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“Blast.”

John cast a grim glance at their surroundings. “The key may not even be here.”

Reina considered that. “Is it a key one could carry on a watch chain?”

“No. It’s large and made of steel, with a bit shaped like a tube.”

“William wouldn’t carry it with him, then. Too easy to lose or forget. And he worries about pickpockets all the time. I think he would keep it here, in a well-hidden place.”

She stood to examine the items on the top of the desk, looking beneath the inkwell set, the gilt-edged leather blotter, and the little table clock. After inspecting a paperweight—a savage handful of bronze modeled after the Roman sculpture Lion Attacking a Horse—her gaze settled on the bookshelves.

“He may have hidden it in a book,” she said. “But it would take forever to go through all of them.”

John looked up from the desk drawer he’d just removed. “Start by viewing each shelf as a whole,” he suggested, “and pull out any book that doesn’t go with the rest.”

She took the bullseye lantern to the shelves. William had arranged them by sections . . . banking and finance, international trade, history, military strategy, and political thought.

The first shelf contained bound issues of The London Banker’s Magazine as well as The Banker’s Almanac and Year Book, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, Byles on Bills of Exchange, and The Theory and Practice of Banking by Macleod. Nothing stood out there.

Second shelf. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Wealth of Nations, The Stock Exchange Yearbook, Bagehot’s Lombard Street . . . Reina paused in surprise as she saw a copy of her book, Queen of Your Own Castle. It didn’t resemble anything else in William’s entire collection.

The color of the cloth binding was eau de Nil, a delicate, almost magical shade of green that was perpetually on the verge of becoming gray or blue. The shade had been suggested by her publisher, Miss Emily Faithfull, when they’d met to discuss the cover design.

“It’s so pretty,” Reina had said wistfully, enchanted by the light, almost whimsical motif of the castle, and the ornamental frame of flowers and scrolls around the cover, all of it done in rich matte bronze. “But don’t you think the book should be bound in dark burgundy or brown, to look more . . .”

Miss Faithfull, a confident and incisive woman who’d been appointed publisher to the queen, had smiled slightly. “Masculine?” she’d suggested.

Reina had nodded. “So it will be taken seriously.”

“Your book won’t be taken seriously by men, Miss Martin, because it’s not for them. It’s for women who find the subject of money intimidating. Your book has a friendly tone and a charming title. I think it should have a cover to match.” She had watched as Reina compared swatches of fabric, and added, “We gain no advantage by imitating men, or limiting our palette of colors to theirs.”

Now, years later, Reina found herself in William Farlow’s office, staring at the eau de Nil linen cover, which glowed like an opal in the row of dark leather volumes.

Slowly she reached for it.

As she grasped the spine and pulled it from the shelf, she knew instantly that something was wrong. Its weight was off. The feel wasn’t right.

She set the lamp on the shelf and opened the cover.

Her book had been hollowed out. A precise rectangle had been removed from the insides to create a hiding space. It contained an ugly key, with a fat steel barrel instead of an intricately notched bit.

Beneath the strips of watchspring steel in Reina’s corset, a queasy sensation awakened. Her mouth watered unpleasantly in the prelude to nausea. She fought it with slow, deliberate breaths, drawing air from high in her chest.

“John,” she said thinly.

“Aye?” came his voice from beneath the desk.

“I found it.” She carried the book to him, holding it open as if she were carrying a wounded thing. “He put it in my book.”

John slid out from beneath the desk, looking perplexed.

“I gave this to him,” she said. “I never expected him to read it, but I didn’t think he’d eviscerate it.”

Still sitting on the floor, John reached up for the book. He took out the key, looked at it closely, and said, “Well done.”

Reina didn’t want congratulations. “Why did he do this to my book? He has all six volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He could have sacrificed number four—it only covers a transitional period! He could have cut the center out of Wealth of Nations—everyone quotes it, but no one actually reads it. Why my book?”

“Maybe he meant it as a compliment,” John said carefully.