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“I suggest that you not exercise your temper overmuch,” Mayne said, and the French tinge to his voice sounded truly dangerous now.

“The day I take orders from a dissolute frog like yourself is the day I go to my grave,” Rees stated.

“I will excuse your passion on the grounds that you appear to have suddenly recognized that Lady Godwin is your wife,” Mayne said with precision. “Although you have given very little sign of that in the past few years, and I believe you discovered it too late.” Then he walked out.

Helene had to admit that it was a magnificent exit line. “What on earth are you doing?” she demanded of her husband. “You told me—”

“I know I told you to take a consort,” Rees bellowed back at her. “I didn’t tell you to spawn a child with one!”

“You know that I’m—how do you know that?” she cried.

“Your friend Esme was kind enough to inform me.”

Helene felt a red-hot blaze of fury go up her body. Esme—Esme—had betrayed her? Esme, her closest friend in the world?

“I came to tell you that I won’t allow it,” Rees stated.

“You won’t allow it,” she said slowly.

“No. I won’t allow it. You can’t have thought clearly about the fact that any child you carry would become my heir. I can’t allow that. Tom, or Tom’s son, once he has one, will become the earl when I kick up my heels. I couldn’t let a cuckoo take over the estate before Tom’s child. It wouldn’t be right.”

“You’re got nothing to say about it,” Helene managed. Alarmingly, the fact that Esme had betrayed her was making her feel rather teary.

“I certainly do.” Rees strolled over and locked the door. “I’d rather that people don’t walk in on us at this moment, if you don’t mind.”

“I can’t see that it matters,” Helene said. Why had Esme done such a thing? She had been so close to having her baby, so close to success!

Rees was sitting down. “What are you doing?” she asked with patent scorn.

“Taking my shoes off,” he said.

Helene’s mouth fell open. “You cannot possibly think—”

“I certainly do. If I understood Lady Bonnington’s message appropriately, you came to this ball precisely to find a man to act as stud for you. I’m as available as any other man in London, and a hell of a lot more in your style than the Earl of Mayne.”

He pulled down his pantaloons and threw them to the side.

Ten

In Which Salome Begins Her Dance

The Yard at the Pewter Inn

Stepney, London

Reverend Thomas Holland, known as Tom to friends and parishioners alike, hadn’t been in London for years, but it looked just the same: dirty, crowded, and wretchedly poor. It was early afternoon, but it might as well be stark night for all the sunlight that made it through the sooty air. He got off the mail-coach and stretched his limbs, ignoring the ground-shaking thumps near him as stableboys pulled pieces of luggage from the top of the coach and tossed them to the ground. Shrieks echoed off the wooden walls of the Pewter Inn as passengers protested the ramshackle treatment of their belongings. Tom didn’t care. He was mostly carrying books, and they wouldn’t break.

Someone tugged on his coat and he turned.

“Would you like to buy an apple, mister?”

She couldn’t be more than five years old. She had on a grimy pinafore but her face was clean, and the little collection of apples she carried in a basket seemed to be clean, too. “Where’s your mum?” he asked, squatting down before her.

She blinked. “Would you like to buy an apple?” she repeated.

“Yes, I would. Shall I give the money to your mother?” He took the apple. “How much is it?”

“Tuppence,” she said, holding out a small hand for the payment. There was a bruise on her wrist.