Tristan’s smile was cold. “Foreigners of his ilk generally do.” He paused, then asked, “What’s his name?”

What little color had returned to Duke’s face fled. A moment passed, then he moistened his lips. “He told me if I told anyone at all about him, he’d kill me.”

Tristan inclined his head, gently said, “And what do you imagine will happen to you if you don’t tell us about him?”

Duke stared, then glanced at Charles.

Who met his gaze. “Don’t you know the punishment for treason?”

A moment passed, then Deverell quietly added, “That’s assuming, of course, that you make it to the scaffold.” He shrugged. “What with all the ex-soldiers in the prisons these days…”

Eyes huge, Duke dragged in a breath and looked at Tristan. “I didn’t know it was treason!”

“I’m afraid what you’ve been doing definitely qualifies.”

Duke hauled in another breath, then blurted out, “But I don’t know his name.”

Tristan nodded, accepting. “How do you contact him?”

“I don’t! He set it up at the beginning—I have to meet him in St. James’s Park every third day and report what’s happened.”

The next meeting was to occur the following day.

Tristan, Charles, and Deverell grilled Duke for a further half hour, but learned little more. Duke was patently cooperating; recalling how keyed up—how panic-stricken, she now realized—he’d been earlier, Leonora suspected he’d realized that they were his only hope, that if he helped, he might escape a situation that had transformed into a nightmare.

Jonathon’s assessment had been accurate; Duke was a black sheep with few morals, a cowardly and violent bully, untrustworthy and worse, but he wasn’t a killer, and he’d never meant to be a traitor.

His reaction to Tristan’s questions about Miss Timmins was revealing. His face a ghastly hue, Duke falteringly recounted how he’d gone up to check on the ground-floor walls, heard a choking sound in the dimness, and looked up, to see the fragile old woman come tumbling down the stairs to land, dead, at his feet. His horror was unfeigned; it was he who had closed the old lady’s eyes.

Watching him, Leonora grimly concluded justice of a sort had been served; Duke would never forget what he’d seen, what he’d inadvertently caused.

Eventually, Charles and Deverell hauled Duke off to the club, there to be held in the basement under the watchful eyes of Biggs and Gasthorpe, together with the weasel and the four thugs Duke had hired to help with the excavations.

Tristan glanced at Jeremy. “Have you identified the final formula?”

Jeremy grinned. He picked up a sheet of paper. “I’d just copied it out. It was in A.J.’s journals, all neatly noted. Anyone could have found it.” He handed the sheet to Tristan. “It was definitely half Cedric’s work, but without A.J. and her records, it would have been the devil to piece together.”

“Yes, but will it work?” Jonathon asked. He’d remained silent throughout the interrogation, quietly taking things in. Tristan handed the paper to him; he scanned it.

“I’m no herbalist,” Jeremy said. “But if the results as laid out in your aunt’s journals are correct, then yes, their concoction will definitely aid clotting when applied to wounds.”

“And it was lying there in York for the past two years.” Tristan thought of the battlefield at Waterloo, then banished the vision. Turned to Leonora.

She met his eyes, squeezed his hand. “At least we have it now.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” Humphrey put in. “If this foreigner was so set on finding the formula, and he was able to order Jonathon here killed, why didn’t he come after the formula himself?” Humphrey raised his shaggy brows. “Mind you, I’m deuced glad he didn’t. Mountford was bad enough, but at least we survived him.”

“The answer’s one of those diplomatic niceties.” Tristan rose and resettled his coat. “If a foreigner from one of the embassies was implicated in an attack on, even the death of, an unknown young man or even two from the north, the government would frown, but largely ignore it. However, if the same foreigner was implicated in burglarly and violence in a house in a wealthy part of London, the house of distinguished men of letters, the government would assuredly be most displeased and not at all inclined to ignore anything.”

He glanced at them all, his smile coolly cynical. “An attack on property close to the government’s heart would create a diplomatic incident, so Duke was a necessary pawn.”

“So what now?” Leonora asked.

He hesitated, looking down into her eyes, then smiled faintly, just for her. “Now we—Charles, Deverell, and I—need to take this information to the proper quarters, and see what they want done.”

She stared at him. “Your erstwhile employer?”

He nodded. Straightened. “We’ll meet again here for breakfast if you’re agreeable and make whatever plans we need to make.”

“Yes, of course.” Leonora reached out and touched his hand in farewell.

Humphrey nodded magnanimously. “Until tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately, your meeting with your government contact will have to wait until morning.” Jeremy nodded at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s past ten.”

Tristan, heading for the door, turned, smiling, as he reached it. “Actually, no. The State never sleeps.”

The State for them meant Dalziel.

They sent word ahead; nevertheless, the three of them had to cool their heels in the spymaster’s anteroom for twenty minutes before the door opened, and Dalziel waved them in.

As they sank onto the three chairs set facing the desk, they glanced around, then met each other’s eyes. Nothing had changed.

Including Dalziel. He rounded the desk. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed and always dressed austerely. His age was unusually difficult to gauge; when he’d first started working through this office, Tristan had assumed Dalziel to be considerably his senior. Now…he was starting to wonder if there were all that many years between them. He had visibly aged; Dalziel had not.

As cool as ever, Dalziel sat behind the desk, facing them. “Now. Explain, if you please. From the beginning.”

Tristan did, severely editing his account as he went, leaving out much of Leonora’s involvement; Dalziel was known to disapprove of ladies dabbling in the game.

Even so, how much missed that steady dark gaze was a matter for conjecture.

At the end of the tale, Dalziel nodded, then looked at Charles and Deverell. “And how is it you two are involved?”

Charles grinned wolfishly. “We share a mutual interest.”

Dalziel held his gaze for an instant. “Ah, yes. Your club in Montrose Place. Of course.”

He looked down; Tristan was sure it was so they could blink in comfort. The man was a menace. They weren’t even part of his network anymore.

“So”—looking up from the notes he’d scrawled while listening, Dalziel leaned back and steepled his fingers; he fixed them all with his gaze—“we have an unknown European intent—seriously intent—on stealing a potentially valuable formula for aiding wound healing. We don’t know who this gentleman might be, but we have the formula, and we have his local pawn. Is that correct?”

They all nodded.

“Very well. I want to know who this European is, but I don’t want him to know I know. I’m sure you follow me. What I want you to do is this. First, tamper with the formula. Find someone who can make it look believable—we have no idea what training this foreigner might have. Second, convince the pawn to keep his next meeting and hand over the formula—make sure he understands his position, and that his future hangs on his performance. Third, I want you to follow the gentleman back to his lair and identify him for me.”

They all nodded. Then Charles grimaced. “Why are we still doing this—taking orders from you?”

Dalziel looked at him, then softly said, “For the same reason I’m giving those orders with every expectation of being obeyed. Because we are who we are.” He raised one dark brow. “Aren’t we?”

There was nothing else to say; they understood one another all too well.

They rose.

“One thing.” Tristan caught Dalziel’s questioning look. “Duke Martinbury. Once he has the formula, this foreigner is liable to want to tie up loose ends.”

Dalziel nodded. “That would be expected. What do you suggest?”

“We can make sure Martinbury walks away from the meeting, but after that? In addition, he’s due some punishment for his part in this affair. All things considered, impression into the army for three years would fit the bill on both counts. Given he’s from Yorkshire, I thought of the regiment near Harrogate. Its ranks must be a little thin these days.”

“Indeed.” Dalziel made a note. “Muffleton’s colonel there. I’ll tell him to expect Martinbury—Marmaduke, wasn’t it?—as soon as he’s finished being useful here.”

With a nod, Tristan turned; with the others, he left.

“A fake formula?” His gaze on the sheet containing Cedric’s formula, Jeremy grimaced. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Here! Let me see.” Seated at the end of the breakfast table, Leonora held out her hand.

Tristan paused in consuming a mound of ham and eggs to pass the sheet to her.

She sipped her tea and studied it while the rest of them applied themselves to their breakfasts. “Which are the critical ingredients, do you know?”

Humphrey glanced down the table at her. “From what I gathered from the experiments, shepherd’s purse, moneywort, and comfrey were all crucial. As to the other substances, it was more a matter of enhancement of action.”

Leonora nodded, and set down her cup. “Give me a few minutes to consult with Cook and Mrs. Wantage. I’m sure we can concoct something believable.”

She returned fifteen minutes later; they were sitting back, replete, enjoying their coffee. She laid a neatly written formula in front of Tristan and retook her seat.

He picked it up, read it, nodded. “Looks believable to me.” He passed it to Jeremy. Looked at Humphrey. “Can you recopy that for us?”

Leonora stared at him. “What’s wrong with my copy?”

Tristan looked at her. “It wasn’t written by a man.”

“Oh.” Mollified, she poured herself another cup of tea. “So what’s your plan? What do we have to do?”

Tristan caught the inquiring gaze she directed at him over the rim of her cup, inwardly sighed, and explained.

As he’d anticipated, no amount of argument had swayed Leonora from joining him on the hunt.

Charles and Deverell had thought it a great joke, until Humphrey and Jeremy also insisted on playing a part.

Short of tying them up and leaving them in the club under Gasthorpe’s eye—something Tristan actually considered—there was no way to prevent them appearing in St. James’s Park; in the end, the three of them decided to make the best of it.

Leonora proved surprisingly easy to disguise. She was the same height as her maid Harriet, so could borrow her clothes; with the judicious application of some soot and dust, she made a passable flowerseller.

They decked Humphrey out in some of Cedric’s ancient clothes; by disregarding every edict of elegance, he was transformed into a thoroughly disreputable specimen, his thinning white hair artfully straggling, apparently unkempt. Deverell, who’d returned to his house in Mayfair to assume his own disguise, returned, approved, then took Humphrey in charge. They set out in a hackney to take up their positions.

Jeremy was the hardest to easily disguise; his slender length and clear-cut, well-defined features screamed “well-bred.” In the end, Tristan took him with him back to Green Street. They returned half an hour later as two rough-looking navvies; Leonora had to look twice before she recognized her brother.

He grinned. “This is almost worth being locked in the closet.”

Tristan frowned at him. “This is no joke.”

“No. Of course not.” Jeremy tried to look suitably chastened, and failed miserably.

They bade Jonathon, unhappy but resigned to missing out on all the fun, farewell, promising to tell him all when they returned, then went to the club to check on Charles and Duke.

Duke was exceedingly nervous, but Charles had him in hand. They each had defined roles to play; Duke knew his—had had it explained to him in painstaking detail—but even more important, he’d been told very clearly what Charles’s role was. They were all sure that come what may, knowing what Charles would do if he didn’t behave as instructed would be enough to ensure Duke’s continued cooperation.