I'd been through this before. Independent researchers, not affiliated with an English university, tended to occupy a somewhat anomalous position, for all that there were a lot of us in London.

"I'm actually doing my doctorate at Harvard, but I'm here on my research year," I explained. "So I'm still affiliated with Harvard, even though I'm over here. Almost everyone in the history department goes abroad in their fourth or fifth year to do their dissertation research."

"And you're in…"

"My fifth year," I supplied.

He didn't say "And you're not done yet?" although I could tell he was thinking it. I gave him points for that. I'd never forget Grandma's reaction when I told her my degree would take an average of seven years, possibly more. Panic on the other end of the phone, followed by, "You can leave if you get married, can't you?"

"That's a lot of time," he said instead, which I supposed was a more neutral way of expressing the same sentiment.

"It's a long program," I agreed. "We used to have fourteenth-years floating around the department, but they just passed a ten-years-and-you're-out rule."

"Ten years?" Jay choked on foam. "My MBA was only two. And that was one year too long."

"Well, people get sucked into teaching," I explained. "You're only funded for your first two years, so after that, you have to teach to support yourself while you write the dissertation. But teaching tends to expand to fill all available time, so it just becomes a vicious cycle: You teach so you can write, but you're so busy teaching that you have no time to write. It just goes on and on, and suddenly people wake up, and they've been there for ten years. Like Rip Van Winkle," I added helpfully.

"What's your dissertation on?"

"Spies during the Napoleonic Wars. You know, like the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"The who?" Jay squinted at me over his beer.

"The Scarlet Pimpernel. There was a book about him, by Baroness Orczy. It's pretty well-known."

I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter that he didn't know who the Scarlet Pimpernel was; after all, most Americans have only a nodding acquaintance with English history and literature, and I'd already shown I know nothing at all about either computers or business. If he was willing to overlook that, I could overlook historical illiteracy.

Alex would be so proud of me.

Jay was clearly making an effort, too. "What was it called?" he asked.

"The Scarlet Pimpernel," I said apologetically.

"Oh," said Jay.

Since that was proving to be a conversation killer, I hurried on. "But he's only one of the spies I'm researching. Right now, I'm looking into the role of English spies in quashing the Irish rebellion of 1803."

It belatedly occurred to me that if Jay didn't know who the Scarlet Pimpernel was, he certainly wasn't going to know about the Irish rebellion of 1803. Oh, well. The name was fairly self- explanatory—like the color of George Washington's white horse. The boy had gone to Stanford; he should be able to figure it out. At least, I hoped he could.

"An Irish rebellion." Jay mulled it over. Well, he'd gotten the salient bits right, even if he seemed to have forgotten the year already. "It doesn't upset you?"

Many things upset me. The computer in the Manuscript Room. Miss Gwen's handwriting. The fact that the BL cafeteria had been serving watery potato soup for lunch, and had been all out of croutons, to boot. But I couldn't say the Irish rebellion was on that list.

I took a sip of my wine. "Why should it?"

"Come on," said Jay, grinning at me. "Red hair. Kelly. You have to feel some loyalty to the Irish side."

I shrugged. "It was two hundred years ago. It's hard to maintain a grudge for that long."

"Lots of people do. Look at the Balkans."

"I'd rather not," I said honestly. Genocide depresses me.

"Don't you feel like you're betraying your ancestors?"

"I would hope my ancestors would have more sense than that."

Actually, I had my doubts about that. My ancestors may have been many things, but sensible wasn't high on the list. I switched tactics.

"The English behaved horribly in Ireland, but they had their reasons for what they were doing at the time, even if they weren't what we would consider good reasons. It's like reading Gone With the Wind," I tried to explain. "You know that slavery is morally wrong, but while you're reading it, you can't help empathizing with the South anyway."

It belatedly occurred to me that a man who hadn't read The Scarlet Pimpernel most likely hadn't read Gone With the Wind, either.

Jay leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "So you're a moral relativist, then."

I hate people who act like they have you all figured out.

"I didn't say that," I said quickly.

Jay had clearly been a debater in college. His eyes gleamed with the thrill of argument—or maybe just the beer. Dammit, where was the waiter with our food?

"Then what would you call it?"

I planted my elbows on the table. "Look, you have to evaluate events in context. To the English, Ireland was a dangerous security threat. They were fighting a losing war against the French; their continental allies were entirely unreliable; and they were in constant danger of being invaded."

"And that justifies their behavior?"

"It's not a question of justification." I could hear my voice rising with annoyance, and quickly resorted to my wineglass. Adopting a gentler tone, I tried again. "My job as a historian isn't to justify or to judge. My job is to try to get inside their heads, to understand their world on their own terms."

"Sounds like a cop-out to me."

"It isn't a cop-out; it's responsible scholarship. Otherwise, what you have isn't a scholarly work. It's an op-ed piece."

"I like op-ed pieces," opined Jay.

"So do I," I gritted out. "In context. Oooh, look! There's our food."

It wasn't, actually. It was the next table's food. But it provided an excellent distraction. Jay immediately turned around to look. As he did, the door to the street burst open, and three guys barreled through in a blast of cold air and masculine banter, the steam from their breath adding to the haze on the glass door. One pointed to the bar, while another shoved out of his coat. And the third…

Those traitorous flutters, those flutters that hadn't so much as quivered when I saw Jay at the bar, woke up from their nap and started dancing a Highland fling, complete with tartan and bagpipes.

Colin was back in London.

Chapter Thirteen

The following afternoon, Letty stood on the stoop of a pleasant redbrick house on Henrietta Street, itemizing all the things she would rather be doing than taking tea with Miss Gilly Fairley. Tooth extractions ranged high on the list, along with being dragged by wild horses, kidnapped by bandits, and forced to listen to recitations of epic poetry in the original Greek. Actually, the last wasn't all that alarming, but Letty was beginning to run out of ideas, and the brass knocker loomed large before her shadowed eyes.

Letty's face, hideously reflected in the polished brass of the knocker, looked indecisively back at her, all immense nose and strange, squinty little eyes. How did one tell a woman that her suitor's intentions were dishonorable? She couldn't very well walk in, take a biscuit, and say, "Do forgive me for interfering, Miss Fairley, but Lord Pinchingdale happens to be married to me. Just thought you ought to know, and thanks so much for the tea."

Perhaps she should just shove an anonymous note under the door and run in the other direction.

Feeling like Joan of Arc mounting a pile of kindling, Letty reached for the knocker and rapped smartly at the door, as if she could compensate for the weakness of her purpose with the firmness of her knock.

Inside, a scurry of footsteps signaled an immediate response, cutting off her last hope of retreat. A maid opened the door, bobbing a curtsy, and ushered Letty inside. Letty might have been small, but she was very effective. Letty was in the hall, and the door closed behind her before Letty had a chance to flee.

Letty caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror in the hall as she loosened her bonnet strings. She looked like a Mrs. Alsdale in her black walking dress, like a respectable widow of reasonable but not excessive means. Even her rebellious hair had been tamed into a semblance of order for the occasion, smoothed with water, and twisted into a braided knot before it could escape again. There was something very unsettling about seeing herself so convincingly tricked out as someone else, as though the real Letty, the Letty of figured muslin dresses that had been turned one too many times, the Letty whose hair was always falling down and who was generally too impatient to hunt for her gloves or bonnet, had been entirely subsumed within the quiet, modest figure of Mrs. Alsdale, whose gloves were perfectly tidy and whose hair stayed where she had put it.

Letty caught herself wishing she had worn something more flattering, and made herself stop. It wasn't a competition. And if it were, she thought ruefully, as she followed the maid up a narrow flight of stairs to the first floor, she would lose.

"Right through here, miss," said the maid, turning the knob on one of the two doors that opened off the narrow landing, stepping out of the way to let Letty pass.

After the dark hall, it was an unexpectedly pleasant parlor, if somewhat old-fashioned, decorated with a pale paper patterned with green lozenges. A heavy wooden dresser stood against one wall, boasting a few precious pieces of French porcelain, surrounded by examples of more homely stoneware, with scenes of local interest painted in blue on a white background. From her vantage point in the doorway, Letty could see Miss Fairley, seated at a small round table facing the door, addressing a remark to someone just out of Letty's line of vision. It couldn't be Mrs. Grimstone, because that lady was sitting to Miss Fairley's left, haughtily inspecting the contents of her cup as if the beverage displeased her. Due to the angle of the door, Letty couldn't make out anything of the third person, not so much as a hand on the table or a corner of a flounce; the only evidence of her presence was a third cup, sitting slightly askew on its blue-and-white saucer, a dark ring of coffee staining the sides.