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It doesn’t matter, he thought with clenched fists. She’d made her choices, and so he’d gone and made his, leaving her and everything he’d worked his entire life for behind.

“That’s a very sad story, Captain, but we need you to remember your duty,” said Rickman, pulling him back to the oppressive room, where three pairs of eyes watched him with interest.

“Our main source in Edinburgh, who would be your operational liaison, believes that Mrs. Parkem has caught the attention of the suspected ringleader, Mr. Harold Wark. He’s her landlord, and his mother is a customer of hers,” said Sir Newton.

“Customer?” he asked.

“Mrs. Parkem is now the proprietress of one of Edinburgh’s finest dress shops,” said Sir Newton.

He laughed in disbelief. “There must be a mistake.”

“No, no mistake,” said Sir Newton, checking over his notes.

“She was a vicar’s daughter. She married a merchant. She’s not a dressmaker.”

“It appears that Parkem made some imprudent investments in shipments, and one of his ships was eventually sunk off the Cape of Good Hope, ruining him. When he died, he left his wife about five hundred pounds. She took that money and invested it in opening a shop in Edinburgh,” said Rickman, reading off a dossier. “Our liaison in there, who I assure you is one of the best working today, says that Mrs. Parkem’s shop has grown in popularity over the last few years and now boasts quite the clientele.”

He slumped back in his chair, stunned. Lavinia, the woman he’d striven all his youth to deserve, had come down in the world. What irony.

“We also believe that Wark has been trying for some time to convince Mrs. Parkem to become his mistress.” The bluntness of Sir Newton’s words struck him square in the chest.

“She’d never do it,” he said automatically, but then stopped. How did he know that? It had been more than a decade since they’d seen each other. She could’ve changed.

He nearly snorted at the thought. A leopard couldn’t change its spots any more than Lavinia could stop being the woman she’d grown into—feckless, faithless, a liar.

“We need you to persuade her to let Wark in. If she can achieve a certain level of intimacy, she can observe his comings and goings and find out who his associates are,” said Sir Newton.

“You want me to convince my former fiancée, whom I hate, to prostitute herself in the name of the British government?” He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t particularly proud of for Home, but this was a step too far.

The admiral sputtered a protest, but the expressions of the two men of the War Office stayed dead serious.

“There will be no prostitution necessary,” said Sir Newton.

“All Mrs. Parkem needs to do is coax a man who’s already expressed interest in her into giving her a little bit more of his time,” said Rickman with a nod. “If she could collect the names of the men associated with Wark or gain access to his personal papers, all the better.”

He studied them with a wary eye sharpened by years of fielding Rickman and Perry’s orders. “No. My intention when I returned to London was to retire. I’ve given up my ship, and I have no intention of becoming involved in schemes to meddle with other people’s lives. Please excuse me, gentlemen.”

For the second time he made to leave, and for the second time one of those bloody puppet masters arrested him with a single sentence.

“If you don’t go, we’ll send McKenzie to do the job,” said Sir Newton in a voice that cut with the precision of a rapier blade.

Andrew scowled. “You can’t send McKenzie.”

Sir Newton lifted his chin in challenge, piercing eyes holding Andrew in place. “He’s the best handler we have north of the Scottish border at the moment.”

“He’s a drunk and a womanizer. He can’t be trusted to care for a flea let alone an operation that requires this degree of delicacy,” he said.

“Without you, we’re left with very little choice,” said Rickman, folding his hands across his prodigious stomach with a smug smile.

“She’d be going in unprepared and without the support she needs if something goes wrong.”

“It’s a risk we’re willing to take. We need someone in there,” said Sir Newton.

Andrew’s knuckles cracked as he flexed his hands to keep from punching a wall. He shouldn’t care—he didn’t—but he knew how dangerous even the simplest operation could be. Asking a woman who had no previous training to manipulate a man who might be at the center of an attack or an assassination plot? It was ludicrous.

“Guide her. Be the one to show her what needs to be done,” said Sir Newton.

His teeth ground against one another. One had to reason with spymasters because they couldn’t be threatened. They always knew someone more deadly than you.