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E ven when the sun rose, the panic never did.

They were still giggling, still stealing little kisses all the way through getting their clothes back on and trying to restore some semblance of decency to her appearance.

She left her hair down for the time being. Her dress was hopelessly wrinkled from the rain … and of course also from being in a damp pile on the floor for some hours before being dried over a fire grate in Abe’s living room.

It was probably ruined, just like she was, and she didn’t care at all.

He brought her coffee, steaming in a chipped earthenware mug, and told her with a very serious tone that this was the best of his mugs, his favorite.

Then he measured out sugar and cream as though he were conducting the most volatile chemistry, and a lack of perfection would literally explode in his face.

They sat together, sipping the coffee in companionable silence, simply lingering in the moments they had left before she’d have to return to the real world.

So, naturally, it was abruptly destroyed. Naturally.

And of course, the agent of destruction was Freddy Hightower, bursting into his own home like he belonged there.

He looked just as rumpled as they did, freezing in the doorway, halfway through the action of slamming it behind him with his eyes growing to twice their usual size at the scene in front of him.

“What?” he managed, releasing the door and letting it clatter shut. “What?!”

“Good morning, Freddy,” Abe said pleasantly. “How’d it go? Maidens sufficiently smuggled?”

“What!” Freddy repeated, gripping a fistful of his own hair like he was considering pulling it out as a demonstration of his upset. His wedding ring glinted against the morning light that was streaming in from the window, melding into the color of his hair.

“Lord Bentley,” Millie began, trying not to let her exasperation with life itself tint her words.

“Millicent, did you … did he …?!” Freddy seemed truly dismayed. He managed to find his footing, propelling himself forward to collapse onto the chair opposite the couch Abe and Millie were sharing before reverting right back to another strangled “ What ?!”

“Get a grip, Bentley,” Abe said, as though it were a friendly suggestion.

It was enough to give Freddy a jolt to his senses. “You! That is my sister-in-law, Murphy! How … how dare …”

Abe stood up then, putting a stabilizing hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Relax, Freddy,” he said, not taunting anymore. Reassuring, perhaps? “I’m going to marry the girl.”

Millie blinked. Not quite startled, but certainly surprised.

Abe glanced over his shoulder at her. “We’re going to get married, aren’t we?”

“Oh,” she said, taking another sip of her coffee as she met Freddy’s wild-eyed stare then flicked her gaze back to Abe. “Yes, probably.”

Abe nodded, looking back at the other man. “See, Bentley? It’s fine.”

“You’re supposed to get married first!” Freddy cried, color rising to his cheeks. “Was … did you just propose to her, you bastard? Is that how you propose?”

Millie looked at Freddy with a genuine sort of curiosity. “So many rules,” she observed. “How did you propose? Not to Dot, I mean, I know how that happened. To my sister. Or did you? Did you elope before or after spending the night together?”

“Millicent!” Freddy gasped, his voice strangled.

“I see,” Millie replied, and sipped her coffee again.

“I …” Freddy gritted his teeth together, tearing his eyes away from both of them like he couldn’t stand the sight. “I’m going to make breakfast.”

He stalked off, not looking back, and moments later a lot of clattering started to emerge from the kitchen.

Abe looked at Millie, shrugged, and sat back down beside her.

“He makes breakfast?” she said in open disbelief.

“Oh, you’re in for a treat,” Abe replied with a chuckle. “He’s been funneling every bad habit he has into learning to cook and clean. I hope he makes a hollandaise.”

“Right,” said Millie.

Because, at this point, she had no shock left to give.

She practically danced back to Mayfair, wrinkled dress and all.

Abe had offered a hackney. Freddy had tried to insist upon it. But Millie always walked when she needed to contemplate a thing, and so she’d had to be very firm in her no.

She had pinned up her hair with the only two salvageable pins from Abe’s dismantling of her chignon last night, pocketing the rest so he wouldn’t fret over ruining them. She knew she looked a fright, but she also knew that most people rarely looked up from their own worries on city streets.

You had to go to the park for that.

She’d gotten a tour of their townhouse properly before she left. She’d gotten to look at Abe’s case ledger and smell the rose oil on his desk.

Freddy had made a hollandaise, and it had been very good.

Freddy! The wonders truly never ceased.

He would be gone again soon, personally escorting Gretchen and Paula to Dover. He’d given them a mumbled account of the plan, of how he’d spent the night playing coffee-fetcher and ink-refiller to Mr. Cresson.

It made her laugh, all alone on the morning sidewalk.

Lady Bentley was at the harpsichord when she arrived, so engrossed in her sonata that she barely looked up when Millie passed by the sitting room.

It gave her enough time to go upstairs and call for a bath and a gown and a strong cup of black tea, enough time to get into appropriate order again before coming down for luncheon, though she did mourn to wash Abe from her skin, frowning at the frothing soap as it slid over her arms and legs.

Irene had sighed heavily at the state of Millie’s dress, but had accepted “caught in the rain” as an explanation for the state of it.

“Well, at least there are no beads or flourishes,” she’d said, shaking it out opposite the sunlit window. “A press should sort it out well enough.”

“If it doesn’t,” Millie had told her, “that is all right.”

“Your hair looks like you combed it out by hand,” Irene had tutted.

It made Millie’s heart flutter. Because it had been, of course, but not by Millie’s hand, not by her fingers carefully worrying away the knots and snarls.

By the time the luncheon bell rang, she felt refortified, as though all the glow of the night before had been tucked safely away in her pocket, to carry in secret. Of course, the downside of that was that in its absence, everything else came back into focus.

“There you are, dear,” Lady Bentley said, using her fingers to rip apart a fresh roll of bread, much to the chagrin of the nearby footman. “Your note last night had me a touch worried. Is all well with Mrs. Cain?”

Millie glanced at the staff before answering, the footman with the bruised jaw reminding her that these people were likely on her side, so far as what had occurred last night.

“We were assisting in ensuring the safety of Miss Waters,” she said, choosing each word carefully.

Lady Bentley paused, lifting her glass of water to swallow delicately. “Indeed? I confess I have felt much concern for that young woman, and not entirely because of her choice to run off.”

“Your concern was well-placed,” Millie replied evenly.

Lady Bentley looked around at her staff, suddenly aware of the ears in the room. “You may leave us,” she said to them, “and have a care. We were not the only ones threatened by that man.”

They dispersed, and Millie watched them go with mixed feelings.

“They will not say anything,” Lady Bentley said firmly, as though she could hear Millie’s discomfort. “Who would, after what Mr. Waters did here last week? David’s jaw is still an awful palette.”

“Has there been any gossip about him since yesterday?” Millie asked, grimacing when Lady Bentley shook her head.

“No, and I went to a very gossipy dinner last night.”

“He beat a maid,” Millie told her, lowering her voice and leaning in. “He fractured her cheekbone. In public, on the landing of a boarding house. And it’s not even worthy of gossip?!”

Lady Bentley frowned. “Whose maid was she?”

“No one’s,” Millie answered, aghast. “Why?”

“Because that is the only reason anyone in the ton would care,” Lady Bentley responded, apology for her ilk writ over her pretty face. “She helped that girl, didn’t she? The maid?”

Millie nodded, snatching up her own bread roll and rending it in half with her fingernails. “Yes.”

“And she’s safe now?” Lady Bentley pressed quietly.

“Yes,” Millie said again, and ate some of the bread.

They were quiet for a moment, focused on their bowls of perfectly hot and savory soup, cooked and served and garnished without a single finger of request from either of them.

“That is good,” Lady Bentley finally said, looking ashamed of something she had no part in at all.

Her shame made it so much worse somehow.

“We’re going to get them to Dover,” Millie heard herself saying without even considering it, without ever asking Dot and Ember and the others if she could share this with, of all people, a noble. “And from there to the Continent. He will never touch her again.”

“We? You and Mrs. Cain?” Lady Bentley asked, a spark of something like hope in her eyes. “Truly?”

“Not alone,” Millie said with a flick of her wrist. “Of course we couldn’t alone; we actually asked …” She trailed off, realization dawning as she raised her eyes to meet the other woman’s. “We asked Freddy to help.”

“Freddy?” Lady Bentley repeated, as though she’d never heard her own son’s name before. “My Freddy?”

“He didn’t hesitate for even a moment,” Millie said, awed by the truth of it even though she’d witnessed it herself, a kind of strange heat building in her chest as she watched Lady Bentley react to this.

“He rode in like a hero on horseback, willing to do anything for this perfect stranger of a girl and her friend, a servant. He is going to take them to Dover himself.”

Her eyes glittered. Tears?

“He’s the only person we could think of who could do it,” Millie offered as an explanation. “But you would have been proud. You should be proud.”

“I am,” she replied softly, and choked. “I always have been, you know?”

She hesitated, giving a self-conscious little titter as she used her cloth napkin to dab under her eyes. “Millicent,” she said, blinking and looking up at the ceiling, willing herself to get a hold on her emotions. “Can I help? Is there anything I can do?”

“Oh!” said Millie, stirring her soup. “There might be. I will inquire. I was … erm, asleep … for much of the logistical planning last night. It was a very long day.”

“I can imagine it was,” Lady Bentley agreed, sounding a little exhausted just from hearing about it secondhand.

They ate, accompanied by nothing but the tinkle of spoon on bowl and the rustle of the tablecloth, both absorbed in their own thoughts until the soup was gone and the bread reduced to crumbs.

Millie looked up at the end, to this woman across from her, who had become something beyond definition to her—not quite a mother or a mentor or a friend, but also all three, all at once. And before she could talk herself out of it, she said, “I wrote it. The manifesto. It was me.”

Lady Bentley froze for a moment, taking in the words, and then, unexpectedly, she smiled.

“Oh, my dear girl,” she said with something like relief. “I wondered if you’d ever tell me that.”