“My dear good sir, your story is extraordinary—indeed, one that I would be proud to have written—but I cannot see why your anger has turned upon me. You wished to become the stuff of ballads, and that you are. Perhaps you are a little more legendary than you hoped, but you have no one to blame for that but yourself. I fulfilled my part of the bargain, and you needed only to keep a cool head and revel in your glory until some other brisk blade with a good seat on a horse came along to steal your thunder.”

“A cool head? A week ago the Duke’s men arrested a young farmer because he would not betray me. His wife rode through dark and storm in nothing but her gown to tell me of it, so that I should rescue her husband before he could be taken to Mandelion to stand trial. What was I to do? Say no?”

“Yes,” Clent replied promptly. “I would have done, and so would countless other men. If you have weakened to the siren songs of valor and virtue, I hardly see how you can blame me.”

The door behind Mosca opened again, and Miss Kitely put her head around it.

“The boy we sent for Mr. Trifish, the barber-surgeon, is back, Clam. He found a kerchief dropped on the step—the signal Mr. Trifish said he’d leave if the Duke’s men had taken him.”

“Cast off, then. Trifish is a milk-and-mallow cove, and will squeak if they prick him. The constables will be here any minute.”

Miss Kitely withdrew, closing the door behind her, and Blythe gave Clent a blazing look.

“You see? They rely on me. Even she . . .” He waved a despairing hand at the door. “. . . she relies on me.”

“A-a-ah . . . I think I understand. There is a charming complication in the matter, a delicate dilemma, a sweet distraction . . .” Clent halted as Mosca elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “My dear fellow,” he continued more soberly, “if you have managed to complicate things by forming a sentimental attachment in less than a week, then I doubt there is anything I can do for you. You, sir, are a romantic, and I suspect your condition is incurable.”

There were feet moving on the roof above, and ropes ticked as they were played out. Paintings rattled against the wall as the room lurched, then accepted the river as a dancing partner. Suddenly there was the crash of a crockery catastrophe, raised voices in the next room, and feet thundering above.

Blythe threw the door open, and Mosca and Clent followed him through it.

“What’s happening?”

A grimy boy Mosca recognized from the Floating School was recovering his breath.

“The Duke’s men, sir—they’re searchin’ all the coffeehouses at moorings, sir.”

“Cast off quickly! Cut the ropes if you have to! Have we men still ashore?”

“Only Hamby and Foddle loosing the lines. Here they come!”