saw me at the Spencers’ ball. And the Avery soirée, and the musicale⁠—”

“Other men as well.” He folded his arms and looked at the floor. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until recently. We were told it was to protect and not to watch.”

“The Home Office is spying on my father?” she repeated. “Why? He’s done nothing wrong⁠—”

“No,” said Harry curtly. “He hasn’t. And now they know it.”

She opened her mouth, ready to vent her rising outrage, then closed it as realization sunk in. “You proved it.” He jerked his head down, just a fraction of an inch, his expression still closed and dark. Mariah steadied herself with a hand on the wall. He had saved her more than once because he was lurking about. Spying? Watching? Protecting? If not for him, she and her father would have died the other day near Carlton House. “And you saved our lives.”

Harry let out his breath as if he’d been waiting for her to get to that. “By a lucky chance.”

“Very lucky, I should say,” she muttered.

“Yes. But you should know— Before you rashly declare your affection, you should know what sort of scoundrel you’ve got involved with. Don’t promise what you’ll regret in the morning.”