What had that end been? A spy’s wages, paid in blood to prevent the threat of disclosure? Or something more personal?

Very personal. The thought came to him with sudden certainty, as he saw once more in memory that heelprint on O’Connell’s forehead. Anyone might have killed the Sergeant, for any of several motives—but that final indignity was a deliberate insult, left as signature to the crime.

Scanlon’s hands were unmarked; so were Francine O’Connell’s. But O’Connell’s death had come at the hands of more than one, and the Irish gathered like fleas in the city; where you found one, there were a dozen more nearby. Scanlon doubtless had friends or relations. He should very much like to examine the heels of Scanlon’s shoes.

There were several men standing, as he was, near the wall; one turned aside, tugging at his breeches as though to make water, another sidling toward him. Grey felt the nearness of someone at his own shoulder, and turned his back sharply; he felt the hesitation of the man behind him, and then the small huff of breath, an audible shrug, as the stranger turned away.

Best to keep walking. He had barely resumed his journey, though, when he heard a startled exclamation from the shadows a few feet behind him, followed by a brief scuffling noise.

“Oh, you bold pullet!”

“What are—hey! Mmph!”

“Oh? Well, if you’d rather, my dear . . .”

“Oy! Leggo!”

The agitated voice raised the hairs on the nape of Grey’s neck in recognition. He whirled on his heel and was moving toward the altercation by reflex, before his conscious mind had realized what he was about.

Two shadowy figures swayed together, grappling and shuffling. He seized the taller of these just above the elbow, gripping hard.

“Leave him,” he said, in his soldier’s voice. The steel of it made the man start and step back, shaking off Grey’s grip. Pale moonlight showed a long face, caught between puzzlement and anger.

“Why, I wasn’t but—”

“Leave him,” Grey repeated, more softly, but with no less menace. The man’s face changed, assuming an air of injured dignity, as he did up his breeches.

“Sorry, I’m sure. Didn’t know he was your cull.” He turned away, rubbing ostentatiously at his arm, but Grey paid no attention, being otherwise concerned.

“What in Christ’s name are you doing here?” he said, keeping his voice low.

Tom Byrd appeared not to have heard; his round face was open-mouthed with amazement.

“That bloke come straight up to me and put his pego into me hand!” He stared into his open palm, as though expecting to find the object in question still within his grasp.

“Oh?”

“Yes! I swear as a Christian, he did! And then he kissed me, and went for to put his hand into me breeches and grabbed me by the bollocks! Whatever would he want to do that for?”

Grey was tempted to reply that he had not the slightest idea, but instead took Byrd by the arm and towed him out of earshot of the interested parties on the bridge.

“I repeat—what are you doing here?” he asked, as they reached the refuge of a residence whose gate was sheltered by a pair of flowering laburnums, white in the moonlight.

“Oh, ah.” Byrd was recovering rapidly from his shock. He rubbed the palm of his hand on his thigh and stood up straight.

“Well, sir—me lord, I mean—I saw you go out, and thought as how you might have need of someone at your back, as it was. I mean”—he darted a quick glance at Grey’s unorthodox costume—“I thought you must be headin’ to somewhere as might be dangerous.” He looked back over his shoulder at the bridge, obviously feeling that recent events there had confirmed this suspicion.

“I assure you, Tom, I am in no danger.” Byrd was; while most mollies were simply looking for a good time, there was rough trade to be found in such places and persons who would not take no for an answer—to say nothing of simple footpads.

Grey glanced down the street; he could not send the boy back past the taverns, not alone.

“Come with me, then,” he said, making up his mind upon the moment. “You may accompany me to the house; from there, you will go home.”

Byrd followed him without demur; Grey was obliged to take the young man’s arm and draw him up beside—otherwise the boy fell by habit into step behind him, which would not do.

A middle-aged man in a cocked hat strolled past them, giving Byrd a penetrating glance. Grey felt the boy meet the glance, then jerk his eyes away.

“Me lord,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“These coves hereabouts. Are they . . . sodomites?”

“Many of them, yes.”

Byrd asked no further questions. Grey let go the boy’s arm after a bit, and they walked in silence through the quieter end of the street. Grey felt all his earlier tension return, made the more uncomfortable for the brief interlude before Byrd’s appearance had recalled him to himself.

He had not remembered. Hardly surprising; he had done his best to forget those years after Hector’s death. He had sleepwalked through the year after Culloden, spent with Cumberland’s troops as they cleansed the Highlands of rebels, doing his soldier’s duty, but doing it as in a dream. Returning at last to London, though, he could no longer keep from waking to the reality of a world in which Hector was not.

He had come here in that bad time, looking for surcease at best, oblivion at worst. He had found the latter, both in liquor and in flesh, and realized his luck in surviving both experiences unscathed—though at the time, survival had been the least of his concerns.

What he had forgotten in the years since then, though, was the simple, unutterable comfort of existing—for however brief a time—without pretense. With Byrd’s appearance, he felt that he had hastily clapped on a mask, but wore it now somewhat awry.

“Me lord?”

“Yes?”

Byrd drew a deep and trembling breath, which made Grey turn to look at the boy. Dark as their surroundings were, his strong emotion was evident in the clenched fists.

“Me brother. Jack. D’ye think he—have ye come to find him here?” Byrd blurted.

“No.” Grey hesitated, then touched Byrd’s shoulder gently. “Have you any reason to suppose that he would be here—or in another such place?”

Byrd shook his head, not in negation, but in sheer helplessness.

“I dunno. I never—but I never thought . . . I dunno, sir, that’s the truth.”

“Has he a woman? A girl, perhaps, with whom he walks out?”

“No,” Byrd said miserably. “But he’s a cove to save his money, Jack. Always said as how he’d take a wife when he could afford one, and before then why tempt trouble?”

“Your brother sounds a wise man,” Grey said, letting the hint of a smile show in his voice. “And an honorable one.”

Byrd drew another deep breath, and swiped his knuckles furtively beneath his nose.

“Aye, sir, Jack’s that.”

“Well, then.” Grey turned away, but waited for a moment, until Byrd moved to follow.

Lavender House was large, but in no way ostentatious. Only the marble tubs of fragrant lavender that stood on either side of its door distinguished it in any way from the houses to either side. The curtains were drawn, but shadows passed now and then beyond them, and the murmur of male conversation and occasional bursts of laughter seeped through the hanging velvet.

“It sounds like what goes on at those gentlemen’s clubs in Curzon Street,” Byrd said, sounding faintly puzzled. “I’ve heard ’em.”

“It is a gentlemen’s club,” Grey replied, with a certain grimness. “For gentlemen of a particular sort.” He removed his hat, and, untying his hair, shook it free over his shoulders; the time for disguise was past.

“Now you must go home, Tom.” He pointed the way, across the park. “Do you see that light, at the end? Just beyond is an alley; it will take you to a main street. Here—take some money for a cab.”