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“I can drop to the ground.”

“Good. I suspect that our guard may lose his head and fire at some point.”

“What’s to be my cue?” she asked.

He did not get to answer as the door opened at the far end of the room, and Malikov came striding back. Their guard began to speak in rapid angry bursts of words, gesturing at the two of them.

Malikov glanced at them as he dropped a satchel on the baize table. “What have you two been hatching that causes the fellow such distress?”

Hazelwood shrugged and stepped away from Jane. “Malikov, what brings you to Crannock House in the middle of the night if not cards?”

Malikov looked at him, a man still deciding how to solve an unexpected problem. “Crannock is a friend of mine. He suspected that someone was abusing his hospitality and making a home for himself here. He asked me to look into it.”

“Did you find the interloper?”

“I fear your presence here tonight may have frightened him off.”

“I had no idea. Perhaps the evening will not go to waste if you acquire the map.”

“Hazelwood, you grow tiresome. I have not seen this map you offer me. A quarter of an hour ago, you claimed you could lead me to it. Now, you claim to have it.”

“Would you care to see it, to verify that it is the map you seek? My condition this time will cost you nothing.” Hazelwood angled toward Malikov, crossing between Jane and the man by the fire. He stopped a few feet from the baize table.

“What is it?”

“Simply that your man put his pistol in the corner.”

Malikov looked at the jumble of papers on the baize table. The disorder reminded Hazelwood of Goldsworthy’s desk. The truth of it struck him. Malikov was Russia’s Goldsworthy in London. He dispatched spies and collected information from them to send home, and he was about to pack his satchel with a treasure trove. And still he wanted that map. He motioned to the man on the hearth to put the pistol in the corner.

Hazelwood lifted his right foot and reached into his shoe for a piece of paper. Jane gave a smothered cry.

Malikov’s gaze stayed on the paper. “It’s a folded piece of paper.”

“As is a bank note, yet most men find it valuable. Are you ready to hear my condition?” Hazelwood began to unfold the paper.

* * * *

In spite of the cold Nate found himself sweating as he led his party through the back of the darkened house to the very door of the room where they could hear Hazelwood and Malikov in conversation. He would never have guessed that a man as large as Goldsworthy or one as stiff-rumped as Chartwell could move so stealthily. The third man created no sound at all. All but two of the horse guard troops were to wait in place on the Piccadilly side of the house, ready to intercept anyone who tried to bolt out the front.

Clare had his ear to the door from which the faint voices came. He turned the handle, and pushed the door ajar enough to hear Hazelwood offer Malikov a map. Chartwell stiffened in the dark. Clare raised his arm to give the signal.

Clare’s arm dropped and they burst through the doors, fanning out across the bare floor, Blackstone and Clare at the center, Goldsworthy and Chartwell to the left, and Nate and the third man to the right, boots smacking the floor and weapons jingling. Behind them the Horse Guards.

Malikov’s hand swept up a paper from the table in front of him, crumpling it in his fist and pivoting toward the fire. Hazelwood’s left fist shot out and caught Malikov squarely in the face, knocking him back, and making his nose gush blood. A dark figure from the hearth dashed for the corner and spun, wielding a pistol.

The shooter in the corner looked wildly at the firepower arrayed against him, and coldly took aim at the stranger beside Nate.

Hazelwood called out to Miss Fawkener, “Jane, your stays are too tight.”

The girl collapsed, and the man at Nate’s side dropped to his knees on the floor at her side as the dark fellow on the hearth fired. His shot whistled over the kneeling man’s head, past Nate’s sleeve, and into the woodwork at the dark end of the room.

The shooter turned to flee, but a bullet from Clare’s pistol brought him moaning to the ground clutching his leg. The room rang with echoes of shots fired and stank of burnt powder. Blackstone hauled Malikov to his feet and secured the crumpled paper he’d attempted to discard. Malikov pressed his ruined cravat to his streaming nose.

Clare moved to stand next to Hazelwood. They all looked to Goldsworthy, but it was Chartwell who strode up to Malikov and Hazelwood. “Arrest them both,” he said.

“No,” the girl shouted, her gaze on Hazelwood. She attempted to stand, but stumbled, her feet caught in her skirts and the folds of her cloak. The man at her side reached to help, and when she took his hand and turned to him, she cried out, “Papa?”

The stranger took her in his embrace, and Nate did not hear what they said. She was sobbing and laughing and beating the man with her fists.