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His mouth twisted. “I apologize. It wasn’t my intention.”

“If you won’t do it again, you’re forgiven. Now tell me what’s the matter.”

He grunted. “A meeting went poorly.”

“A meeting?”

“With the man responsible for the prince’s safety during this trip,” he said.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“That he will not change the plans or cancel the prince’s ball because of a hunch.”

“But he has to.” It was imperative that the prince not attend that ball.

Andrew scrubbed a hand across his face and dropped it into his lap. “The man is an ass, but I don’t blame him. To cancel an event like that would mean having to explain why, not to mention how, a suspected assassin was given such a place of prominence on the very committee hosting the prince in the first place.”

“But that’s absurd,” she insisted, surging forward to take the seat next to Andrew again. “Surely the safety of the prince matters more than his reputation or pride.”

“What would you have me do, Lavinia? The man will not have his mind changed.”

“Let me speak to him about what I saw and heard. Maybe there’s something I can remember from Wark’s that will convince him.”

“No.” He bit the bitter word out. “You’ve done enough.”

“I can do more,” she insisted.

His jaw flexed as though he were wrestling with a decision, and then he shook his head once. “You’re off the operation. Effective immediately.”

“What? According to whom?”

“I’m your handler, and I say that you’re done. Gillie and I will continue from this point out,” he said.

Dread spread through her. He was shutting her out, turning his back on her as he’d done all those years ago on the streets of Eyemouth.

“Why?” she challenged.

“Gillie is a professional,” he ground out. “And I don’t think of her naked every second of every day.”

“I’ve managed to secure more information than both of you put together in these last few days,” she pushed. She could see his ire rising, but she refused to be cowed. She’d spent too much of her life being placated and petted, told to be a good girl and a pliant woman. She made the choices in her life now. She was a businesswoman holding all of the threads together. She was the one who had the last word, and he was trying to take that away from her.

“I know this will come as a shock to you, but I ran operations before this one. I know when an asset is no longer useful.” His voice was sardonic—cutting, even. He was trying to build barriers—the same ones she’d seen him construct when they were children. For years she’d clambered to climb to the top of the battlements with him. Now she was outside in the cold once again, pounding on the oak planks of the castle door with the ferocity of a woman who knew what it was like to be in that place of love and had been denied.

“Andrew, don’t do this. Not when I can help you.” Don’t push me out when I need you.

“You’re more distraction than help, and a dangerous distraction at that,” he gritted out. “This was a foolish idea from the beginning. All of it was.”

She crossed her arms against the glacial chill of his words. “What are you saying?”

He lifted those large blue eyes she’d loved to gaze into years ago, but there was none of the adoration she’d once seen in them. Instead they were the cold, calculating eyes of a jaded spy, wishing more than anything that this woman—this inconvenience in front of him—would slink away.

“The night of the Warks’ party was a mistake,” he said.

The words wounded her afresh, jabbing at the same thickly scarred part of her heart where his hatred had wounded her all those years ago.

“And what of last night?” she asked.

He dipped his head, and for a moment she thought he was going to cave, but when he looked up again his eyes were flint and steel.