Prologue
Rain turned London into a watercolor of soot and silver, and she despised it.
The damp settled into élise’s cloak far too quickly.
She made sure to keep her head bowed as she stepped from the coach into the narrow lane behind the bookbinder’s shop.
The driver did not linger. He had been paid not to.
Wheels from the carriage rattled away as it was swallowed by fog.
She was here alone with the familiar bite of air from the Thames and the quieter, older scent of ink and paper drifting from the cracked door ahead.
She did not knock. There was no need. The latch lifted at her touch as if someone had been waiting for her.
Inside, near the hearth a lantern sat on the counter.
Shelves were lined with stitched volumes and rolled parchment, and a narrow stair disappeared into the shadows.
Somewhere nearby, a press creaked softly, the sound was patient and rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Nothing about this shop cried danger.
That was why it worked.
A man appeared from behind the hanging cloth partition.
He was neither tall nor particularly handsome, which was often the safest thing for a man to be in London.
He wore a plain brown coat that could have belonged to any clerk or tradesman who wished to be overlooked.
His eyes, however, were too sharp for any of those.
He studied élise for a single breath, her wet hem, the precise way she held her hands, the angle of her gaze, and then said, without preamble, “Madame.”
élise did not flinch at the word. She had worn enough names to know that no one ever truly spoke to the person beneath them. “Mr. Dorrington,” she replied softly, as if she were nothing more than a customer come to complain about a misbound spine.
His mouth tightened. “You arrived sooner than expected.”
“That is the way of bad news,” élise said.
He motioned her to the small table near the hearth.
A kettle steamed there, and two cups had been set out as though he had been expecting her.
élise did not reach for the tea. She removed her gloves with careful precision instead, because the motion steadied her.
She set them on the table as if she had all the time in the world.
Dorrington watched her do it, and his gaze flicked to her hands.
He was counting the seconds. He would have counted her breathing if he could.
“You should not have come,” he murmured.
élise curved her lips faintly. “That is not what you mean. You mean I should not have come here.”
Dorrington’s eyes hardened. “I mean London is not safe for you.”
“London is not safe for anyone,” élise replied. “Most merely pretend it is.”
He gave a humourless sound. “They are asking questions.”
“Who?” No one should know she had returned to London or why. She knew she should not have come, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She had to see…him.
Dorrington glanced around the shop, momentarily, to the shelves as though the books might answer for him. “Men who do not wish to be known or seen.”
élise’s spine went cold. That particular kind of anonymity did not belong to petty criminals or bored gossips. It belonged to those who had the means to erase themselves as if they were invisible.
“How long?” she asked. She was already running out of time.
“Two days.” He slid a folded paper across the table, weighted with a plain coin. “This came yesterday. Through hands I do not know. Paid in French gold.”
élise did not touch the paper immediately.
She stared at it, willing her pulse to remain steady.
The last time she had been in London, she had believed herself clever enough to step in and out of danger like a lady stepping over a puddle.
She had learned, eventually, that danger did not always present itself where one could see it.
Sometimes it waited and sometimes it smiled with a wide welcome.
She reached forward at last and flipped the paper open.
The handwriting was precise and the ink fairly fresh.
It was not the rushed scrawl of a man who feared discovery, but the calm script of someone who believed himself beyond consequences.
élise read the line once. Then again, though the words did not change.
Marchand is back—watch Whitley; she will seek him.
For a moment she heard nothing. Not the press, not the kettle, and certainly not the rain at the window.
Only the sound of those words echoing in the hollow of her chest. Her real name was Marchand or at least the name was as close to what anyone in London could identify her with.
élise stared at it like the fool she was for coming back.
They were watching him, hoping to snare her in a trap.
She should stay away, but she doubted she could.
Basil Fairfax, Viscount Whitley—Basil, whom she had once loved with the reckless devotion of a girl who believed she could survive anything.
Basil, whose mouth had been warm beneath hers, whose hands had held her as if she were precious, whose trust she had shattered because she had been trained to do so.
She tasted bitter memory like smoke. It burned and coated her throat with the ash of her betrayal. “I will seek him,” she murmured aloud.
Dorrington’s voice was grim. “They intend for you to.”
élise let the paper fall to the table. Her fingers had gone oddly numb. “They are using him,” she said softly. “to catch me.”
Dorrington nodded. “There are whispers of a packet being prepared. Something that would… ruin him. Or worse.”
élise snapped her head up and met his gaze. “Ruin him how?” They had threatened something similar before and he had ignored it. Basil didn’t believe he could be ruined. He was wrong.
Dorrington hesitated, and the hesitation told her more than his words. “Treason, perhaps. Foreign funds. Correspondence. Something that cannot be laughed away over brandy at White’s.”
élise’s mouth went dry. Basil’s family name was old, respectable.
A viscount might survive a mistress, a duel, even a gambling debt.
He would not survive treason. He would not survive the suspicion of it…
not in a London still raw from war, not with men eager to prove their loyalty by destroying someone else’s.
Not even his father, the Earl of Whitmore, could save him from the downfall of something of that nature.
“Who is behind it?” she asked, though she knew Dorrington could not give her the name she wanted.
He looked away. “I do not know.”
“Do not lie to me,” élise said, very quietly.
Dorrington stiffened his shoulders and he lowered his voice. “I know only that the message was not written by a fool and the men asking after you do not do so for sport.”
A pulse of anger rose inside of her. It was sharp, hot, and unwelcome.
Anger was dangerous. It made one careless.
But she had been careless before, and Basil had paid the price of it.
She pressed her palms flat to the table, as if she might anchor herself to the world.
“I should not have returned,” she murmured.
Dorrington’s gaze sharpened. “Then leave again.”
élise laughed once, soft and cold. “If I leave, they will tighten the noose around him.” She lifted the paper again and folded it with slow precision, turning it into something small enough to hide. “They have already begun. There is no turning back now.”
Dorrington lowered his voice a fraction. “You cannot protect him.”
élise glanced up to his face. “I can try.”
“You tried before,” he said, and there was no cruelty in it—only the weary truth.
élise’s throat tightened. An image came unbidden in her mind of Basil in a candlelit room, his eyes furious and wounded and his voice quiet with disbelief when he learned what she was. The way he had looked at her as if the floor had vanished beneath him.
“I know,” she whispered.
Dorrington leaned forward slightly. “Do you intend to approach him?”
élise’s hand tightened around the folded message. “Not as myself.”
Dorrington’s brows knit. “Then as what?”
“As someone he will not recognize.” élise lifted her chin. “Someone he will not hate at first sight.”
Dorrington exhaled through his nose. “How do you propose to manage that? Men like Whitley are not easily deceived.”
élise’s mouth curved faintly. “He is not easily deceived by men.” She had deceived him quite well the last time they were together. She could do so now if she played her part right.
Dorrington stared at her for a moment, then looked away as if he had just realized what she meant.
“Do you propose to dress as a man then?,” he asked sharply.
élise did not blink. “I could never fool anyone in such a disguise. I am far too petite. A boy perhaps…but not a man.”
“élise…”
“Call me by my name again and you will make this worse,” she cut in, voice like silk drawn tight. “I am not élise Marchand in London. Not anymore.”
Dorrington clenched his jaw. “What will you call yourself?”
élise considered for a moment. A good name was neither remarkable nor memorable. It should slide off a tongue without leaving a mark. “Mrs. Ellis,” she said at last.
Dorrington narrowed his gaze. “A widow?”
“A widow is uninteresting,” élise replied. “Nearly untouchable. She may move with a freedom a girl cannot.” She stood, gathered her gloves, and adjusted her cloak as if she were already someone else. “A widow may go where she pleases and speak to whom she wishes, provided she is discreet.”
Dorrington rubbed his hand over his mouth. “And your face?”