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“I have… a friend of limited means searching for a place to hang his hat.” Tremayne shaded his mouth with one hand, keeping his voice low.

“He has been cut off by his brother. I would not ask if I could think of another option, but the situation has become… well, it is bloody inconvenient, and I cannot put him up myself. He needs somewhere quiet for a week. Your townhouse would do nicely, if you were of a mind to do him a favour.”

Curious, Peregrine wondered what scandal he had missed while he had been recovering or nose-down in the stews, trying to locate the few faces he had known to be intimately connected to Marian Fitzroy’s underworld operations.

“I assume you mean without asking who he is or what he has done,” Perry asked, keeping his words uninflected.

“At least for the moment?”

“I had at least best ask if your friend happens to be prone to Gothic terrors. I cannot swear that my man of business got around to finding someone who could clean up the blood on the floor.”

A long pause followed, and as a delicate pink shaded Tremayne’s cheekbones at such a lurid statement, Peregrine almost regretted uttering it. But he was also curious as to how desperate the situation might be.

“At the risk of sounding callous, I daresay he would agree that the villain got what he deserved.”

The reply was a bit of an evasion. But Tremayne’s face didn’t flicker with indecision, as it would if he was suddenly thinking better of putting his friend up there.

To Perry, that meant that his friend was in a fine pickle indeed. Probably debt or scandalous indiscretion. Interesting.

“Then of course, he is welcome to stay.” Peregrine would write to his man of business—temporarily also acting in capacity as a steward—and let him know that the Neal property was occupied by a guest.

All of the personal possessions he had stored there had already been removed to the main house. Peregrine fully intended to never set foot in it again.

“Thank you,” Tremayne said softly. “I can cover a week with my allowance; just name the price. ”

Perry waved off the offer of money. “He can have the house for as long as he needs it. God knows I am not planning to occupy it. I am sure either you or your friend will be happy to return such a favour to me someday. I will name it when I find myself in need.”

“That is… very good of you, Perry. So very good.” Lord Tremayne, so very young and credulous, looked relieved rather than troubled by the idea of owing a large, unnamed favour, and Peregrine could feel the corners of his mouth turn down ever so slightly at the man’s vulnerability.

“To you, and your health,” he added belatedly, toasting Peregrine with his glass.

Perry smiled briefly and drank deeply. It was for the best that Tremayne had asked this favour of him rather than someone else.

Peregrine took a perverse sort of pride in being discreet and honourable when finally naming a price.

But there were other, much less scrupulous people in the ton who wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea of extorting Tremayne or his friend.

He continued to play the part of a gentleman, conversing in light banter now that the serious part of the conversation was done.

He let Tremayne drag him over to the card tables to be treated to more rounds of drinks.

And he silently endured the continued biting mental monologues of his mother, who had something new and cutting to say every time he thought about the duchess’s lips, or hair, or—hell, even what she might have to say about the company he kept.

It was time to quit drinking; his fortitude was abysmal. But he didn’t get up once he emptied his snifter again. His head swam from too much brandy and too little sleep. He was afraid if he got up before he sobered up a bit, he might tilt over.

“Gentlemen, could I borrow this one from you?” A touch landed on Peregrine’s shoulder, and he flinched slightly, giving the owner of the hand upon his superfine coat a baleful look .

Lord Ravenscroft. Prinny’s magpie.

The men murmured their assent, and Ravenscroft backed up a step, giving Peregrine the space to slide his chair out from beneath the table.

The nattily dressed older man said nothing as he suspiciously watched Peregrine stand carefully, and Peregrine put his hand to his side, pretending it was his injury that had him moving so judiciously.

That caused the magpie to roll his eyes, but Ravenscroft immediately and cheerfully addressed the rest of the table so that they were watching him instead of Peregrine.

“Do not wait up for him, lads! I am taking this one out for a night of trouble.” Ravenscroft laid a finger alongside his nose and gave an exaggerated wink, earning a few lascivious chuckles in reply.

Then he escorted Peregrine from the table as quickly as he could.

“My God, Perry,” Ravenscroft muttered in a tone so low only Peregrine could hear him. He waved his hand, encouraging Peregrine to hurry towards the stairs. “You are beastly drunk.”

“I am not,” Perry said shortly. “And I hope you do not take offense to this, but I would rather throw myself from the rooftop if the alternative is to go gallivanting to a bawdy house in your company.”

“I would be more inclined to believe in your sobriety if I couldn’t smell the fumes emanating from your person. It is a good thing no one next to you decided to light a cigar. But as for a night of illicit passion—do not worry, Canary. I do not have an evening nearly so exciting planned for you.”

“Thrilling. Where are we bound, then?”

“Never mind that. Can you descend the stairs unaided, or shall I give you my arm as I would to a proper lady?”

Perry glared down at the shorter lord’s head, keeping his voice to a note so low that no one would make out his words. “Offer your arm, and I will tell your lover you have been importuning me. Then he will kill you and save me the trouble of doing it myself.”

“You should be so lucky.” When Ravenscroft still said nothing more, about to reach for the handrail, Perry grabbed the older man by his wrist, hauling him bodily around.

“Ravenscroft—I am deadly serious. I will go nowhere except to my bed without a satisfactory answer as to where you want to take me.” Suspicion pinched his features. “You are not trying to take me to a meeting with her are you?”

Ravenscroft turned sharply on him, his gaze roving from one side of Peregrine’s face to the other, fixated on his eyes.

Then he sighed, running a hand through his lightly silvered hair.

“I am sorry, of course I should have thought—never mind. No, we are not going to see the duchess, dearest. I pledge to keep you safe from all your enemies. Come along.”

He began to descend the stairs, not waiting, and with a small sigh of resignation, Peregrine followed, trying not to grind his teeth. Stairs pulled his flank more than walking did, and he was feeling somewhat green from the pain and the alcohol by the time he joined Ravenscroft at his carriage.

“I say, are you fit to ride like this?” His face was scrutinized again. “I would rather not have you lose the skirmish with your port on my boots. I rather like these ones.”

“It was brandy, and I will remind you that you were the one to drag me here. Now that I am down the stairs and outside, you are rethinking the wisdom of it? Because if so, I will vomit on your shoes just to spite you.”

Lord Ravenscroft looked like he ate something sour. “If you do not need to have an urgent conversation with the gutter, go ahead and get inside.” He made a dismissive shoo-ing gesture towards the step.

Piqued, Perry hauled himself inside of Ravenscroft’s conveyance, taking the forward-facing seat, which Ravenscroft didn’t protest.

“Better you there than being ill in my lap,” he said with a surly tone. “It is a good thing I hauled you out of there when I did. One more drink, and you might have done something truly undignified.”

“My saviour,” Peregrine said mockingly, slouching back against the squab.

Now that there was no one to play a part for—except for the magpie, and who cared what he thought?

—Perry’s exhaustion felt like it was crushing his very bones.

“So? Who instructed you to cart me off like a piece of luggage? Prinny, I assume. And for what reason? Is the Queen already impatient? It has been all of what, five days?”

“Since you last appeared publicly? Yes.”

“There is still no news to give them,” Peregrine said shortly. “I have found and claimed some of the bank accounts my mother created for herself in my name. My solicitor is looking for others. But so far, they are mostly empty. And legitimate.”

“I do not care about that!” Ravenscroft made sweeping gestures with his hand. “It was not the Queen or Prinny who sent me to fetch you. It was Antoine, you know.”

“I—” Peregrine stopped, frowned and tried again. “Your valet? Whatever for?”

“He was in quite the pucker after I mentioned you were staying at White’s.

Alone. Without so much as a body servant to look after you.

I reckon you were unaware of it at the time, but Antoine was responsible for a great deal of your nursing during those days we thought you might expire from fever, you know.

He made sure I had not forgotten how recently you rose from your deathbed.

At the very top of his lungs, I might add. ”

The magpie continued dramatically, placing his hand over his chest as he emulated the stronger French accent of his valet.

“‘ Someone needs to check on milord Fitzroy. That someone should be you, mon c?ur . Bring him home from that awful club so that we can make sure he is eating properly and he has someone caring for him.’”

The corner of Peregrine’s mouth turned up wryly, but he felt… a strange, forbidding sensation in his chest. Antoine, who was practically a stranger, was concerned for his well being? “Your valet bullied you into kidnapping me?”

“Well actually, he told me this very grim, horrible little story about dying barn cats. Does it amuse you to know that Antoine says you have the personality of one? It made me feel just guilty enough that I decided to kidnap you so I could tell you this appalling little fact myself.”

Peregrine’s eyes slid towards the old rake, giving him an amused look. “It warms the heart that you felt the need to check I did not expire in some hidden corner like an old Tom.”

Ravenscroft looked down his nose at him.

“I, of course, told Antoine you were fine. That you were a smart, capable young man who could run circles around the rest of us when it came to your mother’s intrigues.

I also reminded him that you were a horrible monster who ruined one of my favourite cravats and that you weren’t alone, you had Hodges acting your nursemaid?—”

The smirk fell from Peregrine’s face. It wasn’t often that he found himself robbed of words. In the silence of his thoughts, his mother laughed aloud at this revelation that he was losing all sense of preservation.

Ravenscroft was giving him a hard look, arms crossed, one hand over his mouth as he digested this. “You… did not know Hodges has been shadowing you.”

His lungs would no longer fill with air of their own volition, and Peregrine forced a breath, ignoring a skin-crawling feeling of nervous terror. How had he not seen Hodges following him? “I suppose I am aware now. ”

“Damn me sideways, Perry. Do you have any idea how many times Antoine is going to tell me that he told me so?”

Peregrine sighed. “You are making a mountain of a molehill, Maggie. My poor sleep has caught up with me, that is all.”

“Is it?” Ravenscroft asked in a soft voice. “Shall we pretend that is all?”

Gentian blue eyes, full of secrets and regret, lingered in his mind’s eye.

“Pretend anything you like,” Peregrine said, voice flat as he rubbed his aching chest absently. “The business between myself and the duchess is not of your concern.”

The magpie nodded reluctantly, reaching out to straighten the line of Perry’s collar as the carriage stopped.

“All I will say then is do not let your good senses be overridden. Don’t chew off a limb in your panic to escape a snare, lad; there are other ways to get yourself free.

For now, I will hand you over to Antoine’s tender mercies.

You do need some cosseting. And, I think, a place you might actually feel safe to sleep—unless I’ve missed the mark. ”

If his facade was cracking so badly that Ravenscroft and Antoine could read him this clearly, he was in more trouble than he thought.

But oddly, after Ravenscroft’s small, slight valet dragged him into a guest room and harangued him for not changing his bandages, sorted him out, and put him to bed like an indignant five year old, Perry did—finally—sleep more deeply than he had in weeks.