“Enough!” Lord Thomas shouts. “Ignore her, too, Jenkins. They are all trying to distract you. Remember who you did this for. Your daughter. Securing her future.”

“Your daughter has been shot,” I say. “By you, and now you are trying to kill the man saving her life.”

“She is fine,” Lord Thomas says. “The shot missed her heart, and she is awake and responding. She will forgive you when you are able to send her to London for a season.”

I snort as I parry a wild strike. “Did you tell the old man you were doing this for Emily?”

“I am. Everything I have done is for my daughter. Emily. I am sorry—”

“Every penny is going to her?” I cut in. “The old man actually believed that? You are a better actor than I thought. But I suppose you had to be to win the heart of your master’s daughter. Why don’t we talk about that, Jenkins? About Emily’s mother.”

Jenkins lunges at me, but I easily evade.

“You thought she was your golden goose, didn’t you?” I say. “Win the master’s daughter, and since he dotes on her, he will be forced to accept you as his son-in-law. Only it didn’t quite work out that way. Then she died in childbirth, and you used her daughter to win your way back, but even then, you were not a member of the family. Not truly. Just an elevated clerk.”

I am guessing. It is all guessing, with a generous dose of interpretation, but Jenkins’s snarl of rage tells me that particular blow struck true.

“I was his son-in-law,” he snaps. “The father of his darling granddaughter. What did it get me? Nothing but a better wage and a room in the back of the house. Then he dies, and Norrington wants me gone. Tries to frighten me off and keep my daughter. So I did what I needed to do. I took Emily away from him. Threatened to move with her to London.”

“And when that didn’t get you the annual allowance you demanded, you let the old man drag you into his scheme. A scheme that isn’t even about helping you. It’s paying you to help Lord Norrington. He’s the one who counts. The only one who counts. The only one who has ever counted.”

As I say that, I ready myself for a frenzied attack. Surely these will be the words to send him over the edge. The realization that he has killed for a man who still sees him as a mere employee, who has damned his immortal soul to help his real son.

But Jenkins only smirks. “Oh, I still have one card to play, girl. One secret that a boy died to keep. His Highness Lord Norrington is going to pay very well for me to continue keeping that secret.”

What do they think Andrés overheard? I only know he overheard Norrington talking to someone, and Lord Thomas ordered Jenkins to nail him into the pantry to keep from telling anyone.