Epilogue
The Lion Watch headquarters had never looked more innocuous than it did in the bright wash of late afternoon.
Clerks moved quietly through narrow corridors with ledgers tucked beneath their arms. Candles burned in sconces as though the building were nothing more than a sober counting-house, occupied by men who concerned themselves with tariffs and shipping schedules rather than secrets and treason.
Outside the street was filled with ordinary London life—hawkers calling, wheels rattling, horses’ hooves hitting the street as people bustled about.
Inside, however, the air was taut with purpose.
Halford sat in a small room with a bolted door and a single narrow window set too high for any man to see out of.
His wrists were bound, though not with the crude knots of a common constable.
The Lion Watch did nothing crudely. Even their restraints were efficient—linen was wrapped firmly around him so the blood flow was preserved, and pain was avoided unless they required him to feel pain.
They had left him there to wait. Waiting, Dash had learned, loosened tongues in ways threats did not.
A man’s imagination could be more persuasive than any blade.
In the adjoining chamber, Lionston stood over the long table where maps were spread, and papers lay in neat stacks.
The duke’s expression was controlled, yet the tension in his shoulders betrayed him.
His gaze kept returning to one document in particular—the list Vivy had pulled from her father’s study and Dash had delivered to him.
“This is an abomination,” Lionston said at last, in a low tone.
“Every name on that list,” he began. He tightened his jaw before he continued, “It reads like an invitation to slaughter. Our slaughter…”
Dash remained near the wall with his arms folded and his posture still.
His composure had been hammered into him over years, but there were some things it could not blunt.
He could still see Vivy’s throat as Halford held a knife to it.
Her pale skin and the faint line of red where the knife had kissed it and drawn blood.
He had kissed her there later, as if he might erase the memory by force of will.
It had not worked. “It reads like someone has been watching us for a very long time,” Dash said. He hated to admit that. They were spies and were supposed to notice such things.
Lionston glanced at him. “Or someone has been feeding information from the inside.”
A silence settled, heavy and uncomfortable.
“Who do you think it is?” Dash asked, though he already knew the answer. “Has Slothington discovered anything yet?”
Lionston made a sound of displeasure. “He is still digging into Avonridge. He insisted on discretion. I will speak with him after he has had more time to uncover something.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, he requires time. Which I dislike as much as you, but there is not helping it.”
Dash almost smiled, but it would have been humorless. “Time has never been your favorite commodity.”
Lionston returned his gaze to the list. “Nor is patience.” He tapped a name marked missing, then another. “These are not men who vanish without reason.”
“Unless they are dead,” Dash said quietly. Neither of them wanted to believe that, but they had to consider the possibility.
Lionston’s gaze hardened. “Unless they are.” It was there in his tone…the same fear that Dash had. If they were indeed dead, whoever targeted them, could come after them all.
A knock came at the door. One of their men leaned in. “He’s ready, Your Grace.”
Lionston nodded once. “Bring him.”
They did not bother with ceremony. Halford was escorted in and seated at the table across from Lionston and Dash. His face was sallow, his hair disheveled, and sweat dampened his forehead. His gaze darted toward the door more than once.
Lionston did not raise his voice. He did not need to. “You threatened a duke’s daughter,” Lionston said in a mild tone. “You entered my house with a pistol and threatened my wife. You are either remarkably foolish or remarkably desperate.”
“Perhaps a bit of both,” Dash offered. He wanted to kill the man for hurting Vivy, but he knew they needed information. That meant he had to continue to breathe.
Halford swallowed. “I had orders.”
“From whom?” Dash asked.
Halford turned his gaze toward him, and hatred flashed there—hot and brittle. “From men who understand what you represent and do not like it.”
Dash’s expression did not change. “Give us their names.”
Halford licked his lips. “I don’t know their names.” He grinned. “I didn’t need to know them. I was happy to do their bidding.”
Lionston leaned forward a fraction. “Then you are of no use to them or us.” Halford flinched. That had hit home. He was starting to realize what a precarious situation he was in. “If you cannot give us names, then perhaps you can tell us why Avonridge had that list.”
“I…” Halford’s throat bobbed. “She never should have seen it. She ruined everything.”
That was not an answer. It was a confession of incompetence. Lionston narrowed his gaze. “Was it meant for the Duke of Avonridge?” Halford hesitated too long. Dash caught it. So did Lionston. Lionston’s voice turned a shade colder. “Is Avonridge involved?”
Halford’s eyes widened in horror. “No! No, he—he wouldn’t. He doesn’t even know it exists. It was meant as…insurance.”
“Insurance against what?” Dash demanded.
Halford’s breath came faster. “If…if something happened. If the French…it’s insurance…”
Lionston stared at him and said, “It’s a list of spies you can sell to the French.”
Halford’s shoulders sagged. “I do not know.” He shook his head as if he could undo his own choices. “I am not the one who makes those decisions.”
Dash sighed. He was an idiot and no one of importance. They used him and he had been stupid enough to get caught. “You are worse than a fool. You’re the one they send in and do not care what happens. You’re disposable.”
Halford’s jaw clenched. “You think you are noble, all of you. Playing at war in secret rooms. But there are men with power who will remind you soon enough how little you do matter.”
Lionston’s smile was thin. “Is that why they are watching us?”
Halford said nothing.
Lionston’s expression flattened. He sat back. “You truly do not know anything.”
Halford’s mouth twisted. “I know enough to know I am dead.”
Lionston looked at Dash, and something passed between them—an understanding neither needed to put into words. Halford had been someone they used for their schemes. There was nothing more they could learn from him.
Lionston rose. “Take him back to the room,” he told the guards. “And make certain he is kept alive until Slothington returns with answers.”
Halford’s eyes widened. “Please…” The guards dragged him away. The door shut and silence returned, thick as smoke.
Lionston exhaled slowly through his nose. “Useless idiot...”
“Not entirely,” Dash said. “He confirmed what we suspected.”
Lionston raised a brow. “Which is?”
“That someone wants us gone,” Dash replied, voice tight. “And that someone wanted us reminded we can bleed.”
Lionston nodded, but he did not comment.
Instead, he turned back to the table and pressed two fingers to the list as if he would like to grind it into dust. “We will burn that list,” Lionston said quietly, “once Slothington discovers what he can from Avonridge. I do not know if I believe he is innocent.”
Before Dash could respond, the door opened again. This time it was not a guard but a young man with ink stains on his fingers and exhaustion etched into his face—one of their best codebreakers. He held a parchment packet in careful hands, as though it might bite.
“Your Grace,” he said, breathless. “The missive Lord Ravenwood intercepted—the one in the new cipher. We finished it.”
Dash felt his spine tighten. The message...how had he forgotten about that? The spark that had lit everything, before Halford, before knives and pistols and Vivy entered his life again.
That caught the duke’s attention at once. He snapped his fingers and gestured to the man. “Give it to me.”
The codebreaker placed the parchment before him. Lionston skimmed the lines quickly and then he went very still. The quiet in the room shifted, becoming something colder.
“What is it?” Dash asked.
Lionston did not answer immediately. His fingers tightened on the page. Then, with sudden violence, he snatched the missive off the table and straightened. His gaze flashed with dark interest.
Dash took the missive from him and scanned it quickly. If it upset Lionston then it was personal. It must somehow involve his family…or his wife.
élise Marchand has returned to England. Retrieve her, preferably alive. Watch Viscount Whitley and wait. She will want to contact him and is likely to seek him at her first opportunity. Do not lose her again.”
The words hung in the air, stark and unforgiving.
For a heartbeat, Dash could hear only the faint crackle of a candle and the distant stir of London beyond their walls.
Then Lionston swore an uncharacteristically brutal oath, low and furious.
“It is the last thing we needed,” Lionston said, voice taut with anger.
His gaze cut to Dash. “Do you understand what this means?”
Dash’s jaw tightened. “It means the French are hunting their own.”
“It means,” Lionston said in a clipped tone, “that we have not merely one threat, but two, and the second has targeted my wife’s brother.”
Dash cursed. élise Marchand was a French operative that had used Sabrina’s brother for information. He had been a pawn of hers and he had fallen hard for the woman. Why would she seek him out again? What did she hope to gain by doing so?
“Someone needs to watch him,” Dash muttered darkly.
Lionston’s expression did not soften. “Yes.” He pressed the missive flat on the table; his fingers splayed over it as if he could pin the threat in place.
“I will speak with Basil. He needs to know what is coming for him.” Lionston lifted his gaze, ice-cold and said, “Double the watches. Quietly. If élise Marchand so much as breathes near Whitley, I want to know before she draws her next breath.”
The codebreaker hovered uncertainly. “Yes, Your Grace” The man nodded and disappeared.
Dash watched Lionston for a long moment.
The duke’s composure was intact, but the anger beneath it was unmistakable.
Danger had arrived in London wearing another face.
Dash knew, with grim certainty, that the Lion Watch had just been handed a new war.
One that would not wait politely for Slothington’s investigation to conclude.
Lionston looked at Dash again. “You need to keep Vivy out of London.”
Dash frowned. “She will not enjoy that.”
Lionston said in a knowing tone, “No. She will not and neither will my wife. I think she needs to stay out of London too. Considering how she reacted to Halford holding her at gunpoint.”
“She knew you were there,” Dash said. “Your wife is not reckless.”
“Still…” He sighed. “I cannot risk her.”
Dash thought of Vivy—brilliant, stubborn, brave enough to demand truth and kisses in the same breath and felt the familiar tug of fear in his chest. Then he nodded once. “Trust me,” he began. “No one understands more than I do.”
Lionston returned his gaze to the missive, and his voice hardened as he spoke, “We will find élise Marchand,” he said, “before she finds Basil Fairfax.”
Dash prayed they did. If Basil fell into her clutches it likely would not end well. None of them knew what the Frenchwoman had planned for her former dupe, and Basil had loved the woman. He might even go with her willingly. Either way, they had much to contend with, and none of it seemed good.