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T he early wave of heat had finally broken. With a spectacular series of thunder booms and jagged flashes of light, London had spent three full days held hostage by rainfall.

Millie had loved every second of it.

She’d always enjoyed a good storm, especially if it had the good sense to occur during her evening routine. It was calming and comforting in a way that made one feel overly grateful for four sturdy walls and a roof over one’s head.

She wrote to it. She fell asleep to it. She watched it from the windows while sipping hot tea.

What could be better?

Perhaps she really was a wildflower, after all. The thought made her smile. For blooms like Millie Yardley, one required a hearty rainfall in the absence of watering cans.

She’d finished her first draft of her letter to the wildflowers of the world by morning on the second day of the deluge. Her unexpectedly free days and the crackling energy of the storm had created the perfect conditions for her thoughts to flow out freely.

Of course, there were a great many edits and notes in the margins.

The draft was stacked in an array of mismatched loose sheafs of paper, provided by Irene from Lord knows where.

She imagined it would have taken her weeks without the blessing of the city being forced to pause its seasonal revelries.

She was, of course, eager to pick up her new journal, which had been sequestered in Bloomsbury during the multi-day storm. But, at least this way, she would be able to copy a more polished version into the book once she had it in hand. Such a work of art would deserve nothing less.

Once she’d perfected it, she’d make yet another copy for Miss Lazarus. She hoped to have an opportunity to give it to the young lady soon, before the Season could take too much of a toll on the poor thing.

When the sun finally managed to break through the cloud cover on the fourth day, slowing the downpour to a drizzle and shining a few feeble beams of light onto the drenched sidewalks, she knew it was time to return to work.

As it was, so many canceled events over the last days were likely to result in a confusing shuffle of rescheduling and social conflicts.

She expected managing the dowager’s social diary over the next month or so would be a true headache.

Then, of course, there was the matter of Abraham Murphy, whose face she’d been attempting to bat out of her immediate thoughts since they’d parted ways in Russell Square a week prior. She had never been the type to fawn, especially not over the type of man one might call ostensibly good-looking.

It was not a sensible thing to do, and she was well aware of her value in the marriage mart. She didn’t want to return to the pain of her debutante days, spilling tears like poor Miss Lazarus over some careless man. Men had predictable interests, Millie thought, and she had never been one of them.

Still, her heart leapt right into her throat when she’d collected the letters and cards and saw that one of them was addressed directly to her with her name bold on the front in a distinctly masculine scrawl.

She had touched it with only the tips of her fingers at first, afraid to break the spell.

She wanted nothing more than to snatch it off the tray and flee up the stairs to her bedroom to rip it open and pore over what was inside.

But that would not do, not with the audience of servants constantly moving to and fro in the townhouse, or worse, the dowager spotting her acting so ridiculously.

Lady Bentley had not enjoyed the storm. She had taken to bed on that first day with complaints of an unending megrim brought on by the weight of the air in such disagreeable weather and hadn’t emerged since.

It wouldn’t do if the first thing she saw upon reclaiming her good health was Millie acting like a fool.

She forced herself to look at all the other missives first, taking them to the desk in the drawing room where she usually reviewed the day’s mail. She knew she wasn’t actually accomplishing anything by delaying her curiosity, but it felt necessary in that moment to exert some manner of control.

It was as though Mr. Murphy would somehow know it if she read his letter first.

And then a tiny, mutinous voice in her mind whispered, So what if he did know? Maybe I’d enjoy that.

It gave Millie pause, her eyes settling on his handwriting and the way it glared in opposition to the careful calligraphy of the other letters.

She was not going to lie to herself about her innocence in matters of flirtation and courtship.

She had never been overtly pursued by a man.

Certainly there had been the odd lecherous comment on the street or the doddering old man who had raised his brow at her in consideration that she might make a biddable and grateful young wife, but that hardly counted for anything meaningful.

When Abe looked at her with those observant hazel eyes, when he smiled and teased and flirted with her, she felt something altogether new. And she liked it.

If he had a preternatural ability to know that she was giddy over this letter, or if his ears would perk up like a basset hound’s when she broke the seal on the flap, well, she supposed that was just the price she’d have to pay to sate her curiosity.

And why not revel in such attention now that she had it? She might never have it again. And what would be the joy in such an interlude if she could not be a little bit bold, even if only in her mind?

Besides, she reasoned, she wanted to know if he’d found the thief.

She pressed her lips together and plucked the letter up into her fingers, her heart thrumming against the thin flesh at her throat.

The back had been pressed together with a messy smudge of faded blue wax, so uneven and hurried that she thought to herself that it looked as though the letter had bruised itself in its haste to reach her.

She broke it with her thumbnail, almost startling from the crisp snap it made as it came apart.

Millie,

You’ve certainly sent me on a merry chase. I’ve been to three service agencies in Mayfair since our walk in the gardens, and all three claim to have serviced several of the victims! They are, unfortunately, hesitant to share their duty rosters with me.

This is where you helped me again! After a week or so of reviewing gossip sheets every morning, I’d got enough of an understanding of the scoundrel circulars to leverage their dark power against the fears of the agency people.

So now I have three thick files full of names, dates, and ridiculous jobs.

Have you ever heard of such vocations as ‘tweeny,’ or ‘hall boy’ or ‘necessary woman’?

For I had not, and I cannot help but laugh.

Each ridiculous title brings to mind an image of an old man, proudly telling his progeny about his time as (this one is also real) an under-butler.

But I digress.

Millie found herself giggling, pressing her fingers to her lips as her eyes scanned the page. The grin pulling at the corners of her lips was the best sort of ache.

And once more, your words gave me guidance!

The Cains are intending to host a small party for a foreign dignitary who has Silas in his employ.

I spoke with them and convinced them to invite me as a means of observation and security, lest their poor client find himself light on jewels at the end of the evening.

If it goes well, perhaps this will give me the clout necessary to be hired for similar gatherings as my investigation continues.

It may well be presumptuous to assume, but I expect I will see you there? I have much and more to tell you the next time I see you. And so, I am willing your attendance to this soiree.

Your servant and friend,

Abraham Murphy

“Your servant and friend,” Millie repeated softly to herself. She did not suppress the sigh that rose in her chest, though she thought it was a measured response.

If she had truly done exactly as she wished, she would have thrown herself into bed with the letter clutched to her chest, kicking her feet like an excitable child.

Her eyes scanned the other envelopes in front of her. Indeed there was a letter from Dot, likely inviting Lady Bentley and Millie herself to the event Abe had mentioned. She opened the letter and scanned its contents hurriedly, just to be certain.

There was a spark of excitement igniting in her chest, crackling and bright as the lightning that had been tearing down from the heavens for the last several days. She would, of course, have to convince Lady Bentley to accept this invitation. She must.

It should have been an easy goal, but of course, there was the complication of the guest of honor.

She could see in her mind’s eye the way Lady Bentley had paled at his very mention that night in St. James. She heard Mrs. Smith’s voice, echoing in her memory like a warning as her eyes fell on Dom Raul’s name in her friend’s handwriting.

He was the one she didn’t marry .