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You are still steps behind, even if you send Ravenscroft to the treasury and prevent the bonds from being claimed, his mother murmured .

Chandros’ assassin has been a very busy man, but he will be returning to the marchioness, to lie in wait for you.

The moment he learns Charity has slipped out of the trap to warn you, he will either decide that there will be no purpose in leaving her alive, or he will wait to see if you try to rescue her anyway.

And while you decide, Chandros works to escape the arm of justice.

What would you like to wager he is already taking his final steps, to ensure that nothing can be traced?

He would wager nothing against such a sure bet. Peregrine ignored the fresh ache that took up residence in his chest. The weight as he added another tally mark on his soul.

It devastated him to know that the marchioness had reckoned her odds of surviving, and had chosen to send his heart back to him anyway. Truly, he was a curse upon his own allies.

Lord Ravenscroft had settled in the parlour to wait. He stood when Peregrine strode in, lifting his eyebrow. “How fares the duchess?” he drawled, his voice just a shade above insolence. “I trust you have been busy making her feel better.”

“Watch your tongue, Maggie,” Peregrine said shortly. “We have other, less inappropriate things to discuss.”

“ My tongue has been exceptionally well behaved all night,” Ravenscroft said dryly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and offering it to him.

“But if you don’t want others to guess what yours has been up to, perhaps you don’t want to walk about looking like you’ve been behaving lewdly with a fireplace. ”

Blinking, Peregrine snatched the handkerchief, scrubbing it blindly over his lips and chin. Ravenscroft grinned devilishly, but provoked him no further.

“I have solved the riddle of that list of names and numbers,” Peregrine told him, annoyed with himself as he felt colour rise along his cheekbones.

“I need you to go rouse the Chancellor of the Exchequer and get to the Treasury. Charity said that she was being held by a treasury clerk. A man by the name of Godfrey Bellrose. I am rather afraid that our list of names and numbers will correspond to numbers of duplicated exchequer bills.”

“Bloody hell. The war debts?” Ravenscroft paled. “A rat in the treasury would have been able to steal the paper.”

“And if Bellrose is high enough in the Treasury, he wouldn’t have had to forge his own signature either.

Also, you should find Xavier or Sidmouth, if you can.

Someone may want to ride to my townhouse in the Dials and inquire with Mr Vesey as to whether he settled his debt with a transferred exchequer bill.

I never thought to ask him how he paid when he said his brother went to Goldbourne’s bank—I only assumed it had been regular bills.

But the scandal Lord Eldon covered up may have been because Vesey’s exchequer bill had already been claimed by whoever held the forged copy. ”

Ravenscroft nodded, straightening his coat.

“I shall go right now. With any luck, that was the only one redeemed. Thank God for this one piece of good news, Canary. We might be able to warn the bank with this list and avert the rest. Stay here and take care of the duchess. And try not to do anything I wouldn’t. ”

“Sorry. I cannot make that promise, since your behaviour ends at acting like a gentleman.” Peregrine clapped the man on his shoulder in agreement. “Godspeed, Maggie.”

Ravenscroft winked, and Peregrine went to check his face in the mirror. He couldn’t care less about the coal on his clothing, but he did not want Charity’s servants to whisper more than they already likely were. He would not see Charity driven into another marriage merely to preserve appearances.

A cleared throat at the entrance to the parlour caught his attention, and he turned to find Charity’s butler giving him and Ravenscroft a long-suffering look.

“Since the house appears to be open to callers this evening,” the butler began cuttingly, “I should let you know a lad has arrived looking for you, Lord Fitzroy. I had him wait belowstairs.”

“Send him up.” Peregrine paced the length of the room while he waited, hardly daring to hope that the youngster brought good news. When a scruffy boy no older than Hodges’s nephew appeared, Peregrine braced himself for whatever came next.

The boy gawked at his surroundings, his wide eyes taking in every corner of the room. Peregrine cleared his throat to recall the boy’s attention.

“Sorry, guv. Never seen a house this grand before.” The boy drew himself up, pretending to be closer to manhood. “Red said to tell you—what you’re after’s likely near a cooper’s yard off Lambeth Walk.”

Peregrine froze. “Red found the forgery house in Lambeth?”

Red’s messenger lifted one shoulder. “Don’t know, my lord. Said it smelled like a print shop.”

If Red Hand had indeed found the place, Peregrine was going to owe the criminal man a rather large favour indeed. But that was a worry for another time. “Thank you, lad. Do you want something to eat before you go?”

The boy nodded, looking to Mr Pritchard for permission. Mr Pritchard gave Peregrine another look, but he escorted the boy back out.

Peregrine ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the absence of other assistance keenly. “I never thought I would say this, but if Sidmouth showed up to plague me right this very instant, I would be entirely happy about it.”

“I know I am useless in a proper fight, but at least I can help call in the cavalry, such as it is,” Ravenscroft sighed. “Right. The Treasury, by way of Whitehall. I trust Prinny will not be upset if I invoke the Crown’s business at Horse Guards. Not about this.”

Peregrine let his shoulders relax slightly. “Thank you. Take one of Charity’s guards with you—at least until you get to Whitehall.”

He did not relish trying to argue that Bow Street or the military provide him assistance in this.

And he did not want to strip Atholl House of its protection.

The assassin could just as easily be waiting right outside as in Lambeth or in Kensington.

Until the man was caught, it was dangerous for any one of them to be alone.

Peregrine had to let the duchess know he was leaving. They couldn’t let this matter sit any more than they could let the business at the Treasury wait. And he should remember to put boundaries back in place .

Peregrine turned to the footman waiting outside at the drawing room’s door. “Could you ask that both my horse and my man’s are saddled? Would you also check if Her Grace is sufficiently composed for me to have a word with her?”

He was an ogre. She had spent a day as a prisoner—who knew when she had last eaten or slept?—and now he was interrupting her bath to let her know that he had to leave. But he couldn’t force himself to go without taking this moment to say goodbye.

Just… just in case the worst should happen.

Footsteps sounded rather heavily on the stairs, and he rose on his feet to meet the footman.

But the person who swung inside the drawing room was not the servant.

It was Charity. Peregrine caught his breath as he looked at her.

She was tidier than before, but her rushed bath had not lifted all of the heaviest stains from her skin.

Now that the worst of the grime had been lifted, he could see the shadows of exhaustion beneath her eyes and the scratches on her face and arms that she sustained in her escape.

His eye twitched.

Charity’s wet hair had been bound in a braided bun, and she was again dressed in sturdy boots. But she was wearing a plain cotton gown. “I am ready to go,” she said calmly.

“Go? Go where?” he sputtered.

She frowned at him. “You need me if we are going to find Lady Normanby, do you not?”

“Charity.” His chest ached to have to disabuse her of this hope. “Selina would have reckoned her odds. Stopping Chandros’s plans mattered more than her own safety, and she accepted that when she sent you out first.”

Her mouth flattened into a line. Charity knew it too. “I cannot bear the idea that we don’t at least try. Oh Perry, Bellrose despises her—he hit her at least twice. I am so worried about what he is doing to her as revenge now that I’m gone! ”

“It wasn’t a sacrifice made blindly, Sparkles.

She will not thank us for going back for her if it means Chandros succeeds or you get caught in a trap.

And even if I knew it wasn’t so dangerous for you—I would not let you go do this alone.

I have to go to Lambeth, right now. Red Hand thinks he has found the printing presses, and now that you have escaped, it is only a matter of time before Chandros learns his plan is about to be foiled.

I cannot risk that word gets to him first. We will lose everything. ”

“No!” she snarled at him, her eyes filling again with unshed tears. “I accept that you have to stop Chandros. But I will not accept that there is nothing we can do for Selina. I will go to the Horse Guards—to the Queen. I cannot accept that we just leave her to Bellrose!”

“It’s not your fault. Do you hear me? She will not be forgotten.

” Peregrine let his hand rest on the nape of her neck, bringing his forehead down to hers as he rubbed his hand down her spine.

“Call for help, Charity. I won’t protest so long as you have enough people to protect you.

But… I have to warn you, it has been hours already, and it will be hours more before you can get a contingent to ride there. ”

“I know.” The grief in those two words whispered against his chest broke him. “It is not a perfect solution. But even if the worst has happened… at least we can bring her home. I have to do that much.”

Peregrine felt the sting of tears beneath his own lids. “You’re right.”

Was it selfish to want to deny her? Because he was afraid of letting her go again, without him? With another man from Whitehall who might be corrupted by Chandros? Without any friendly face he would trust to watch her back?

Hodges would be waiting. Ravenscroft would be sending the guards to meet him. He had to leave the splendorous half of himself behind and tread a path that was full of shadows.

“Your Grace,” one of the footmen in the front hallway lifted his voice politely so that they could hear him through the door standing ajar. “Someone else is arriving. I can hear a horse in the drive. Shall I turn him away?”

“No.” Charity lifted her head abruptly, wiping at her face. Her eyes were faintly rimmed with red, the tip of her nose pink. But she strove to look composed. “If someone else is here tonight, I am sure it is important. Show him in.”

The footman opened the front door to greet him, and a man’s voice spoke in a low baritone. “Forgive the hour—I wasn’t planning to arrive today, but I had the damnedest feeling I should continue through. Judging by the lights, I wasn’t wrong. Is there trouble here?”

Charity’s face pinched.

Boots sounded on the wooden floor as the footman brought him to the front parlour. Within moments, the doorway was occupied by a broad-shouldered man with dark hair, and brows that slammed down over his blue eyes the moment they landed on Peregrine.

Perry blinked back at him, for the man seemed oddly familiar, and it was rare that Perry couldn’t quickly place a face that clearly knew his. This man almost had the look of the Percy family, but?—

“Sir Nathaniel?” Charity’s voice was breathless with astonishment and concern. “Whatever are you doing here?”