At eleven o’clock in the morning? It was appalling, but he blocked his displeasure before it could show on his face. He’d mastered the impassive expression decades ago.

“Thank you,” he said simply, then turned and headed toward the staff staircase. It didn’t take long to vault up the two flights to the women’s dormitory. The door was closed, and he knocked but heard no answer.

“Man on the floor,” he announced, then knocked again and waited for a sign of life on the other side of the door. He didn’t want to frighten someone who might be in a state of undress, so he knocked louder, repeated his warning, and waited. When he got no response, he cracked the door open and stepped inside the dim room.

Caroline Delacroix was tucked beneath the covers, so deeply asleep that she didn’t even stir as he stepped farther inside. He pulled the switch to turn on the overhead light, then banged open the shutters to let the sunlight inside. She remained sound asleep, even when he plunked a straight-backed chair down at the foot of her bed and took a seat.

When she still didn’t stir, he kicked the foot of the bed. “Wake up.”

She scrambled upright, tugging the sheet up to her chin. “What’s going on? Am I needed?”

The panic in her eyes awakened a hint of sympathy. “No emergency, but I need the names of the people visiting the first lady this afternoon. You’re late. You should have turned it in days ago.”

The tension drained from her as she scrubbed a hand across her tired eyes. Although why a woman who slept in until eleven o’clock in the morning should look sleep-deprived was a mystery.

“The women are from the Iowa Baptist Relief Society,” she said. “They’re here to knit baby booties with the first lady. They’re harmless.”

“You don’t know that.”

A hint of amusement lightened her features. “Do you think they might be anarchists in disguise?”

Her humor rubbed him the wrong way. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “You don’t think it’s a bit odd that a group of women would travel a thousand miles to join a complete stranger for an hour of knitting?”

Caroline rolled her eyes in an overly dramatic show of pique. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she muttered as she punched her pillow and dropped back onto the mattress, turning her back to him. “Cover the windows on your way out.”

He stretched his leg out to kick the bedpost again. “Women can be just as lethal as men. Charlotte Corday was a noblewoman who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat while he took a bath. No one suspected her either, until she stabbed him through the heart. Six months ago, a madwoman tried to kill Kaiser Wilhelm with an axe.”