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“Thank you, miss, for saying so, and for telling me to find an agency. I won’t forget, miss.”

*

Not an hour later, Viv was summoned to Lady Melforth’s room. The closed curtains gave the room a stale and gloomy air. Her ladyship looked small and lost in the great bed, and white as if she had already died. Viv arranged the pillows and set a fresh draught of cordial at her ladyship’s side.

“Will you take a drive this afternoon, Lady Melforth?” Viv asked. For days it had fallen to her lot to promote the disagreeable, as she could not be sacked twice.

“I will not. I dislike riding with Eustacia excessively. She stops to introduce me to every horrid acquaintance of hers from the Anti-Vice Society. It’s like going about London in a green shoe blacking van with THE TRAVELING VISCOUNTESS writen large on the sides.”

Viv sympathized, but she was unmoved by the rebuff of her suggestion. “Nevertheless, those rides lift your spirits. If you won’t go with Mrs. Stryde, you must take advantage of my aunt Louisa’s offer of her landau. We can easily send to have it brought round, and I’m sure Sarah is willing to go with you. Dr. Newberry particularly encourages those rides to reduce your tremor.”

Viv crossed to the window and drew one of the curtains aside, letting in a shaft of brightness.

Lady Melforth held a hand in front of her face, blinking in the light. “Hah. Newberry is as bad as the other fellow. They won’t leave me in peace to die.”

“You are hardly in peace, ma’am. Nor are you dying. You are simply wallowing and refusing to confront this palsy and deal with it as both Newberry and Dr. Pridmore believe you can.”

“I didn’t summon you to preach to me, miss,” said Lady Melforth. “Your pickpocket has been arrested.”

Viv’s heart plummeted briefly. She froze, unable to recall what purpose had taken her across the room. In that dreadful moment of understanding who he was and what he’d done, she had wished him arrested. Now that the anger had left her, her heart was undefended against the softer feelings she had for him. She hated to think of him arrested. “Did you bring charges, ma’am?”

“I most certainly did. The fellow denies them, of course, says he never touched any book of mine. It took three constables to subdue the big lout.”

“You don’t mean Mr. Larkin then?” Viv unfroze and drew aside the second curtain.

“No, not Larkin, the other one, the one Haxton chased away.”

“Rook.” Oh dear. Viv thought of Rook, the poor man Lark had betrayed. Of course, Rook had not taken the proofs. He’d had no idea they were there on the steps, no notion of their value. He was an easy target for the police because he looked the part of a ruffian.

“Rook? That’s the man’s name. Suits him, I suppose.”

“So, you’ve not recovered the proofs?” Viv dared to ask. She didn’t see how the proofs could matter to Lady Melforth. If Dodsley needed her approval, he would send another copy. “No.” Lady Melforth’s voice shrank.

The fear in the small voice tugged at Viv, but she refused to bend. “Are you worried that Dodsley won’t go ahead with the printing as planned? Surely he has your approval.”

“I wanted…to look them over one more time to make sure Dodsley got everything right.”

Viv held her breath. Perhaps her ladyship regretted what she’d done. Perhaps she had acted in anger and haste and would change her mind. The trouble with betrayal was that though one should hate and despise one’s betrayer, one did not, or not entirely. The betrayer had stopped loving or caring and turned away. Some vital element, which had come from them, had been withdrawn, which one still needed like air, so one gasped for it.

Lady Melforth threw off the coverlet. “No matter. Call Sarah. I will go out. Send for Louisa’s landau.”

At the door, Viv turned back to say, “You will climb volcanoes again, you know, ma’am.”

“Hmmph. You are too bold for your own good, miss.”

“If I am, you taught me to be so.”

*

Viv returned to her work in the stillroom. An hour later, she was finishing up and putting away the bottles of cordial when Newberry walked in.

“I hear you convinced my patient to take a ride today. How did you find her?”

“She looks worse than she is. Her spirits are low. Can you limit the Strydes’ visits?”

“Her dear family members?” His voice had a disdainful edge to it.

“You’ve known for months how her cousins affect her.” Viv closed the cupboard door, turned the little key. Newberry stood between her and the hook on the wall where the key belonged.