Just enough time for Man-Trackers to issue a report.

We all joked about Pammy’s infamous two-week rule, but . . . I suddenly felt like the wormiest of worms. “Thanks, Pams,” I said soberly. “I’ll bear them in mind.”

We hung up with mutual expressions of goodwill. It took me a moment before I realized that I was no better off than before I had called. What with ice-cream flavors and Man-Trackers, I wasn’t the least bit closer to discovering what Colin actually did.

Dropping my mobile back into my bag, I wandered over to the long windows that looked out over the gardens. I did have a few options other than Man-Trackers. I could (a) continue snooping; (b) talk to Colin’s sister or his great-aunt; or (c) just ask Colin.

For a moment, I was tempted by option B. Colin’s great-aunt, Mrs. Selwick-Alderly, had been the moving force in getting us together in the first place. She had also made some very interesting comments — oh, goodness, what was it that she had said? Colin had been raising a ruckus about my being allowed access to the family papers. Mrs. Selwick-Alderly, as poised as an Edwardian duchess, had simply smiled at him and said, “The one doesn’t lead to the other, you know.” Or something like that. What did it mean? What did she mean?

Could she have meant that revealing the identities of nineteenth-century spies wouldn’t clue me in that he was following in the family tradition?

I did have her number stored in my mobile somewhere.

No. I folded my arms across my chest so they wouldn’t be tempted to reach for my mobile. I wasn’t going to do that. I had a choice to make. I could talk to Colin like a reasonable human being and set a pattern for a proper relationship — a real relationship, based on communication and trust — or I could continue skulking around behind his back like a dime store Mata Hari, abusing his trust in me in the process. It might be exciting, it might be titillating (playing with the unknown is always so much more thrilling than dealing with anything head on), but in the end it meant the difference between something real and something make-believe. At that rate, I might as well call Pammy’s Man-Trackers and have done with it.

Did I want something real? Up until now, there had always been intrigue of some kind. There had been the whole does-he-like-me/does-he-want-to-throttle-me dilemma so beloved of Gothic novelists to keep me entertained, and after that, once I knew he liked me, there had been all the euphoria of a new relationship coupled with a transatlantic separation. There hadn’t, until now, been any of the real bread and butter of a relationship, the day-to-day getting to know each other. Speculating like mad about the other person behind his back didn’t count.

Was it just the dating of a descendant of the Purple Gentian that I wanted? The thrill of being able to go home and tell everyone I’d caught a real, live Englishman — and then thrown him back? Or did I really want Colin, who wrote terse notes and woke up too early and forgot to pick up his socks?

I stared out over the graveled paths of his garden, past the eighteenth-century follies and the dead rosebushes, all the way to the old Norman tower that stood on its own crest to the east of the gardens. My eyes narrowed on the bulk of the tower. The last time I had been at Selwick Hall, Colin had warned me away from it, explaining that it was an insurance liability to let guests wander around inside. Or something like that.

What if the liability involved didn’t have anything to do with insurance?

There had been a big, shiny padlock on the door last time. The big, shiny padlock was probably still in place. But it was becoming quite clear that what I really needed was a walk. There would be nothing like a walk through the damp, cold air to whip my head back into order. Walks are supposed to be good for you, aren’t they?

After last time, I already knew the drill. I knew where to find the spare Wellies (and I knew that it would be a very bad idea not to put on the spare Wellies, even if the smallest ones were still a size too big) and I knew the shortest way from the kitchen door to the tower. I virtuously emptied out my coffee grounds and deposited the French press in the sink along the way. And I tried not to think about what I was really doing.

Outside, the countryside was doing its best to demonstrate why so many Britons like to go abroad to other climates during the winter months. Instead of properly raining, the sky was sniveling, leeching down an irresolute moisture that was too thick to be called mist and too insidious to be called rain. The ground was sodden, turning that squelchy black unique to winter, where the entire landscape appears to be etched in shades of black and gray. The tower was the grayest of the lot, a lowering pile of roughly cut stone, dark with damp. Moisture dripped off the padlock, falling with a dull plop to gather in a small puddle below.

The whole thing looked highly unhygienic.

Huddling in my quilted jacket, I contemplated the stone mass. Bizarre to think that people had once lived in here. At some point back in time, there would have been men jostling one another and exchanging bawdy jokes in Norman French. There would have been a solar somewhere up top, with women in pointy hats weaving on their looms. There would have been a hall with a great fire and meat roasting on it. Now, all that was left was a miserable, hollow cylinder of stone.

I might have turned back then. I like to think that I would have. It was those ridiculous water drops that did it, drawing my attention back to the lock, which was, indeed, still very big, still very shiny, and still very much a lock. It was also very unfastened.

To be strictly accurate, it was only slightly unfastened. It was one of those padlocks that involves driving a bit of metal into another bit of metal. There must be some technical term for it, but as you can see, I know roughly as much about locks as I do about medieval solars. What I did know was that the locking bit hadn’t been entirely pushed home, so that while the lock still looked closed, there was a crucial gap between the end of the curved piece and the hole it was supposed to go into. Whoever had been inside last had been careless.

Surely it couldn’t hurt just to take a quick look inside.

Feeling like Nancy Drew (who, I would like to point out, was also Titian-haired), I eased the padlock open. Despite the shiny newness of the lock, the door didn’t open easily. It creaked and protested on hinges made cranky by damp. Either the original roof had survived or a new one had been put on, because there was no light at all in the interior. I hadn’t noticed from the outside, but the original arrow slits had all been boarded up, blocked with thick planks of wood.

This was all beginning to look exceedingly suspicious. Or it would have, had I been able to see anything.

Propping open the door with my back, I stood at the threshold, wishing I had possessed the good sense to bring a flashlight. The reluctant winter light, lying low to the ground like mist, scarcely penetrated the door frame. But there was something inside; I could make out that much. If there were any partitions, they had long since crumbled with time. From where I stood, the inside looked like one cavernous circle. But it wasn’t empty. Something large and metallic occupied the center of the room.

Unwilling to relinquish my hold on the door, I sidled closer by baby steps, one hand still braced against the heavy door, propping it open as far as my arm would allow. Whatever was inside there looked like something straight out of The Avengers, a diabolical machine bristling with levers and gears.

I was so occupied in squinting at the amorphous shape in the darkness that I didn’t hear the steps behind me. All I noticed was that the light, that feeble trail of light coming through the doorway, had suddenly been eclipsed, blotting out what little light there was with a large, man-shaped shadow.

And then it was too late to do anything at all.

Chapter Twenty-Six

It took nearly an hour to find a crew crazy enough to convey them thirty miles along the Thames by night.

On hearing that their party wanted to go farther than just across the river, the first three boats turned them down flat. The river was treacherous by day, they protested; to go by night was a fool’s game. Only the promise of ten times their normal fee, in gold, had prevailed with the fourth boat, and even then the boatmen had grumbled on their benches, pulling their oars with visible reluctance.

Burdened with six oarsmen and five passengers, the boat moved slowly through the dark waters of the Thames. A foul reek rose from the river, a compound of all manner of waste that human habitation could devise, all dumped into the murky waters of the Thames. The stench of a cantonment in India in summer was nothing to it.

The ladies had retreated beneath the tilt, or canopy, that formed a rudimentary cabin in the middle of the boat, although the open-walled cabin provided little barrier between them and the unwashed bodies of the boatmen that warred with the Thames for the prize of most noxious stench. Curled up one against the other for warmth, the rocking of the boat had lulled Charlotte and Henrietta into sleep. Miles had been the next to go, slumped at his lady’s feet like a dog on a medieval tombstone. Even Tommy had succumbed, his long legs stretched out in front of him across the width of the cabin. At least, thought Robert, his presence formed a sort of windbreak for the ladies.

Only Robert remained awake, alone at the prow of boat, staring sightlessly at the waters ahead while the oars splashed rhythmically in and out of the water behind him. The lanterns hanging from the sides of the tilt did little to illuminate what lay ahead.