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The street teemed with noise and movement.

Wagons and drays lurched over uneven cobblestones, their iron-rimmed wheels clattering and jarring against the timeworn stones. Decades of wear had smoothed some surfaces to a slick polish while others remained pitted and cracked, their edges softened by countless hooves and grinding metal. In places, the mortar had crumbled away, leaving shallow dips where rainwater gathered in murky pools.

A coachman cursed as his horse skittered sideways at a sudden shout, its hooves clattering against the slick cobblestones as it narrowly missed a barrow stacked with unappealing apples. Hawkers shouted over the din, their voices growing hoarse from a morning of hard bargaining.

Shelby shifted his attention to the Duck and Hound tavern’s entrance beside the coaching inn.

A trio of painted ladies lounged near the doorway, their laughter sharp and forced. Their once brightly colored gowns clung to their bodies, the silk and satin more threadbare than luxurious. Ribbons adorned their curls, though the effect failed to disguise the weariness beneath their painted smiles. One adjusted her drooping fichu and called out to a passing man, her voice a blend of honey and practiced charm.

“Surely a fine gent like you don’ mean to pass by without a kind word?” She lifted her skirts just enough to reveal a flash of mended stocking.

The man hunched his shoulders and strode faster, much to her companions’ amusement.

A scrawny mongrel trotted past, ribs jutting through its matted coat. The poor beast reminded Shelby of Dash. The dog sniffed at a pile of refuse, recoiled, then slunk toward an unattended basket of bread.

Rubbing his chin, Shelby fixed his focus on the inn, which supposedly housed Mitchel Danforth. “Honeybrook, are you confident your source is reliable?”

He grazed his fingers over the pistol’s handle at his waist, ready but concealed.

Jaw tight, Quentin Honeybrook, his dark hair damp from the humid afternoon, gave a terse nod.

“He has been up to now.” He cut Shelby a cynical glance. “But men of his ilk have the morals of a street thief and the loyalty of a starving rat. He would sell his mother for a coin or two. Still, I thought you would want to follow up on the lead.”

Of course, Shelby wanted to.

The sooner he apprehended Mitchel, the sooner he could get Merciless Morgan off his back.

“Forgive me for stating the obvious.” Amusement danced in Robyn’s sharp brown eyes. “If Danforth is present, just how precisely are we supposed to extract the lout if he refuses to come with us?”

“If he’s as ill as the informant claims, piling him into a hackney may not take much effort,” Honeybrook said. “Besides, there are three of us and one of him.”

Until now, Shelby hadn’t considered that Mitchel might be ill.

That explained why he hadn’t been seen.

He adjusted the scratchy cassock draped over his shoulders.

The borrowed robes from St. Giles in the Fields Church, just across the street, provided an effective disguise. The curates, eager to accept a generous donation, readily parted with the worn garments. In a district like this, clerics drew little notice—some viewed them as easy targets, while others ignored them entirely, no more significant than the broken cobblestones beneath their feet.

A carriage jolted past, its driver cracking the whip over a sweaty horse.

Despite the afternoon’s warmth and the heavy cassock, icy unease slid down Shelby’s spine.

Every instinct he possessed shouted, Caution. Caution. Caution.

The street bustled with pedestrians and vehicles; it had all day. Shelby and the others had covertly observed The Angel Inn for an hour. Something—the alley, the lingering afternoon shadows—set his nerves on edge.

In places like this, trouble often brewed nearby.

“I don’t believe it is a coincidence that your informant also knows who Desmond is.” Shelby spoke his thoughts aloud. “How could the informer know the connection between Desmond and Mitchel?”

Something about that reeked as foul as a three-day-old herring.

“Should we hail a cab then?” Honeybrook asked under his breath while surreptitiously surveying the bustling crowd.

Though they could see Honeybrook’s coach parked at St. Giles Church from where they stood, Shelby believed it wiser and less conspicuous to hire a conveyance to retrieve Danforth. It wasn’t uncommon for lushes to be bundled into a hack, and passersby would scarcely give the commotion a second glance.

However, a gleaming coach with matched blacks assuredly would draw unwanted attention.