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Livie ignored this sour comment. “I have to request, Lord Devin, that you please do not share my name with Major FitzRoy, should he ask you again. Until my father’s charge is dismissed, I think it would be best to have no contact with the gentleman.”

Lord Devin nodded. “I agree. Apropos of that matter, I learned today the case will be decided by the House of Lords rather than by a Navy tribunal, with the Lord High Steward, Lord Paget, presiding.”

Daisy edged her horse over and caught Livie’s free hand. “What does that mean?”

“A panel of Lord Triers, your father’s peers, will consider the facts of the case,” Lord Devin said to Livie, ignoring Daisy.

“But they haven’t found the traitor yet,” Livie responded. “How can they possibly hold a trial?”

“The trial isn’t imminent,” Lord Devin said. “We have men searching throughout France, and we will find the degenerate who assumed your father’s identity. The prosecutor has the two witnesses he needs. We merely need to find one more on our side.”

Livie brightened. “You do have one witness who maintains that it wasn’t my father?”

“No one can clearly identify the scoundrel, as it was dark when the impersonation occurred. We have a witness who is certain that the man calling himself by your father’s name was under six feet tall, whereas Captain Sir Tyron is well over. The revolutionaries had no reason to disbelieve his identity, as the traitor had been using the captain’s seal to communicate with them.”

“My father had lost it!” Livie cried. “He wrote me that it had been misplaced. After that point, all his letters were sealed without an impression.”

“Presumably, the traitor filched the seal,” Lord Devin said, “using it to convince rebels to join his cause. Believing a lord and captain of the British Navy was at their back, a group of French revolutionaries found the courage to imagine they might commit regicide.”

“My father would never have anything to do with such a nefarious plot,” Livie said passionately. “Never!”

“English lords are true to their country,” Lord Devin said.

Daisy scoffed. “Except when they are not. Why are you wasting your time sending people around France? It was most likely an Englishman who stole the seal, and certainly one who presented himself as the captain. His rank, by the way, seems irrelevant to me.”

“Not precisely irrelevant,” Livie put in, seeing Lord Devin’s eyes kindling with anger. “But Daisy does have a point, my lord.”

“We are investigating every possible avenue,” his lordship said stiffly. “Your father seems quite comfortable in the Tower, Miss Tyron. Have you visited him?”

“My aunt was under the impression that I would not be allowed to see him.”

He blinked. “She may have wished to spare you a harrowing experience.”

“I shall visit him this afternoon,” Livie stated. She wished … well, she wished that her father had expressed a desire to see her. He wrote to her every day, but—barring a remark or two about the boat he was designing—he had reverted to the lists of admonishments and recommendations that had always filled his letters.

“I would like to return to the house,” she said, before Lord Devin and Daisy could start sniping at each other again. “I shall visit my father after luncheon. It was a pleasure to see you, your lordship.”

“I fear you won’t be admitted without your aunt accompanying you,” Lord Devin said. “My understanding is that she won’t return from Shropshire for several weeks.”

“I shall try,” Livie replied, turning Jack and heading back down the Row. Anxiety was pinching her stomach. If she wrote her father and asked for permission to visit, he’d never grant it.

If her aunt was strict, her father was even stricter. He’d be happiest if she never left the house at all.

Her eyes narrowed, thinking of it. What if the worst happened, and Livie never saw her father again after the trial? All her worst fears leapt to mind. What if her final meeting with her father took place within the indifferent walls of a courtroom, perhaps without even being allowed to hug him before the bailiff took him away in chains?

No.

She could and would pay him a visit.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE ART OF BREAKING IN—AND BREAKING OUT—OF THE TOWER OF LONDON

“Miss Jenny the Lion’s cubs must be half grown by now,” Livie observed as she, Daisy, and their maid Margery climbed down from the family barouche. Ahead of them was the Tower of London in all its gloomy glory.

Daisy and Livie had visited the Tower menagerie in the fall, when the lion cubs were only a month old. It was hard to imagine that golden time now, before she’d ever thought about charges of treason or imagined her father imprisoned.

“We’re supposed to call her Missus Jenny, now that she has a family,” Daisy reminded her with a giggle.