“I’m surprised Elcott didn’t inform you that Mrs. Carrington is already in my custody.”

Sprigs cleared his throat. “He did mention it—”

“Indeed?” Tony raised his brows. “And did he also happen to mention that my orders in this matter come from Whitehall?”

Sprigs drew himself up. “Be that as it may, my lord, the information we’ve received—’deed, the people we received it from—well, we couldn’t hardly ignore such, Whitehall or no.”

“What information?”

Sprigs pressed his lips together, glanced at Alicia, then ventured, “That Mrs. Carrington here had hired some villains to do away with this man Ruskin, on account of she was in league with the French. Word had it that if we searched this house thoroughly, we’d find evidence enough to prove it.”

“From whom did this information come?”

Again Sprigs hesitated; again the stretching silence forced him to answer. “Brought to us indirect, it was.” He saw Tony’s welling contempt and rushed on, “From the gentlemen’s clubs. Seems a number of the high-and-mighty heard the story—wanted to know what we were doing about it. Questions were asked. They even had the commissioner himself in to explain.”

Sprigs glanced at Charles and Christian, then looked at Tony. “It’s treason we’re talking about here. Don’t suppose toffs like you care all that much, but if you’d served in the recent wars—”

“I wouldn’t suppose quite so readily, Inspector.”

The voice, languid, even soft, chilled. Everyone looked toward the front door. They’d left it partially open. A gentleman stood just inside; he walked forward as they stared.

His dark eyes remained fixed on Sprigs. Alicia had grown used to Tony’s elegance—this man was equally impressive, moving with innate grace, slim, dark-haired, dressed in dark clothes that exuded that same austere style, a reflection of bone-deep confidence, of their assurance in who they were.

There was one difference. While Tony’s tones could cut, whiplike, this man’s voice projected a patently lethal threat, quietly efficient, like a scimitar slicing, unhindered, into flesh.

Suppressing a shiver, she glanced at Tony, then at his friends, and realized the newcomer was both known to them and accepted by them. An ally, definitely, yet she sensed he was someone around whom even they trod carefully.

Sprigs swallowed. He glanced at Tony. Behind him, the sergeant and his other two men were rigidly at attention.

“Dalziel.” The newcomer answered Sprigs’s unvoiced question. “From Whitehall.” He halted at Tony’s side and looked the unfortunate Sprigs in the eye. “I’ve already spoken with your superiors. You are to report back to Bow Street immediately, taking all your men, leaving this house in precisely the same state as it was when you, so unwisely, entered. You will not remove so much as a pin.”

He paused, then continued, “Your superiors have been somewhat forcefully reminded that, together with Lord Whitley, I am handling this matter, and that contrary to their suppositions, Bow Street’s mandate does not extend to countermanding or interfering with Whitehall’s actions.”

Sprigs, now all but at attention himself, nodded. “Yes, sir.” He sounded strangled.

Dalziel let a moment pass, then murmured, “You may go.”

They went with alacrity. At a nod from Sprigs, the junior stuck his head into the drawing room and summoned his companion; in short order, the five men from Bow Street were clattering down the steps, routed by a superior force.

All four gentlemen—Tony, Dalziel, Dearne, and Lostwithiel—stood in and about the front door and saw them off, watched them go. Trapped behind, screened from the sight by their broad shoulders, Alicia waited, somewhat impatiently. She knew the instant they all let down their guards.

Tony and Dearne visibly relaxed.

“Importunate devils,” Lostwithiel quipped.

“Indeed,” Dalziel replied.

They all started to turn inside—

Then paused.

Along with the others, Tony watched two carriages come clattering up, one from each end of the street. Both carriages pulled up before the house. The carriage doors swung open. Tristan sprang down from one carriage; from the other, Jack Hendon stepped down to the pavement. Both turned back to their respective carriages; each handed a lady down.

Kit, Jack’s wife, and Leonora, Tristan’s wife.

Barely pausing to shake out their skirts, both ladies swept toward the house—and saw each other. At the bottom of the steps, they met, exchanged names, shook hands, then, as one, turned and, beautiful faces decidedly set, swept up the steps.

On the pavement, Jack and Tristan exchanged long-suffering glances, and followed in their wakes.

All four men at the door gave way.

With barely a glance at them the ladies swept in. They saw Alicia, and pounced.

“Kit Hendon, my dear.” Taking Alicia’s hand, Kit waved toward Jack. “Jack’s wife. How terribly distressing for you.”

“Leonora Wemyss—I’m Trentham’s wife.” Leonora waved vaguely at her husband, too, and pressed Alicia’s hand. “Are your family quite all right?”

Alicia found a smile. “Yes—I believe so.” She gestured to the drawing room.

“It’s quite insupportable,” Kit declared. “We’ve come to help.”

“Indeed.” Leonora turned to the drawing room. “This is going to need action to set right.”

Together, the three entered the drawing room. The door shut behind them.

All six men in the front hall stared at the door, then glanced, briefly, at each other.

Dalziel sighed, pityingly or so they all took it, and turned to Tony. “I take it you have whatever Bow Street’s minions were sent to find?”

“Yes.” Succinctly, Tony described the letters, and how they fitted the scenario they now thought most likely, confirming that A. C. had used Ruskin’s information to arrange for merchantmen to be captured by the enemy.

At the end of his explanation, Dalziel, still and silent, stared out, unseeing, through the open door. Then, quietly, he said, “I want him.”

He glanced at Tony, then at the others. “I don’t care what you have to do—I want to know who A. C. is. As soon as possible. You have my full authority, and as for Whitley, suffice to say he’s ropeable. If you have need of his name, you have permission to use that, too.”

Briefly, he glanced at them again, then nodded. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He walked to the door. On the threshold he paused, and looked back. At Tony. “Incidentally, the information against Mrs. Carrington—there’s no way to trace it. I’ve tried. Whoever this man is, he’s extremely well connected—he knew exactly in whose ears to plant his seeds. When asked, every concerned soul said they heard it from someone else. I’ll continue to keep my ears open, but don’t expect any breakthrough on that front.”

Tony inclined his head.

Dalziel left, going lightly down the steps, then striding away along the street.

The five men in the front hall remained where they were until his footsteps had faded, then all dragged in a breath and glanced at each other.

“I’m suddenly very grateful I only had to deal with Whitley,” Jack said.

“Indeed, you should be.” Tony stepped forward and shut the door.

Charles met Tony’s gaze as he rejoined them, then glanced at Christian and Tristan. “How did he know?”

Christian raised his brows, openly resigned. “I suspect he knows one of our staff at the club rather well, don’t you?”

“Our club?” Charles looked pained. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

Tristan clapped him on the shoulder.

They turned to the drawing room. The door opened; Maggs, Scully, Jenkins, Cook, and Fitchett all slipped out, bobbing before disappearing through the green baize door.

With a glance, Tony halted Maggs. “Check the parlor—I doubt the good inspector’s men had time to put their mess right.”

Maggs nodded and headed down the corridor.

Tristan opened the drawing-room door and led the gentlemen in.

Kit and Leonora were seated in armchairs facing Alicia and Adriana on the chaise. All four heads were together; they glanced up as the men entered, but the comments that clearly hovered on their tongues had to wait—the three boys had been crowding around the front window; seeing Tony, they flung themselves at him.

“Are they gone?”

“What did they want?”

“Who was that man? The one who just left.”

Tony looked down into three pairs of hazel eyes, all very like Alicia’s. When he didn’t immediately reply, Matthew tugged at his sleeve.

“You promised to tell us.”

He smiled and hunkered down to be more on their level. “Yes, they’ve gone, and they won’t be coming back. They’d been given false information, and thought there were documents hidden here—those letters I found. That’s what they were searching for. And that man who just left was from the government—he came to tell them they’d made a big mistake, and that they weren’t to bother you or your sisters anymore.”

Three pairs of eyes searched his, then all three boys smiled.

“Good!” Harry said. “It might be exciting, but they weren’t nice.”

“And they worry Alicia and Adriana,” David whispered.

Both his younger brothers nodded solemnly.

Smiling, Tony rose, ruffling Matthew’s hair. “You’ll do.” He exchanged a fleeting glance with Alicia; with her eyes, she indicated upstairs. He looked back at the boys. “Now you’d better go and see if they searched your rooms.” He lowered his voice. “You could help Jenkins and Maggs make sure there’s nothing around to upset your sisters.”

The boys exchanged glances. Solemnly nodded again.

They looked at Alicia. “We’re going upstairs,” David said.

She smiled encouragingly. “You can come down for tea.”

Everyone waited while the three boys filed out and closed the door behind them.

“Thank heavens,” Kit said. She looked at the men, still standing in a loose gathering in the center of the room.

“Now! We need to move quickly on this. The damage has to be contained—better yet, turned around.”

Jack and Tristan strolled forward.

Tristan shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s all that serious.” He glanced at the other men. “I can’t see that A. C. is likely to gain much from this—”

“Not your investigation!” Leonora glared at him. “That isn’t what we’re concerned about.”

Tristan blinked at her. “What, then?”

“Why the potential social disaster, of course!”

They were right—that was the most urgent threat arising from Sprigs’s visit; this time, Bow Street had come calling in daylight, and there’d been considerable activity visible from the street. Luckily, their counterstrategy was easy to devise and quickly set in train. Aside from Alicia and Adriana, there were seven of them in the room; each had multiple contacts among the grandes dames, contacts they normally avoided, yet contacts who, in this instance, once they were apprised of the situation, were very ready to come to their collective aid.

By the time that evening’s entertainments commenced, all was in place, the cannons primed.

Tony, accompanied by Geoffrey, made privy to the latest developments, escorted the ravishing Mrs. Carrington and her even more ravishing sister to a formal dinner, followed by three major balls.

They’d barely entered the first ballroom, Lady Selwyn’s, when he overheard his godmother spreading the word.

“It is quite beyond the pale!” Lady Amery’s tones were hushed yet outraged. “This secretive gentleman seeks to manipulate us, those of the haut ton, with rumors and sly tricks, to make us turn on Mrs. Carrington and drive her from town so that her fleeing our wrath will appear an admission of guilt, and so confuse the authorities and hide his infamous deeds.”

Lady Amery twitched her shawl straight, both the action and her expression indicating absolute disgust. “It is beyond anything that a gentleman should seek to use us thus.”

Wide-eyed, the Countess of Hereford had been drinking in her eloquence. “So none of the rumors is true?”

“Pshaw!” Lady Amery flicked her fingers. “Nothing more than artful lies. The reason he has focused on Mrs. Carrington is purely because she had the ill fortune to be the last person poor Ruskin spoke with before going to his death—at this very man’s hands, no less! She was attending a soirée—I ask you, what is one supposed to do at a soirée if not talk to other guests? But now the devil seeks to deceive and deflect the authorities, and to use us to accomplish his evil ends.”