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Lark sprang from the step and gave Rook a quick shove that rocked him back on his heels. Rook staggered, grabbing hold of the iron point of a railing to catch himself.

“Say what you came to say. Your quarrel is with me, not her.” Lark positioned himself between Rook and Viv and glanced to see that she was unharmed. Her gaze was fixed on Rook with a look of dawning comprehension in her eyes. “You took my purse that day in Babylon Street.”

Rook shook his head and offered her an evil grin. “We did.” He let go of the railing and pointed to Lark. “We’re partners. Rook and Lark.”

Viv flinched as if he’d struck her, but that didn’t stop Rook.

“Lark, ’e spots the marks. I do the clicks. Then Lark makes ’em forget they ever saw me.”

Viv’s gaze shifted back to Lark, alert now, accusing. She came slowly to her feet. “So that’s how it’s done. It’s distraction, isn’t it? That day you were distracting me, not helping me. You were protecting him, your partner, letting him get away. You let me think…”

Her eyes, those deep brown eyes of hers, were wells of pain. She said no deception. He offered none. “You wanted to meet a pickpocket. Now you have.”

“You let me believe… Was it all lies then?” Her voice sank to a low whisper. Her face was drawn and colorless in the chocolate depths of her bonnet. She didn’t wait for an answer. She tugged the ring from her finger and held it out to him.

Everything inside him protested, but he opened his hand and she dropped the ring into his palm. For an instant he simply looked at the red gleam of it in his hand. Then he closed his fist and dropped the ring in his pocket. They were back at the beginning. The mad spell of being Edward Larkin was at an end. His past had claimed him.

Rook clapped Lark on the back and slung an arm around his shoulder. “Yer free, man. Ye can come ’ome now. You and me. It’ll be like it was.”

He shook off Rook’s hold. “No. I told you I wouldn’t go back.” Viv might not have him, but he had one more thing he could do for her, a thing only a thief could do. He bent down to sweep his hat up from the stones, turned, and strode off.

*

Viv stood stunned. The bearlike man shouted, “Laaaark!” His cry, like the wail of a wounded beast, was swallowed up in the noise of Henrietta Street, but it rang in Viv’s ears, reverberating hollowly inside her.

His name was Rook, and they had been pickpockets together. Rook turned on her with his frown-creased brow and his face full of baffled pain.

“It’s yer bleeding doing. Ye spoilt it all,” he cried. He advanced toward her, but she lifted her chin and stood her ground. She didn’t have her pistol, but in the house, they would hear him shouting. Any minute the door would open. He halted in front of her, an imperfect mirror in which to read the truth. She, too, loved Lark.

“’e was my partner. ’e was my friend.” Rook pounded his chest with one beefy fist. “’e doesn’t belong with the likes of ye.”

“You are better off without him.” She meant it.

“Ye twisted ’im. Ye made ’im think ’e was a toff. He was a thief like me.”

She shook her head, denying it. He was a thief, but not like Rook, nothing like Rook. Lark had been Edward Larkin from the moment he spoke to her on Babylon Street. He had not belonged to her or to the wounded bear in front of her. The door opened behind her.

“Miss?” Haxton cried. He held a poker in one hand and shook it at Rook. “You,” he shouted. “Be off now, or I’ll have you taken up.”

Rook shouted one last invective, threw the soiled velvet bag at Viv’s feet, and ran.

Viv picked up her ruined bag, and turned to gather up the proofs. But the steps were empty. The proofs were gone.