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“There was so much blood,” Wark muttered somewhat sheepishly.

“Head wounds always bleed far more than they should. Now, Harold, you’re making a fuss over nothing. Mrs. Parkem will be fine. She’s had too much to drink or she’s overexcited. It happens to ladies all the time.”

“I thought you said her corset was too tight,” he sneered.

“That too!” cried his mother. “You have guests to attend to, or are you forgetting the importance of tonight?”

There was a pause and then Wark said, “We can postpone the discussion of plans until another date.”

Yes, the plans! Talk more about the plans right here in this bedroom! she wanted to yell.

“No,” said his mother firmly. “There is too much at stake for you to put this off, and you’re running out of time. Everything must be perfect. We’ll go downstairs and you can come back up when the doctor arrives. If she awakens, she can ring the bell pull, assuming she’s ever used one before.”

Wark started to protest, but then his mother added, “The cause is far more important than any one of us, and certainly more important than her.”

“Fine,” he muttered at last. “But I will attend her when the doctor arrives.”

“Do you as you wish, but don’t squander this night,” said his mother.

Two sets of carpet-dampened footsteps receded from the room, and the door clicked shut behind them. Lavinia lay still on the bed for as long as she dared before slowly opening her eyes.

The dim room was crowded with overwrought, gilded furniture but empty of people. As quietly as she could, she swung her legs to the ground. Sitting up made her head swim, but when she touched her fingers to the wound they came away with hardly a trace of blood. In all likelihood, the bruise would be wicked but the cut would be hardly more than a scratch.

Her heart rattled against her chest as she tried to calm herself enough to think. She had only a short amount of time in which to find Wark’s study. The bedroom where she lay was silent save for the pop of the freshly lit fire that hadn’t yet begun to throw off any substantial heat, and she couldn’t hear any sounds in the corridor beyond the closed door. That was good. The bedroom, just like Wark’s study, would be set apart from the house’s public rooms, probably on a lower floor. Still, she had to avoid everyone in a house swarming with guests and servants. In fainting, she’d bought herself time, but now she was supposed to be an invalid and awaiting a doctor. There would be no excuse to explain away her wandering the halls if she was caught.

Lavinia lifted her chin with as much defiance as she could muster. She’d survived a miserable marriage and paid off her husband’s debt. She’d moved to a new city where she’d known no one except her brother and grown a business that had, over the years, slowly acquired a loyal set of patrons who kept her on the right side of profitable. She’d made a life for herself when once it had seemed as though her life would be no larger than the boundaries of Eyemouth. She could do anything.

Moving as quietly as she could, she crossed the room and opened the door, praying that it wouldn’t squeak. The hinges gave without a groan. A good start.

There was no one in the hallway when she stuck her head out the door. The hall was long and lined with doors. Panic tugged at her nerves, but she tried her best to push it away. Think. She had been in the drawing room and the library on the first floor, and there were at least four other doors farther along the corridors on that floor. One of them was likely to be Wark’s study.

Forcing herself to put one quiet foot in front of another, Lavinia crept along until she reached the stairs. With a rustle of silk, she descended and skipped past the first door to the drawing room. She opened the second and found herself in a darkened room with a large circular table in it. A morning room, most likely. She shut the door quickly and moved on.

The second door revealed what was undoubtedly a study, done up just as she’d imagined, in deep hunter green with a set of leather club chairs and a massive desk.

Shutting the door silently behind her, she glanced at the huge grandfather clock in the corner. It was twenty-eight past nine. Knowing she likely had just minutes, she hurried to the desk.

It was surprisingly messy, but all the better for her. She doubted Wark would keep any truly sensitive papers out in the open, but there was a chance that he had been sloppy with something he deemed less important that could tip her off as to what his plans were.

She sorted through a stack of papers outlining various events that the Prince of Wales would attend or be honored at. A military tattoo, a school opening, the dedication of a ship in a Glasgow shipyard. The pages were marked up in the handwriting she recognized, from his mother’s dress bills, as Wark’s.

Next was a stack of articles cut out from the Lothian Herald-Times and the Edinburgh Record about all aspects of the prince’s visit, including a history of royal visits, an account of the food that would be served at the arrival luncheon, an etching of the royal coach, and a rather overwritten description of the royal household’s livery and the responsibilities of the servants who traveled with the family. Every bit of the visit had been scrutinized and written to death about in anticipation, and it appeared Wark was an avid reader of it all.

She lifted the heavy leather cover of Wark’s bankbook and saw nothing more than the usual withdrawals for cash and payments to two tailors—both considerably cheaper than she would’ve thought a showy man like Wark would patronize—and a bookmaker of no particular reputation. Perhaps he needed to economize. The thought gave her a petty but considerable amount of pleasure.

Chewing on her bottom lip, she began to open drawers. Her search of the right side came up with the Wark Woolens account books and paper for personal correspondence. There was a stack of letters too. Her pulse quickened when she realized that a few were about the prince’s visit and dated from the previous week. She scanned them, looking for anything that might be helpful, but most detailed the mundane details of a royal visit.

His Royal Highness will progress by carriage from the Duke of Livingston’s home, where the prince will dine before the ball, at 19:45. The carriage, attended by the four footmen of the prince’s household as well as the driver, shall be held at the ready for the prince’s departure.

Members of the committee and other dignitaries shall be received by the prince between 20:15 and 20:30. The prince should be greeted as “Your Royal Highness,” but subsequently can be addressed as “sir.” Guests are reminded to keep their compliments to His Royal Highness to a minimum.

His Royal Highness shall open the ball with a quadrille. His partner shall be the Duchess of Roxburghe.

A light refreshment shall be served at midnight.

While all of this was good information that she would relay to Andrew, none of it was anything he wouldn’t have been able to find out for himself when speaking to the committee or the prince’s household.

In the left side of the desk, Lavinia found a stack of handwritten receipts and a rolled-up tube of paper. Undoing the ribbon, she spread it out over the desk. They were an architect’s blueprints for one of the small mews houses built behind some of the bigger houses in the New Town. This one appeared to have been constructed some time ago, but a set of penciled-in notes about removing a wall to the connecting building showed that Wark appeared to be interested in making modifications. Perhaps he intended to purchase another carriage.