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“True bravery is shown by performing without witnesses what one might be capable of doing before all the world.”

―Francois de La Rochefoucauld

T horne staggered back, boots skidding in the damp grass as the hooded man’s knife swept past his ribs. He hadn’t time to draw breath, let alone his pistol. Taking advantage of Thorne’s surprise, the man in the hood closed with him, pulling his arm back to strike again.

He was too close. Unarmed, Thorne ducked, twisting sideways and leaning on his years of pugilistic training with Roland.

He launched a brutal jab to the man’s gut to force his attacker backwards.

It landed with satisfying force, breaking the rhythm of the attack.

The hooded figure grunted but didn’t falter for long, pushing forward once more.

Getting his feet firmly beneath him, Thorne launched his weight into the man, crashing against him, chest to chest, and knocking him to the ground. He caught himself before he fell with the man, dancing backwards enough to try to gain the space to finally draw a weapon.

The man rolled towards him, slashing at his legs, and Thorne retreated farther. This wasn’t a brawl; it was a hunt. Whoever this man was, he was no treasury clerk, Thorne’s brain registered. He was a killer. A man who had been waiting for them to arrive.

Fumbling at his holster for the handle of his pistol, Thorne sought to draw the weapon, and his attacker sprang to his feet, stabbing his knife in a downward arc towards Thorne’s exposed neck.

By some miracle, Thorne shifted his focus in time to catch the man’s wrist in his left hand, arresting the motion. But the point was still too close to him, and the killer kept the pressure on.

He had healed a great deal since last summer, but his left arm and shoulder was still weaker than before his misadventures in Brighton. Thorne’s breath hissed between his teeth, his arm began to shake beneath the strain of keeping the point away.

In desperation, Thorne slammed the knuckles of his empty right fist into the man’s eye.

The killer’s head snapped back, and he snarled in pain. “You’re not Fitzroy,” he growled. “Who the hell are you?”

“A friend,” Thorne panted, seeing the man’s stubbled face peering at him. The hood had fallen back, revealing pale angles and eyes cold with intent. He shoved the man backwards, thrusting his hand into his pocket to grip his own knife.

Thorne barely got his own blade up in time.

The attacker slammed into him, and the two went down hard, grappling in the wet grass.

Thorne used his greater bulk to flip them, trying to pin the man’s arm, but the attacker was fast and wiry.

The knife grazed along Thorne’s left shoulder, cutting into the cloth and kissing the skin.

A trickle of blood spread beneath his collar, barely a scratch.

And then the man hit him, hard, with an elbow to the jaw. Disoriented, Thorne ended up on his back, and blindly stabbed at the man, catching him in the gut. But it wasn’t a fatal wound. Or at least, it wouldn’t kill him quickly enough.

Not before this killer managed to end him as well.

As Thorne tried to buck the man atop him off, a shot rang out, nearly deafening him with its nearness. The killer went slack immediately, slumping slowly to one side.

Disgusted by the brief view he caught of what the shot had done to the killer’s face, Thorne heaved the corpse off him, rolling onto his hands and knees so he could get up. If anyone else inside wasn’t aware of their presence, they certainly would be now.

The guard was sitting up, near the hedgerow, still holding a flintlock. But he dropped it, leaning over to vomit.

“Are you all right?” Thorne rasped.

“Had my brains rattled,” he said, spitting into the grass before he lay back down with a groan.

Thorne supposed he should be glad that the man’s shaken aim hadn’t taken him out. “Glad you still could make that shot,” he said as he got to his feet. “Can you mind this door if I leave you here?”

The guard nodded, taking a moment to collect himself. Thorne was happy the soldier was willing, because he really had no choice but to leave the man there.

Thorne picked up the soldier’s lantern, since the house was pitch dark, and his had broken when he dropped it after being attacked.

There was no chance he was getting caught out a second time.

He stepped carefully over the assassin’s corpse, lantern casting long, twitching shadows across the grass as he approached the house.

The front door had been left ajar—just enough to let someone slip out silently. Or in. Thorne tested the threshold with his boot, then pushed the door open fully, holding the lantern high .

The air inside was cold and stale. The kind of air that came from hours without a fire. Thorne moved slowly, boards creaking underfoot. To his left, a front room lay in disarray—dust, rat droppings, a pile of old firewood, long since mildewed. Empty.

He turned toward the stairs, listening, and caught a faint scuff. Someone was upstairs.

Thorne crossed to the staircase and began to climb, placing each foot with care. His lantern swung slightly with each step, throwing light and shadow across the cracked plaster walls. He reached the landing and turned, scanning the hall.

He didn’t bother whispering warnings or calling out. If they had a weapon, he wasn’t giving them a head start. The first door he passed looked like it had been a child’s room, abandoned and stripped. The second was locked, but he could hear shifting inside.

With one hard blow, Thorne kicked the rotting door in.

The man inside had been halfway out the window.

Godfrey Bellrose—at least, so Thorne assumed—froze, one leg already slung over the sill, the other caught in his coattails.

The expression on his face, caught between panic and indignation, might’ve been comical if Thorne hadn’t been so angry at the coward.

What sort of man did such things to women like the duchess described?

“Go on, then. Jump,” Thorne told him, his voice like dark velvet. “But you’d best be sure you can outrun me. Because when I catch you—and I will catch you—I’ll see you pay for every hurt you let them suffer. Threefold. With interest.”

Bellrose looked down, some twelve feet to the ground. And then he looked back at Thorne.

“What’ll it be, Bellrose?” Thorne asked him. “Do you feel like luck is on your side?”

Slowly, Bellrose lifted his hands, and Thorne was almost disappointed.

He crossed the room in three steps and yanked the treasury clerk back from the window, none too gently.

Bellrose sagged in his grip, but Thorne wasn’t about to trust that display of surrender.

He spun the man around with a grunt and yanked his arms behind his back, wrenching free the cravat from around Bellrose’s throat.

He doubled it over and used it to bind the man’s wrists, tight enough to bite.

Bellrose gave a small hiss of pain. “That’s unnecessary?—”

“Oh, it’s the bare minimum,” Thorne muttered, checking the knot with a hard jerk. “You’re lucky I’m in a mood to walk you out instead of throwing you headfirst.”

He shoved him toward the door, one hand gripping the collar of Bellrose’s coat like a man hauling a sack of oats.

They made an ungainly descent of the stairs, Bellrose stumbling more than once as Thorne gave him no room to dawdle.

His boots knocked loudly on each step, the lantern swinging with their movement, casting dizzying shadows across the walls.

Thorne didn’t speak again until they reached the entry hall and crossed the threshold of the front door. The guard blinked at the sight of them, still upright.

“Be careful,” Thorne said, pushing Bellrose forward at the soldier. “This one squirms.”

Then he looked past him, lifting his lantern and waving it, hoping the carriage driver would see. He needed the coachman to come closer to the house, to help deal with Bellrose and the injured soldier.

The duchess had said they had been held in the basement.

Thorne uttered a silent prayer that Lady Normanby was still there, imprisoned but alive.

Steeling himself, he returned inside, looking for the stairwell below.

It was simple enough to find in the end, for the door was barred from the outside.

He slid the bar free and turned the handle.

“Lady Normanby!” he lifted his voice as he descended. He didn’t want to frighten her if she was thinking he was Bellrose. “Are you there? I’m coming downstairs. I will help get you out.”

There was no answer, and Thorne’s stomach turned.

From the top of the basement stairs, he could see a squat, low-ceilinged chamber. When he reached the bottom, all he saw were storage shelves lining the walls, most of them empty. Crates and broken chairs had been shoved into corners.

No sign of the missing woman. But then, he noticed yet another door, held shut by a shiny padlock.

The iron keyring for it was hanging on the doorknob, so confident had Bellrose been in their captivity. “Lady Normanby?” he called again, reaching for the keys. “I’m unlocking the door.”

As he pushed open the wooden panel, the smell hit him first. Musty stone, damp coal, and the sharp, sour smell of sweat and fear, mingled with the other unpleasant results of keeping someone imprisoned.

It reminded him far too much of the last time he had found people being held captive, and for a moment he struggled to remain calm, torn between anger and fear that he had arrived too late.

Chandros’s lantern arced to the floor and shattered below with a sickening whuff . The ink and turpentine caught immediately, and the flames exploded outward like fingers clawing at the air.

Peregrine could hear the shouting from below—the men from the Horse Guards. But he couldn’t see, because Duke Chandros now stalked towards the office door, the intent writ clear on his face.

He intended to shut Peregrine in with Hodges, letting the fire take care of the rest.