“Ce bébé, la! ” Madame Roche pointed to Kitty’s lap. Kitty looked down and saw only her hands resting on her queasy stomach.

In an instant a sickening flush spread from her throat to her entire body. She struggled for breath.

“This baby?” she uttered.

Dear God, how naïve she was. How foolish. She had never imagined. Never questioned. She had believed—

“You cannot eat, ma petite says to me.” Madame Roche shook her head. “But you sleep tout le temps of the day, non?”

Kitty gaped. She had watched Serena go through this in her early months. Even uninstructed in matronly matters, she ought to have known. Instead she had attributed her illness to misery.

Swift, prickly panic swept through her. Then, twining with the panic, something else. Something warm and rich.

Elation.

She gripped the seat and tried to breathe. To think. But no thoughts would come, only feelings.

There were no tears left to cry, and anyway she no longer wished to. She pressed back into the soft squabs and closed her eyes. The carriage’s rocking made her ill, but now she did not fight it.

He had been right to mistrust her assurances. And she had never been happier and more terrified in her entire life.

Chapter 26

Fellow Britons, I recently received the following communication through my publisher: Dear Lady Justice, Your impertinence astounds me. But your tenacity must be commended. I fear I have already, in fact, come to admire you for that. But, dear lady, if you wish admittance to the Falcon Club so desperately, you have only to discover the names of its members and apply to join. One, I regret to report, has recently left us. But four of us remain. Among these is myself, Your servant, Peregrine Secretary, The Falcon Club Impertinence, indeed. This Peregrine seeks to intimidate me with soft words and flatteries, common methods by which the powerful and wealthy cajole and control society. Rest assured, my head will not be turned. I shall continue to seek out wasteful expenditures of funds and lay them open to examination before the entire kingdom.

I am, it seems, beset by correspondents. Another letter came across my desk only two days ago. Its anonymous author (a lady, by the genteel hand) begged me to print it. Her reasons for wishing this were sufficiently intriguing that I do so now: To the Particular Gentleman it may concern: I am on my way to Shropshire in search of a portrait cameo.

That, my friends, is all it said. I am enormously curious and ask only that upon her return from Shropshire, the lady will inform us as to the success of her quest.

Lady Justice Leam cast the pamphlet into the grate and watched it float on a swell of hot air to the edge of the ashes, untouched by the flames. He pressed his palm into the mantel.

So, Jin, Yale, and Constance had not finished with the Club after all. And Gray.... Leam did not understand his old friend. This seemed foolhardy. Colin was arrogant, but he was also directed and disciplined, and possessed of a single purpose: England’s safety.

As Leam’s single purpose was Kitty’s safety.

Tomorrow he would don his roughest costume and delve into London’s seamy underworld once again. He would turn over every stone until he found the one under which David Cox was hiding.

Then, when Kitty was free of threats, he would bend his mind finally to deciding what to do with his wife.

Cornelia had not mentioned Jamie again, but Leam had only called on her once since the first occasion. She had fluttered her lashes and begged him not to divorce her. He had told her the truth, that he had no honest grounds for it, and would not perjure himself by claiming her infidelity, the only justifiable basis for divorce. He requested only that she remain at the apartment until he made suitable arrangements for her residence at his own expense. She said she preferred a smaller house so that she could spend her funds on charity rather than unnecessary servants. At the convent in Italy she had become accustomed to giving to the needy poor; she wished to continue that practice now in London.

He did not believe a word of it. But he didn’t care.

His vision blurred staring at the pamphlet. So close to the flames, yet not consumed.

It seemed curious that the one place he thought about almost constantly these days should appear in Lady Justice’s leaflet. Shropshire was a large enough county, and there were any number of places in it one could find a cameo, none of which was undoubtedly a shabby inn in a tiny riverside village.

The corner of his mouth crept up.

But swiftly his smile faded. He bent and snatched the smoking paper from the hearth.

At the ball, Kitty had spoken of a cameo belonging to Cox. The next day Lady Justice received a letter from a lady about a cameo, clearly intended to inspire a gentleman to take the bait. Had Kitty known something he did not? He wouldn’t blame her for not telling him. But…

This was madness. A sane man would never put the two together. After all, his eyes and mind and heart sought Kitty in everything anyway. He was imagining hints and clues where they did not exist.

Or he was not, and she was the clever beauty he had fallen in love with.

He ran out of his house, grabbing his coat and barely strapping the saddle onto his horse before bolting down the street in the direction of the pamphleteer’s publishing house.

The clerk in the publisher’s office would not give him Lady Justice’s address or name. Leam asked to see the letter from the anonymous lady. The clerk refused. Leam put money on the table. The clerk treated him to a pointed speech on journalistic integrity and the arrogance of the aristocratic class.

Leam threatened legal action. The clerk rang a bell on his desk, and a burly fellow who looked like he could load crates onto ships with his bare hands walked into the chamber and gave Leam a dark look.

Leam did not have any particular desire to spend the next fortnight in bed nursing broken bones.

He departed, leaving his card and a request that should Lady Justice find it in her heart to pay him a call, he would be much obliged. Perhaps Gray’s methods had some merit.

He could not sleep, and the following morning stole himself to pay a call at the house where he was least wanted. He knocked on Kitty’s door. The footman opened it, round eyes brightening noticeably.

“Milord!”

“Is Lady Katherine in?”

“No, milord. She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

The fellow nodded, his wig bobbing up and down.

“Lady Katherine has gone to Shropshire, my lord.” The housekeeper stood at the far end of the foyer, a spark in her eye.

“Shropshire.” His blood pounded. “Are you certain of this?”

“Quite, sir. My mistress has recently been wed and is on her wedding trip in Brighton. Lady Katherine set out for Shropshire yesterday.”

“Alone?” God, no.

“With Madame Roche, my lord.”

Leam released a pent-up breath. “Thank you.” He cast a nod at the footman and went to his horse.

He must pay a call before he took to the road. He hadn’t any idea why Kitty thought Cox had lost his cameo, or why Cox might think Leam had it, or what it had to do with him at all. But she must know something about the man that he did not. She had brought down a lord committing treason against the crown through years of quietly observing others, of listening and paying close attention.

Now her cleverness and bravery had dislodged his own brain from bemusement. The parts would not come together, but they were tantalizingly close.

Without waiting for Cornelia to come to him, he went straight along the corridor, the manservant glowering at his shoulder. He found her in a bedchamber strewn with gowns and underclothing. A traveling trunk sat amid it all.

“Leam!” She leaped up from a table at which she was taking tea. “What are you doing here?”

“Where are you going?” He gestured to the scene of packing.

“To Alvamoor, of course. To see my son,” she added hastily.

He moved toward her. She cowered. He had never wanted that, but now he had no patience for her histrionics.

“Cornelia, what do you know of a man named David Cox?”

Her cheeks went white. “What should I know?”

Leam’s heart raced. “You do know him, then. How? What is your connection with him?”

She slid from behind the table and moved across the chamber. “Whatever are you talking about, Leam?” Her voice trembled. “I told you, since I ran away I have not been with any man, only my parents and my companion, Chiara.” She turned wide eyes upon him, gold lashes fanning outward.

“Did you know Cox before our marriage?”

She twisted a napkin between her pale fingers, her eyes abruptly distressed. “What do you wish me to say?”

“The truth, Cornelia. After all these years of lies, I deserve it from you.”

“I did.” She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands banded about the napkin. “I knew him before.”

“When?”

Her eyes opened, full of uncertainty. “Your brother introduced me to him. They were in the same regiment. Is that what you wish to hear?”

“Did you give him a cameo?”

“A—a cameo?”

“Perhaps a portrait of yourself. Or of James.”

“Of James?”

“Did you?”

“Yes!” The word seemed to tear out of her. “Yes. A picture of me. He begged me for it.” She pressed the linen against her mouth. “What will you do now, Leam? Will you punish me for it?”