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C onstance struggled up through the mists toward consciousness. Her ears were singing and her head was pounding. She couldn’t think why, or where she was. She was not in her own bed. In fact, she seemed to be lying on her front, which she never did, and what felt like someone’s arm was beneath her.

Every nerve in her body screamed with fear and fury, and she must have jerked in instinctive response to get away, for excruciating pain sliced through her head. She let out a groan because she couldn’t help it.

“Constance!” came a blessedly familiar voice from very far away.

Solomon … She tried to speak, but no sound came out.

She had to move, she had to run, run to him , but she seemed to be in one of those nightmares full of shadows and threat where she was trapped, and…

If only the infernal pounding of her head would stop.

Or was that noise outside her head? A particularly loud one seemed to prove that.

An exclamation, a footfall. Someone touched her shoulder and she cried out.

“Oh, Constance, my dear…”

Solomon. The brokenness of his voice moved her to weak tears. But he was lifting her, turning her, his arms so very strong and safe and wonderful… With a gasp and a huge effort, she flung out her own arms and clung to his neck.

Everything flooded back to her. Johnny, who was surely David, his sketches, Samuels the carpenter, who was Clarke, and his dead body on the floor.

Dear God, had she fallen on him when she was struck?

She tightened her grip on Solomon, who was holding her against his chest, his hand at the back of her head, murmuring incomprehensible, soothing words.

Just his voice was enough. She had always loved his voice.

“Clarke is dead. Someone hit me.” It was her voice, just weak and husky.

“I know, my darling, I know. Hold on.”

He rose with unusual awkwardness, taking her with him, and for a moment dizziness overwhelmed her. He set her down gently in an old, upholstered chair in a small parlor.

“The wound has stopped bleeding,” he murmured. “I’ll see to it in a moment. First, I’d better send for the local constable.”

She didn’t ask if he would come back. She knew he would. And, in fact, he was only gone a minute or two, for the street outside was busy at this time of the morning and no doubt his battering at the door had already attracted the neighbors’ attention.

When he came back, he had a bowl of clean water and a cloth in his hands, and he walked with brisk, soothing efficiency.

“One of the neighbors has run to fetch a policeman. What happened?”

“I went back to Jackson’s room,” she said, trying not to wince as he touched the wound in her head.

“Why?” he asked.

She stopped herself just in time from blurting out the truth. She didn’t want him to know yet that David—if he really was David—had denied having a brother. And she certainly didn’t want him to believe that if David came to see him, it was only because she had persuaded him.

“I just thought something was wrong there… Anyway, don’t get cross because the door was open and no one was there. I found sketches there of the crew of the Queen , and Clarke was one of them. I knew then he had to be Samuels, so I sent you word… Did you get the message?”

“I did. Janey overpaid the boy who brought it.”

“Does no harm to have willing helpers and messengers scattered across the city.” She swallowed.

“The door here was open, too, though something was impeding it and I couldn’t get in at first. It was Clarke’s feet.

I knelt beside him to see if he was still alive—he was cold; I knew he was dead—and then someone moved behind me, and before I could turn, he hit me.

” She shuddered. “I fell on him, didn’t I? ”

“Just on his arm. He didn’t mind.”

In spite of everything, a snort of laughter surged up. It might have been hysterical, but something lightened in Solomon’s intensely focused eyes.

“Who hit you?” he asked after a moment.

She shook her head, then wished she hadn’t. “I don’t know. I didn’t see.”

“You said he hit me.”

“I’m making an assumption. I feel better about being bested by the stronger sex.”

“So where did he come from?” Solomon asked. “What was behind you?”

“The front door.”

“Then he wasn’t in the house already. Do we have two attackers, then? Someone who shot poor Clarke and scarpered, leaving the door open? And then another man who hit you and then departed, carefully locking the door behind him?”

“Bizarre,” she admitted, frowning, grasping at impressions and memories. “There were feathers in the hall.”

“Well, it wasn’t an armed bird who shot him. I think we need to let a doctor see this. It might need stitches.”

It said a great deal about her weakness that she did not object either to the doctor or, after the constable had taken their names and addresses, being taken home and carried into her own establishment via the mews.

*

Solomon had never been so terrified as when he had seen her lying there on the floor of Clarke’s house, the back of her head soaked with blood, already matting her hair.

Her hat had been knocked askew and tumbled off, probably, when she fell forward.

Only that one vocal groan had given him hope, until he felt her breathing.

His heart had almost broken when she reached for him like a child seeking comfort.

His anger at her recklessness had vanished into that mess of fear and pity and love.

And sheer relief when she began to sound more like herself.

Still, head wounds could be nasty. His own father had died of one, falling from his horse.

He too had seemed to recover, and then died that night.

Leaving Solomon truly alone in the world.

He still remembered that odd, rootless emptiness, different from the gradual loss of David, and yet just as all-encompassing. He had had to work hard to overcome that fear, to make his own decisions and spread his wings.

Constance was too young, too vital, and much too precious to be allowed to die. And so he carried her inside, to the vocal anxiety of her household. One of the women, Sarah, led him upstairs to Constance’s bedchamber, with Constance nattering reassuringly all the time.

“I’m fine. I just had a bit of an accident, and Solomon is making a huge fuss. I’m perfectly capable of walking, Solomon—do put me down.”

“You be quiet, ma’am, and let the gentleman carry you up,” one of the other women said sternly. “Joseph’s gone to fetch the doctor, and you are going to your bed.”

“I most certainly am not!”

“You most certainly are,” Solomon said firmly, laying her down. “I’ll wait through here while your friends help you undress. Absolutely no corset,” he added by way of instruction.

“Why, Solomon!” Constance mocked. “What do you know about a lady’s corsets?”

“You’d be surprised by what I know,” he said, walking into what appeared to be her private sitting room.

Pacing while he waited, he distracted himself by gazing around her boudoir.

Two armchairs and a comfortable chaise longue.

A neat, businesslike desk with lamp and writing materials.

A bookcase with a wide variety of volumes, from novels to philosophy and travel and various scientific treatises.

A constant surprise, was Constance Silver.

The decoration of the room was tasteful, uncluttered, and yet feminine.

Soothing, cool blues and warm creams. An atmospheric landscape in oil hung over the fireplace.

A watercolor still life on another. A couple of statuettes stood on the mantelpiece, a vase of hothouse flowers on a small table, another on her desk.

The women emerged. “Well, we got her into bed,” Sarah said. “We’re relying on you to keep her there, at least until the doctor has been.”

“I will,” he promised, already in a hurry to reassure himself of Constance’s wellbeing.

She was propped up on a sea of pillows, wearing a wispy lace nightgown of the type he remembered only too well from the Maules’ house, when they had pretended to be married. And now they really would be, if only he could keep her safe long enough.

As though she read his mind, she said, “It has happened before and we have discussed it before.” She held out her hand to him. “It is the life we chose, Solomon.”

He took her hand and sat on the side of the bed before he kissed her fingers. “I know. I just wish you had waited for me.”

“So do I—now. I only meant to watch the house until you came, but the door was open and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t not go in. If only we had been earlier, we might have saved him.”

“I don’t think so,” Solomon said. “Not unless we had gone last night, and I confess it never entered my head that Clarke and Samuels were the same man.”

“Has Lloyd dismissed us?” Constance asked ruefully.

“No, but I had a visit from Sydney, in self-righteous indignation that you were in a brothel.”

“Well, so was he until I threw him out. He and Ben Devine appeared in the train of an amiable young lord who is a regular visitor. They, however, were drunk and insulting. But I knew it would rebound on Silver and Grey. I’m sorry, Sol.”

“There’s no need to be. Lloyd actually sent Sydney to fetch us because Miss Audrey Lloyd has apparently vanished.”

“Miss Lloyd who visited Clarke’s invalid sister,” Constance said slowly. “And that’s odd, too. Why didn’t the sister hear the commotion? If Clarke was shot, there must have been a devilish explosion…”

“She wasn’t in the house,” Solomon said.

“While you and the neighbors were talking to the constable, I nipped upstairs to look for her. To be honest, I was afraid I’d find her dead like Clarke himself—unless she was the one who shot him.

But if he really has a sister, there is no sign of her ever having lived in that house.

The second bedroom was almost entirely empty, apart from an old seaman’s chest and a few tools. ”