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“You’re Irish?” Andrew asked. “So this is about home rule?”

She laughed. “My interests are hardly political.”

“What then?”

“My father was a weak man, never ambitious enough to imagine he could be anything other than the steward on Lord Marybourne’s estate in County Wexford,” she said. “He oversaw land that his family had worked on for years but that he would never in his lifetime be able to claim as his own. The lord ordered him out one day during a storm to check the condition of a bridge that had washed out. A tree fell in the winds, crushing my father. He died three days later. I was just five.

“My mother received no pension from Lord Marybourne, and we were evicted from our cottage on the estate to make way for a new steward. She couldn’t keep me and herself. Her sister, who had moved to Scotland with her husband when she was just seventeen, came to collect me and we moved to Edinburgh. She and my uncle passed me off as their own child because they couldn’t have children of their own.

“I was ambitious and beautiful and intelligent. My aunt and uncle made sure I did all the right things girls are supposed to do and married well, but I’ve never forgotten my father. I want Lord Marybourne punished and all the other men like him. I want them to lose their land and feel what it’s like to lose everything.”

“And doing this will hurt Lord Marybourne? The man probably has half a dozen estates but even more invested,” said Andrew.

The lady’s eyes narrowed. “The monarchy is at the center of the whole social structure. Once people see how weak it is, it will begin to crumble.”

“And who will take their place?” he asked.

She smiled cruelly. “Those of us intelligent enough to make real money. This nation is industrial, and its rulers should be too.”

“And so you’ll kill the prince,” said Andrew. “Why not just shoot him in the middle of the street and have it done with?”

“Because I’m smarter than that. He’ll be taken somewhere no one knows about and be disposed of. He won’t be traceable back to me.”

“To us,” said Douglas.

“Of course, my dear,” said Mrs. Wark with a smile, but there was no warmth under it.

Andrew wondered how Home could’ve gotten it so wrong. This wasn’t some carefully thought out larger plot. It was the workings of a deranged woman and a profiteering man who’d found each other to be convenient assets in the pursuit of their plans. They’d wrapped their own motivations in the flag of a greater cause to justify to themselves the insanity of what they were doing.

“It’s as simple as that then?” he said.

“In a way, yes. Some of those who’ve come before us have failed rather miserably with their attempts on the queen’s life in London,” Mrs. Wark said.

“Six, if memory serves,” said Douglas. “The queen is remarkably resilient for a woman of sixty.”

“And some of those men were committed for lunacy,” said Andrew, twisting his hands a little to try the ropes.

“You won’t be able to get out of those, Mr. Colter. Still . . .” Mrs. Wark looked over at one of the men who’d remained behind. “Did you search him for weapons?”

“We did, ma’am.”

Mrs. Wark strode over and began to pat Andrew down again. He closed his eyes, praying that the woman wouldn’t find the knife . . . which she did in approximately fifteen seconds.

She pulled the blade free and threw it at one of the liveried kidnappers’ feet. “He could’ve freed himself with this and ended everything.”

“I—”

“I will not see this plan fail because of your inattention!” Mrs. Wark shouted.

“You very well may,” said Andrew, even though it was looking less and less likely with every passing moment. Gillie would be at the ball by now and would in all likelihood not give a passing thought to the fact that she hadn’t seen him yet. She would be busy trying to find Wark, a man utterly unconnected to this, and stop a plot that was already under way.

Mrs. Wark looked Andrew over with a skeptical eye. “Tell me one thing, Colter. What is Mrs. Parkem to you?”

Letting her walk away is my biggest regret. Now it was likely he was going to die in the company of these asses, never having told Lavinia how he felt. She’d wanted him—maybe not with the power with which he needed her, but it was more than nothing—and he’d thrown his chance at happiness with her away, choosing his mission and his distrust over the chance to love her again. But that wasn’t the entire truth and he knew it. He’d pushed her away because he loved her and because the thought that she might not return that love terrified him.

He wanted to thrash and scream and rage hearing her name on the lout’s lips, but instead he forced his mouth into a thin line. “She’s my biggest mistake.”

Douglas grinned. “Good. It’ll be a pleasure telling her that before she dies.”