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“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

—Heraclitus

L ifting the lantern higher to chase away the shadows, that’s when Thorne saw her—crouched low in the corner, her back against the stone.

The marchioness was filthy, her dark hair tangled, and she was barely wrapped in the rags that had once been her dress. But she was awake and aware. Her eyes glittered at him with fierce, barely restrained hostility. Her right cheek was darkened by a bruise.

Relief warred with rage. Between him and his brother, Roland was the one born with a furious temper. But right now, Thorne had one to rival Roland’s worst, and he held onto the urge to go marching upstairs to give Bellrose a beating that would teach him never to lay hands on a woman again.

But that could wait. Thorne set the lantern on the floor, lifting his hands in a nonthreatening display. And then he squatted on his haunches. “I am a friend of the Duchess Atholl.”

That caught her attention. “Charity?” she finally spoke, her voice cracking. “Charity made it back to London?”

“She did,” he said as kindly as he could. “She came with me. She is upstairs, waiting with the carriage.”

The marchioness covered her face with her hands, shaking. But almost as quickly as she broke down, she pulled herself back together, wrapping her arms around herself. “I won’t believe your lies about Charity. Who are you?”

Thorne began shucking his greatcoat, inching forward slowly.

After the fight, it wasn’t as clean as one could hope, but it would at least cover her.

“No lies, Lady Normanby,” he spoke to her as he would have to a frightened animal.

“My name is Nathaniel Thorne. Brother by blood to Duke Percy, though not by law.”

Lady Normanby’s scowl faded, and she studied his face warily. “I know you. You’re Sir Nathaniel?”

“If you do know me, then I’ll apologize now, Lady Normanby. I don’t remember meeting you.”

Carefully, he extended his coat to her, and Lady Normanby’s fingers twitched.

Then she snatched it from his grip, covering herself, turning her face away in embarrassment.

But once her arms were through the sleeves, she looked back at him.

“That you do not remember me should be no surprise. I was present at your investiture in Brighton.”

He got to his feet, taking a careful step forward to offer the marchioness his hand, and after a long moment, shakily, she took it. But he could tell as he helped her stand, as she straightened, she was hiding deeper hurts than her bruised cheek. And she let go the moment she was on her feet.

“A knight here to rescue the damsel in distress.” She made a brief sound of bitter amusement. “Well met, Sir Nathaniel. I hope you had good aim when you fired at dragons.”

“Bellrose is still alive and trussed up. He’ll rot in the gaol. The other ‘dragon’ is dead,” he admitted.

“A vicious brute in a hooded cloak?” she asked him. When he nodded, she sighed and said simply, “Good.”

Thorne held out his hand to her again. “Do you feel equal to walking up the stairs, my lady? If not, I am at your service.”

Her eyes flickered slightly, not answering. But she placed her hand in his, stepping towards him and inhaling sharply. Mindful of her hurts and wariness, Thorne lifted her, gently carrying her up from the basement.

“Put me down now, please,” she interrupted him as he headed towards the door to the outside. “Those curs carried me in here and I should like to walk out. But… I will lean, if you’ll allow it.”

Duchess Atholl dashed over from the carriage as Thorne pushed open the door, and Lady Normanby let him go to throw her arms around the duchess.

Letting them have their moment, Thorne glanced over their situation.

Bellrose had been tied belly-down over the guard’s saddle, and the injured guardsman had been helped up to the driver’s bench.

What the driver and the soldier had done with the assassin’s body, he wasn’t certain. It looked as though it may have been dragged behind the house, to judge the mess in the grass.

“Our soldier here is casting up his accounts every ten minutes. Let’s get everyone home,” the driver said, looking disturbed, and Thorne couldn’t blame him in the least. “It’s nearly dawn.”

Thorne made sure the women got safely inside the carriage, and he shut the door behind them, relieved that things had not gone worse. They set out, Thorne taking the lead of the guard’s horse, following the procession back to Atholl House.

The first hint of the sun’s rays brightened the horizon by the time the weary group made their way back to the duchess’s drive. Footmen and other guards spilled out of the house to assist, getting a cart to take the still-bound Bellrose and concussed soldier to Whitehall for questioning.

Despite the fact that she was falling down with fatigue, the duchess, for her part, managed to act with an authority that impressed the hell out of him, ordering her servants to prepare food, rooms and baths for both him and the marchioness.

But he noticed the way her eyes kept turning again and again to a pillar of smoke they had spotted rising to the southeast.

The marchioness refused to let them call for a physician, and sequestered herself in her room with Charity’s maid and housekeeper.

Conscious about the effort it would take to heat up so much water, Thorne declined a bath but gratefully accepted a pitcher and soap, and a clean shirt and neckcloth borrowed from a servant.

He found the duchess on the rear terrace, standing just beyond the shelter of the portico, one hand resting on the cool stone balustrade as the dawn broke pale over the garden wall.

Thorne still keenly remembered his long vigil in Brighton, and as she watched the southeastern horizon smouldering, he offered what comfort he could.

“It’s cool out here, Your Grace. You should at least get a cloak.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes smoky with fatigue. “I think by now you’ve more than earned the right to call me Charity, Sir Nathaniel.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up wryly. “Only if you dispense with my title. I still feel strange being called anything besides Thorne.”

“We have a bargain,” she murmured absently. But then she straightened, as if recalling she had duties. “Are you in need of anything? I have sent to The Angel for your luggage. You can stay here at Atholl House as long as you like.”

“That is kind of you, Your—Charity,” he corrected himself at her side look. “I actually came here to see if you had need of anything.”

“I could use a diversion,” she murmured. “How were Grace and Roland, when you left them?”

A spot warmed in his chest as he realised how much news he hadn’t had a chance to share, in all the chaos of the evening.

“I forgot; I came practically as the mailman. I have letters for you at The Angel. From both of them. And I beg forgiveness for my delay in coming to your assistance. I would have pushed the post chaise harder to make up for the lost time had we had any idea how serious things were.”

“It is hardly your fault,” she said softly. “At the time I wrote the letter, even I had no idea how serious things were about to become. But why were you delayed starting out?” She suddenly gave him a keen look, as if she was tallying the days. “Did Grace have her baby?”

Thorne laughed. “Yes. Mother and both babes are healthy. I stalled in setting out only long enough to do my duty at church since I did not know when I would be able to return to Northumberland. Roland asked me to be their godfather.”

“Both—” Charity’s jaw dropped. “She had twins? And you did not tell me this immediately!” He chuckled when she shoved him in friendly pique. “Oh, that is such happy news.”

“Aye. Roland, you might imagine, has been utterly beside himself. But Briggs is ecstatic, because if Roland is busy holding the babes, he doesn’t have his hands free to disorder his hair or tug at his cravat.”

Charity’s smile was briefly incandescent. But then, as if feeling the way her cheeks stretched strangely, she let it fall .

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he ventured gently. “What on earth has transpired here? I confess, seeing a Fitzroy at your side was among the least likely sights I imagined.”

“You might find it amusing to know that only a few weeks ago, I would have agreed with you,” she admitted.

“But everything that has happened… you need to know, he is not his mother. Not at all. As badly as we have been treated by Marian, it does not begin to compare to the things he has endured as her son.” And she told him, then, of what had occurred, starting from the poisoning of the prince.

“It isn’t my business,” he said to her gently, not wishing to pry. “But Grace would have my head if I did not at least ask to make sure Fitzroy was treating you with the respect you deserve.”

Another faint smile. “Absolutely, he is not. But… it seems I have become fond of him anyway. Grace will never understand why I want to be with him. No one who knows the truth of what happened last year will.”

“I think Grace might take it better than you think,” he said drolly. “Besides, if he’s won your regard, then that is the only thing that matters.”

Charity nodded, tucking her arms around herself as she shivered in the cool morning breeze. “I wish I knew now if he was all right.”

He set a hand gently on her shoulder. “If he is half as clever as his mother, he’ll do whatever he can to come back to you.”

Despite this being one of the busiest times of day for it, the Horseferry wasn’t moving because of the fire.

Peregrine and Hodges had no choice but to make for the Westminster bridge.

It wasn’t an onerous detour. In fact, it suited his restless split between the need to get back to Atholl House and see if there was news, and concern that Hodges wasn’t fit to ride.

Hodges was even more silent than usual, his face growing more dour every time Peregrine looked over at him to ensure he was still seated. “What is the matter,” Peregrine finally barked at him after the third time, unable to understand the man’s sour expression.

The man lifted his chin. “You should’ve left me, damn you. Haulin’ me through half a collapsing building like a sack of flour—what were you thinking? It wasn’t sensible to risk yourself for the likes of me.”

The sensible part of his mind pointed out that Hodges would have no way of knowing he had just kicked a hornets’ nest. Peregrine had given him only the short version of what had transpired, leaving out the part where Chandros had demeaned him for his sensibilities, just as his mother would have.

That Hodges’s bald utterance was an echo too close to what he had told Charity that night, when he told her about Grenville’s murder.

It set a spark to the powder keg of his doubt. And his temper. “If you value your position with me, then you shall never accuse me again of making a poor choice in saving a life instead of discarding it! Even yours. I am not my mother.”

“’Course you’re not,” Hodges said, reining in his horse warily. “I’d be long gone if you were. And I ain’t pretendin’ I’m not grateful. Fire’s a bloody awful way to go. But the marchioness sent me to look after you, not the other way ’round.”

Right. Hodges saw his protection as a bloody job, not a question of his integrity. If only Peregrine’s head wasn’t in such a damned muddle, he might remember that. He rubbed his aching temples.

Hodges didn’t kick the horse back into motion, instead giving him a look that cut to the bone .

“You still don’t understand why I took the job, do you.

” It wasn’t a question. “Or why I took Lady Normanby’s coin the same time I took yours.

Fifteen years I was a hired blade—hurting and killing for reasons no better than being paid, Fitzroy.

And I was tired. Done with it. I didn’t care if I came back from the war.

Figured I wouldn’t. Figured that was fair.

But war didn’t end me. And somewhere in all that mess, I found somethin’ that made it mean somethin’. ”

“Protecting my sorry arse, was it?” Peregrine shot at him.

“Working for people who saw what I was—all of it—and still reckoned I was worth somethin’ when I followed my conscience, not the coin.” The man folded his hands over the reins. “Same way your duchess sees you. And you think I don’t look at you and see myself?”

It was more he had heard out of Hodges than in the whole time he had known him, and Peregrine shook his head, speechless.

“You’re not yer mother. She came into this world wrong. You didn’t. Her sins ain’t yours to answer for. And the sooner you believe that, the sooner you’ll see takin’ care of that duchess of yours might be the one bit o’ work that earns back your bloody soul, you great noddy.”

Peregrine stared at him. “Well. That was delicately put.”

“Don’t much feel like apologisin’, if I’m honest. Head’s pounding like the Grenadiers’ve set up parade drill behind my eyes, and I’ve got no patience left for bloody niceties.

So the sooner we get to Atholl House, the sooner I can crawl into the stables and die quiet-like.

Don’t go planning any more heroics ’til tomorrow. ”

Hodges pushed his mount into a fast trot, and Peregrine’s beast followed of its own accord.

Which was just as well, because his hands were still lax on the reins.

And though there was much still to think about, he pushed it all to one side for later.

Like a candle burning at both ends, he was nearly spent.

Finding a quiet place to lay his head sounded rather good to him, too. Even better if it might involve the duchess’s lap.

As they made their way to Atholl House, Peregrine decided his driver had nothing to apologise for. Because instead of simply wishing he was a better man, for Charity’s sake, Peregrine started asking himself how he could make himself one.