His wife and Mrs. Dilwyn were in the passage outside the mistress’s room.

“Would you like me to bring back one of Mrs. Douglas’s nightdresses for you to use tonight, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Dilwyn.

His wife frowned, an unusual expression for her.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked. “Is everything all right with Mrs. Douglas?”

“She is very well, thank you. And there’s not a problem at all,” she said. “I forgot to pack nightdresses for myself—and I just had the maids take away all the rest of Mrs. Douglas’s for laundering.”

“What’s the matter with Mrs. Douglas’s nightdresses?”

“They smell of cloves. She doesn’t like cloves and neither do I.”

“You are right: That’s not a problem,” he said. “I’ll lend you a nightshirt for tonight. My nightshirts absolutely do not smell of cloves.”

It took two seconds before she beamed at him and said, “Thank you. But I don’t wish to trouble you, sir.”

Two whole seconds. When her smile was otherwise always instantaneous.

She was afraid he would touch her.

When she needed a little reassurance on the train, she’d felt quite free to touch him. And when she’d fallen asleep with her head against his person, her fragrance soft and sweet in his nostrils, he had thought—

He’d thought that he no longer quite repelled her.

And the irony was, he was not going to touch her. His offer of a solution had not been in any way a ploy to take advantage of her. He would have sent Mrs. Dilwyn to fetch a nightshirt from his dressing room.

But her disproportionate reaction had his imaginary self reaching for one more chunk of rock.

“No, no, it would be no trouble at all,” he said. “Come along.”

He walked on into his bedchamber; she had no choice but to follow him. He stripped off his day coat and continued to his dressing room.

“How do you like your new house, by the way?” he asked as he discarded his waistcoat, looking back at her.

“Very well,” she said, smiling. “It’s a very fine house.”

They managed quite a passable imitation of an ordinary marriage, he must concede.

“And Mrs. Dilwyn, has she been helpful?”

“Most helpful.” Her smile persevered but she stopped well short of the door of the dressing room.

“Come in so you can choose one.”

“Oh, I’m sure the one you choose will be perfectly fine.”

“Nonsense, come inside.”

She still maintained her smile, but needed a deep breath before she entered the dressing room.

He pulled his shirt over his head. Her smile deserted her.

He didn’t always have this musculature throughout the year. But it was at the end of summer: Since the middle of April he had been based in London, which meant three miles every morning at his swimming club. He was in the best form he could possibly be in. And when he was in his best form he was, physically, a very intimidating man.

The dressing room was large. But it was also thickly populated with shelves, cabinets, and armoires, which made it secluded and isolated. She stood with her back against a chest of drawers. He walked up to her, braced his arm next to her shoulder, and did nothing else for a moment—he truly was not above tormenting her—before pulling off his signet ring and tossing it in a tray of accessories atop the chest of drawers.

“Come,” he said softly.

She swallowed.

“You said you wanted to pick out the nightshirt you like best. So come.”

He could see it in her eyes, the desire to correct him, to argue that she’d never wanted anything of the sort, that he was the one to impose the choosing on her. But she only said, “Certainly.”

He had stacks of nightshirts, all white, in linen, flannel, silk, and merino wool. She snatched the uppermost nightshirt from the nearest stack.

“I’ll take this one.”

“But you haven’t felt the others yet. Feel them.”

He pressed the nightshirts into her hands, one after another, and offered accompanying treatises on fabrics and textures. Soon they stood in a knee-deep pile of discarded nightshirts. And he handed her yet another one to examine.

It was silk, lustrous, smooth, lavish, something that two thousand years ago would have been quite worth the walk from Chang’an to Damascus.

“So soft,” he said. “Like your skin.”

Her grip tightened on the nightshirt. “May I have this one then?”

“Indeed, have it. Took you long enough to find one you liked.”

But she would not escape him so easily yet. He insisted she unclench her fingers, to avoid wrinkling the silk, and then he took hold of her hand and rubbed his thumb over her palm. Giving her his most thick-witted smile, he sighed. “Ah, yes, just as lovely as I remember it.”

And remembered it. And remembered it.

It dawned on him that he tormented no one but himself with this little game of his.

He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Well, then, off you go.”

She looked at him uncertainly. He began to undo the fastening of his trousers. She needed no more urging after that, her departure swift and resounding.

Holbrook sported a black eye.

Vere had to smile at the sight. “So Lady Kingsley did not forget to pay you a visit when she was in London.”

Holbrook gingerly touched the bruises around his eye. “She should have delegated the task to you. You would have punished me more tenderly.”

“Quite so.” Vere pushed the cigarette case–size casting mold he’d used at Highgate Court across the table to Holbrook. “I need a key made from this.”

They were seated at White’s, as far away from the bow window as possible. It was more than permissible for mere acquaintances belonging to the same club to dine together, but there was no point advertising their contact to passersby on St. James.

“What does the key open?” asked Holbrook.

“Something of Edmund Douglas’s.”

“Hmm,” said Holbrook, pocketing the casting mold. “And what have you learned from your visit to Mrs. Watts’s old neighborhood?”

“That Douglas probably murdered Mrs. Watts.”

“His own great-aunt?”

“I don’t think she was his great-aunt,” said Vere, slicing his veal cutlet. “I don’t think he is Edmund Douglas, in fact.”

Holbrook’s brows rose. “Where is the real Edmund Douglas, then?”

“My guess? Murdered, too.”

“These are serious crimes to suspect of your uncle-in-law.”

“I’m nothing if not a dutiful nephew-in-law.” He almost wished his father were still alive. I married the niece of a murderer, Pater. It’s a spectacularly suitable match for me, don’t you think? “Any progress from your code breakers?”

“Some, but they haven’t quite cracked it yet.”

There was no doubt in Vere’s mind that the Crown would nab Douglas sooner or later—not only was the noose tightening around the man’s neck, but he was currently so distracted by his niece absconding with his wife that he had no idea his secret life was being peeled back layer by layer. From a strictly professional point of view, there was no hurry. On the extortion front, they did not yet have any diamond dealers willing to cooperate with the police. And if they wanted him prosecuted on charges of murder, they needed time to find old acquaintances of the real Edmund Douglas who were willing to travel from South Africa to England to give their testimony in court.

But an Edmund Douglas at large was an Edmund Douglas capable of committing further atrocities. When he realized that Vere was a difficult man to hurt, he would no doubt turn his attention back to his wife and his niece. Vere had not left his house thinking the world of his wife. That did not, however, negate the fact that he was now responsible for her safekeeping.

“I want you to work on it,” he said to Holbrook.

Holbrook was one of the best code breakers in the country, if not in the entire world. Like Lady Kingsley, Vere, too, believed instinctively that there was something in the coded dossier that would allow them to arrest Douglas immediately.