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“No need fer tossin’,” Wilde said. “We’ll be on our way.”

“Be quick about it, then,” said the tapster, turning to Charles. Charles lifted his head and gave them a look that made the two men halt.

Fanshaw stood. “What? You’re afraid of this reeking shambles?” He grabbed Charles by the shoulder and spun him round.

Charles’s left fist shot out, smashing into Fanshaw’s nose with a satisfying crack. Fanshaw staggered backward, knocking the table over, his nostrils spurting blood. The letters slid to the floor. Digby jumped up, shouting as ale sloshed over his coat and breeches.

Wilde scooped the letters up from the floor and gave them a quick glance. “I told ya,” Wilde said, “he’s mute, not deaf. Best not to upset him.”

Digby drew out a handkerchief, dabbing at the ale on his person. The tapster helped a cursing Fanshaw into a chair. Fanshaw snatched the man’s bar cloth and pressed it to his gushing nose.

“Call the constables,” Fanshaw cried.

“No need,” said Wilde. He dropped the letters in Fanshaw’s lap and dragged Charles past the staring patrons.

Out in the cold, Charles and Wilde slipped into the crowd around a stagecoach disembarking passengers and baggage. They circled the neighborhood and returned to a shadowed corner from which to watch the inn. Charles clamped his jaw shut against the cold.

A few minutes later Fanshaw, handkerchief to his nose, and his friend Digby rattled off in a hackney.

The day went dark rapidly. Wilde related the names he had seen on the letters—an M. Merville in Paris, Edenhorn the MP from the Exchequer, and Horace Gresham.

“Horace Gresham?” The name startled Charles. Gresham was his sister’s childhood companion, the young man the neighbors assumed she would marry, the man for whom she had such an attachment of long standing that her appearance in London declaring that she had to find a husband by Christmas made no sense.

“What’s strange, sir,” said Wilde, “is that the letters were not all written by the same person. The letter to Gresham was in a different hand.”

“Different how?” Charles asked.

“Smaller lettering, good copperplate style,” said Wilde. “Sort of schoolgirlish, I’d say, the way my Miranda writes.”

Charles stood stunned. Octavia wrote just that way. If the letter Wilde saw had come from her, she had violated propriety, discretion, and family loyalty in a shocking way. She had put the marchioness in a position to embarrass them both. He could not imagine her doing it, going behind his back and trusting the marchioness to keep her secret. He needed to know the truth of the matter.

An icy drop of water from an overhanging eave hit the back of his neck, setting his body shaking.

“Do we report to Goldsworthy, sir?” Wilde asked.

Charles shook his head. “Let’s wait to see where the marchioness goes.”

Within half an hour lamplighters were at work, and the woman emerged from the inn, showing no signs of the illness she’d feigned in her letter to Charles but getting deferential treatment from the landlord.

She thanked the man and offered him a handful of coins. He thanked her, but, glancing at the coins, he offered a couple back to her. She hesitated a moment, then held out her hand.

“Happy to take these golden boys my lady, but not any of this foreign lot. Got no use for such as them here.” The landlord dropped two clinking coins in her hand. “Ye see, my lady, ye’ve got to know your Georges. George the Third, that’s your sovereign coin. George the Fourth,” he hefted the coin in his hand, “that’s yer two pounder. Ye’ll know by the weight, if ye catch me drift.”

She laughed. “Would that all men were so honest,” she said, accepting the landlord’s help into the coach. The landlord directed the coachman to the marchioness’s hotel, and Charles and Wilde turned back toward the club.

* * * *

At the club Wilde showed Charles to the room formerly occupied by Lord Blackstone. A warm fire, a hot bath, and the attentions of the club’s valet, Twickler, restored him more or less to himself, except for a flame-colored silk waistcoat and a sense of betrayal. His own valet, Oxley, would have fainted had he seen Charles in the disguise he’d worn in pursuit of Fanshaw. What he needed was to get his mind in order. He decided to report all the facts to Goldsworthy but one. At least until he looked at a sample of his sister’s handwriting and had a chance to speak with her. How to approach the subject with her was another dilemma. He could not represent the evils of trusting the marchioness until he knew the truth about her.

An hour later Goldsworthy shook his head at their report. “I don’t like it, lads. The woman’s pointed interest in you, Wynford, makes little sense. There has to be more to it than your supposed connection through your mother’s French grandfather.”

“I agree,” said Charles. “There are official channels for pursuing any property claims she may have through our family. And, if she’s innocent, why the subterfuge of sending her letters through Fanshaw from a posting inn? Why not send them direct from Mivart’s Hotel?”

“And this Gresham fellow is your neighbor, you say? Is she acquainted with the man?”

“Our nearest neighbor.” Charles kept his gaze steady in the face of Goldsworthy’s scrutiny. “I don’t know yet what the connection is.”

“The Frenchwoman’s made you a target, but why? No one knows your role here. No one even knows you’re an analyst for the Foreign Office.”