“Lord Norrington didn’t take Emily captive, did he?” I say. “That was you. Your idea. A trap for us.”

Lord Thomas’s lip curls. “For you? You have too high an opinion of yourself, girl. Dupuis humors you because it is to his advantage. He is a young man, after all, and if a pretty girl is willing to spread her legs for him, he’ll tell her whatever she wants to hear.”

“My apologies, sir. Of course you don’t give a fig about me. The trap was for Nicolas. Bringing him here to free Emily.”

I am careful with my words. Jenkins is poised there, ready to leap in if I say anything to alert his daughter to his participation. Do that, and I may very well be dragged away by the hair, which will certainly distract Nicolas from his fight.

I keep my focus on Lord Thomas, who doesn’t answer, as if no answer is needed.

“This was a trap,” I say. “Like the ambush in the lane two days back. Emily was supposed to meet Nicolas. Instead, an assassin met him.”

I remember what I saw in the echo of Nicolas’s death. He was killed by a single assailant. Two navy men waited, but it was a third man who shot him in the back. I also remember what happened that day. Yes, Norrington’s men stopped Nicolas. They threatened him. They shot at him as he fled. But it was a third man who shot me, and at no time did I see that third man interact with the two others.

A third man of a slight build. Compact in size.

I look at Jenkins.

“Did you set Norrington up?” I say. “Have his men there to take the blame for Nicolas’s death? Or did they obtain the same information and arrive on their own?” I wave off my own questions. “No matter. You were the one who wanted to kill him, Lord Thomas. You sent your lickspit, who is Jenkins. The question is, Why? Why kill Nicolas?”

“Is that actually a question?” Lord Thomas says. “Do you expect I would allow this boy”—he waves at Nicolas, who has landed a strike on Rodgers—“to threaten everything I built?”

“The people of the bay count you as a good man,” I say. “A good lord. But that only means you were not a tyrant, likely because you lacked the aptitude for it. Not lacked the cruelty, but the aptitude. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You seemed good because you didn’t have the intelligence to do what your son is doing, destroying their way of life to better his own.”

“Lacked the intelligence?” Lord Thomas sputters. “I was educated at Harrow, girl. My father left me with nothing but debts, and I rebuilt our estate and our good name, and I did not have time to do more. My son does. He has the time, the will and the ambition, and I will not see anyone interfere with that.”

A hiss of pain sounds down the hall, and I almost leap up before I see that it is Rodgers, pinned to the wall at sword point.