"Yes, madam," said the butler.

"He should probably have port, to thicken the blood. And brandy, for the pain. Not at the same time," Mary added as an afterthought. "I doubt he would like that."

"Indeed, madam," agreed the butler. As a door, cleverly cut into the paneling, eased open, the butler added, "I have taken the liberty of calling his lordship's man to make his lordship more comfortable."

"There's little hope of that," said Mary, but she allowed herself to be shepherded away from the bedside to make room for the valet.

The valet limped his way to the position she had just vacated, emitting noises of distress. Whether the clucking was over his master's condition or the state of his boots was largely unclear. Placing a basin of hot water on the nightstand, he set about wiping the dried blood from his master's chest with a care that satisfied even Mary's anxious eye. Over one arm, he had a pile of clean linen cloths, which he used to wipe Vaughn's chest clean. The tattered remnants of Vaughn's coat were eased away, to be replaced with a clean linen nightshirt.

The butler stepped discreetly in front of her before the valet could reach Vaughn's unmentionables.

"If I might be so bold…"

Mary prepared to do battle for her right to stay, regardless of Vaughn's state of undress.

"…perhaps madam would be more comfortable in a fresh garment?"

Of all the things Mary had expected the butler to say, that had not been one of them.

Her dress did itch awfully. Vaughn's blood had seeped straight through the thin muslin to the chemise beneath. The fine lawn was sticky with it. The damp patch chafed unpleasantly against her chest. And then there was the broad stripe across the front of her dress at her knees, where she had knelt beside him, and several lighter streaks in the area of her torso where she cradled him to her in the carriage. There were dark crescents beneath her fingernails and a casual glance in the mirror revealed alarming streaks across her face.

"Thank you," Mary said, in a tone that was almost an apology. "I would like that very much."

The corners of the butler's lips shifted in what, in another man, might have been a smile. For a moment, he looked almost human. "There are garments that might be of service in the countess's chambers."

He tilted his head in the direction of a connecting door Mary hadn't noticed before, set into the paneling on the opposite side of the room, next to the massive marble mantel.

"No." The reaction was instinctual. The notion of wearing her clothes made her skin crawl. "No, thank you — I don't know your name."

"Derby, ma'am. If madam would prefer, there is a dressing gown in his lordship's dressing room that might serve the same purpose while madam's dress is being freshened."

"Thank you, Derby. That will do very nicely."

While Derby took himself off through the door in the paneling, Mary ascended the dais and occupied herself in scaring away Vaughn's valet. It took only a few moments of concentrated glowering before the valet scurried away, ceding his place by Vaughn's side.

He had tucked Vaughn neatly up among the linens, with a blanket pulled all the way up to his chin and a tasseled nightcap perched on his closely shorn head. Given the obvious newness of the nightcap, Mary had no doubt that this was a victory the valet had not achieved while his employer was conscious. In proper deference to Vaughn's feelings, she plucked off the nightcap and tossed it beneath the bed. Then she rolled down the covers at his throat, giving him more room to breathe. She might not know anything of nursing, but smothering the patient surely wasn't the way to go about it.

Behind her, Derby laid a robe of heavy silk brocade neatly across the back of a chair.

One didn't fraternize with servants, but Mary heard herself say, "The surgeon says the wound is a clean one. He should recover quickly."

Derby's stern features relaxed in an expression that was first cousin to a smile. "I am sure madam will ensure that it is so."

And with that, the door clicked shut behind him.

Mary took up the robe he had left her, but she found herself oddly reluctant to leave her post by the bed, as though if she failed to keep proper watch, someone might slip in and steal Vaughn away. Instead, she sat by the bed and watched as the angle of the light through the window slowly shifted across Vaughn's bedspread, moving in tandem with the hands of the clock on the mantel. The fierce orange light of late afternoon lit the edges of the coverlet with a demonic glow before it, too, faded into dusk.

He looked so vulnerable in the large bed, with the ominous red splotch on his bandage showing above the covers. Every time his sleeping face contorted with pain, every time she heard the uneven rasp of his breath in drugged sleep, her heart clenched as though the Black Tulip held it in his fist. It hurt like a dozen bullet wounds to know that she had brought him to this. Oh, there had been times when she would have liked nothing better than to humble Lord Vaughn, to bring him low — and no time more than that afternoon — but not like this. Never like this.

The events of the afternoon replayed themselves before her a thousand times, only in the reprise she always managed to thrust aside the Black Tulip's arm at the crucial moment, so the bullet went wild, or distract him long enough to drive her sunshade into his toe, making him drop the pistol. And at the end, there was always Vaughn bounding up to her, smoothing the hair out of her face, touching her cheek with the back of her hand, as though he had never seen anything so infinitely precious and telling her — oh, everything he had told her before his wife's appearance but a thousand times over. And without the angry snarl.

Mary looked down at the limp hand lying on top of the coverlet, and frowned at her own foolishness. Girlish daydreams were all very well, but they wouldn't keep Vaughn safe from the Black Tulip. It was sheer luck that the shot had been too high; the Black Tulip couldn't be trusted to miss the next time.

There had to be some way to get to him before he could get to Vaughn. But how? She didn't even know that he was indeed a he. That had definitely been a skirt she had felt behind her. She rather doubted that the Black Tulip was stalking Hyde Park dressed in a cassock, despite his clerical appellation. Either he was a woman, or he had chosen to disguise himself as one for the purpose of sowing confusion. Had he been wearing a dress in Vauxhall? Mary would have been willing to swear he hadn't.

Well. Mary picked at the embroidery on the arms of the chairs as she stared at the sun setting over the bare branches of the trees in Belliston Square. She would just have to tell servants to keep a watch out for anyone suspicious, male or female. The butler seemed a sensible sort, he could be enlisted to set up a guard. And a guard would be set, whether Vaughn liked it or not. Mary's face settled into an expression of raw determination her sister would have recognized in an instant. She knew Vaughn would try to shrug off the danger as soon as he was healed enough to shrug. That was all very well, but she wasn't going to let him die for a bit of male bravado.

Even so, setting a guard only delayed the problem; it didn't solve it. The only way to truly solve it was to kill the Black Tulip. And they couldn't kill the Black Tulip until they knew who he was.

As the purple autumn sunset faded from the tops of the trees in the Square, Mary rose, stretching her cramped legs. In the great bed, Vaughn slept on in drug-induced slumber, his right arm flung up over his head like a little boy's. His features were softer in sleep, with the dusk casting a soothing veil over the lines drawn by pain and time.

His color seemed better, but Mary wasn't sure whether that was just an illusion created by the dim light. Mary touched the back of her hand to his forehead, careful not to wake him. The dreadful clamminess was gone. His forehead was warm and dry, and his breathing was easier than it had been. The fever would come next. But, for the moment, he was sleeping peacefully.

Moving stiffly, Mary stepped carefully down off the dais, catching at the balustrade for balance. Her knees objected to the movement. She felt as ancient as Methuselah, her legs and back stiff from sitting, her eyes dry and aching from staring, hour after hour, at the still figure in the bed.

She knew she ought to change, as Derby had advised. She ought to have done it hours ago. The sooner she left her dress to be cleaned and pressed, the sooner she could go home. So far, the only people who knew of her presence at Vaughn House were Derby, who wouldn't speak; the valet, who didn't speak; and the surgeon, who had been paid well not to speak. The other servants had seen her only through the dirty window of the sedan chair, not well enough to make out anything other than that she was a woman, a description that undoubtedly applied to many of Vaughn's acquaintance. But the longer she stayed, the greater the risk became. To stay the night would be ruin.

Wobbling a bit, she padded across the carpet to the door to the hall. Just outside the door, where she couldn't fail to see them, someone had left two trays. On the first stood two decanters, one filled with a ruby liquid that could only be the requested port, the other a deep amber that marked it as finest smuggled French brandy.

The second tray was clearly not intended for the inhabitant of the sickbed. It held two porcelain pots. One pot was short and rounded, accompanied by a silver tea ball and a dish for slops; the other was taller and cylindrical, with a quaint, conical lid. Both the shape and the smell identified it as a chocolate pot. There was one cup to go with each pot, both matched to the same set, a feminine pattern with delicate purple flowers on a fluted background. On a matching plate had been placed several slices of cake and an assortment of biscuits.