Alex doubted that. There was very little that escaped Akbar Khan. The man had been at the game longer than any of them, including James. He was a master of court politics and all the darker arts that went with it.

“What time?” If Tajalli’s father knew — as he must have known — that the information would be relayed by his scapegrace son, there was every reason to suppose that this might be a blind or, even worse, a trap. On the other hand, Tajalli wasn’t his father’s son for nothing. If the information had been acquired by more devious means, it could very well be an honest and valuable lead.

It was a gamble, like everything else in life, and one Alex couldn’t afford not to take. Not with Wellesley’s pet Cleave peering into dark corners and Jack in it all up to his stubborn neck and possibly beyond.

“Late. Midnight.”

It would be. So much for sleep. Alex pushed aside thoughts of his putative dawn meeting with Lieutenant Sir Leamington Fiske. It wasn’t the time for that now.

As if reading his thoughts, Tajalli said blandly, “I heard you just returned from Berar.”

Alex was sure that hadn’t been all he had heard. “I never made it all the way there. We had a casualty along the way.”

“Ah, yes. The Special Envoy.” Tajalli’s father’s spies had been busy. He made a lazy gesture that set the pearls on his wrist glimmering like condensed moonlight. “As I recall, he won’t be any great loss. What did he do, fall off his horse again?”

“He was bitten by a snake.” Alex suspected his friend knew that already. “Potentially one of the two-legged variety.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

There were too many suspects, too many possibilities, among them the most mundane of all, the possibility that the snake might have simply been a snake, acting of pure snakeish instinct.

Tajalli proffered a dish of sugared sweetmeats. “Someone might not have wanted him to reach Berar?”

Alex waved away the sweets. “Is that idle speculation, or do you know something?”

Tajalli dodged the question. “Me, idle?” he said laughingly.

He worked very hard to give the appearance of being so, but Alex knew few men quite so active, or quite so well informed. “Far less than you would have me believe. What do you know?”

Tajalli helped himself to one of the rejected sweets. “He had taken Nur Bai to his bed, hadn’t he?”

Alex leaned forward, on the alert. “That much was common knowledge. Is she still working for Mir Alam?”

“Would she neglect a source of income?” Swallowing the last of the sweetmeat, he said more definitively, “Let’s just say that it wasn’t just your man’s personal charms that enticed her to take up a position in his bed.”

“Several positions from what I’ve heard,” murmured Alex, his mind elsewhere. If Nur Bai was Mir Alam’s creature, then the whole trip to Berar took on an entirely different complexion. It was a work of genius. No one would suspect a snakebite of being other than what it was, and even if they did, no one would think of holding the First Minister or the Nizam accountable for an event so far outside the capital. With the typical English disregard for the zenana, no one — short of James, whose own position was too precarious to force an inquiry — would make the connection between Lord Frederick’s mistress, his death, and the First Minister.

Alex looked up at his friend, blinking at the swaying shadows as a chance breeze set the lanterns in motion. “But why would Mir Alam bother? Why Lord Frederick?”

“A blind?” Tajalli suggested sagely. “Something to distract your Residency while the Marigold does his work?”

“Hence the timing,” said Alex slowly. “The meeting tonight, while the Resident is busy with the preparations for Lord Frederick’s funeral.”

Tajalli spread his hands. “Possibly. It is all merest speculation.”

Levering himself up, Alex smiled wryly down at his friend. “Your ‘possibly’ makes a good deal more sense than any of my probablys.”

“You won’t stay?” Tajalli indicated the cushions. “There is some time left until midnight.”

“Thank you, but no. I have other matters that need settling.” The pesky matter of a duel to arrange. Some things, he didn’t particularly feel like sharing, especially since he had a feeling that Tajalli’s reaction would involve a certain amount of polite incredulity and impolite derision. His own reaction would have been the same had their positions been reversed. “Good night. And thank you for the . . . news.”

The wind rocked the lantern forward, sending a pattern of shifting shadows across Tajalli’s face. He looked, for a moment, like another person entirely, a stranger, and an alarming one.

“Think nothing of it,” he said.

With one last nod, Alex saw himself out, leaving the perfumed perfection of the garden for the squalor of the streets beyond. The contrast never ceased to amaze him. From the street, the beauties cultivated so carefully within the walls of Tajalli’s father’s compound could only be guessed and wondered at; the high white walls formed a complete barrier between the pleasure gardens within and the thoroughfare without.

Bathsheba had been tended to and was wordlessly returned to him at the gates. Mounting, Alex made his way through the city, so familiar to him by now, all its twistings and turnings and scents and sounds, as much at night as by day. He had ridden this same route time and again before, visiting Tajalli or other friends for evening entertainments in the city, even though the city was technically banned by night to the denizens of the Residency, short of special permission to the Nizam.

It was all familiar, but tonight there seemed to be a shadow across the moon, something hanging in the air, lurking over him. Lord Frederick’s death? Penelope? The prospect of a duel? Tajalli’s so fortuitously supplied information?

He would have to make arrangements with Fiske before setting out for Raymond’s Tomb. Alex heaved a heavy sigh. He hadn’t the first idea what he was supposed to be doing; he had never put himself in a position to fight a duel before, or even to second one. It had always struck him as a profoundly silly and wasteful practice, the plaything of a leisured class with more time than sense. Honor was something one kept close by one’s side, not a commodity to be bandied about on the point of a sword. At least, not until it became a matter of Penelope’s honor rather than his.

He could send a message to Ollie Plowden over at the Subsidiary Force, he supposed, ask him to second him. Ollie would know what needed to be done, who was meant to be contacting whom.

It had been an impulse of the moment, that challenge, wrung out of him by the expression on Fiske’s face as he regarded Penelope, looking at her in a way he had no right to look. All the frustration and anger Alex had felt, all the impotent rage at the shade of Freddy Staines and at the strange Fate that flung Penelope into his path only to dance her out of reach, had found a vent in that red-rimmed moment, when all the injustice of it all reduced itself to a contest of strength, sword to sword, like the trial of ordeal of old.

Too bad it wasn’t really that simple. Once the moment had passed, it was impossible to delude himself that the world would right itself simply because he beat Lieutenant Sir Leamington Fiske at a contest of arms. Fiske would still go about spreading his poison about Penelope. And Penelope . . . Alex rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, feeling the ache of an incipient headache. He had no idea what she would do.

She wouldn’t fling herself into his arms and thank him for defending her honor, that much was for certain.

He had felt a momentary surge of hope at her obstinance in forbidding him to fight, but his irrational optimism had been forced to give way before the cold weight of reality. Just because she didn’t want him on her conscience didn’t mean she wanted him for anything else.

It was a grim thought. Alex grimaced to himself as he rode along the last stretch towards the Residency. The feeling of foreboding that had settled upon him as he left Tajalli’s grew heavier. His father would claim it was the Sight, legacy of some witch back along the family line. Alex called it instinct, and instinct was warning him that something was decidedly wrong.

He checked his pace, feeling to make sure his pistol was by his side even as he leaned forward to scan the shadows along the road for followers.

He never expected the danger to come from ahead.

Before he had time to do more than feint for his weapon, a rough hand grabbed his stirrup and an imperious voice called, “Halt!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“What in the blazes?” Alex demanded. “Penelope?”

“Ouch,” complained Penelope, shaking out her hand where he had kicked it. “A fine welcome for your official rescue party!”

“What do you expect when you leap out of nowhere and grab someone’s foot?”

It was a fair point, but one Penelope didn’t intend to acknowledge.

“Stop quibbling and listen,” she ordered. “Someone struck Fiske in the head. Everyone thinks you did it. They plan to put you in custody and bring you to trial.”

She congratulated herself on an intelligent and succinct rendering of a complicated situation. Alex stared at her as though she had grown a second head.

“Would you care to run through that again?” he said very carefully.

Penelope held up one finger. “Fiske — assaulted.” A second finger. “Your handkerchief — next to him.” A third. “You — blamed.” She unfurled the rest of her fingers and waved them through the air in front of his horse’s nose. “Clear enough?”