“Yes. I haven’t done it quite yet, because—” He glanced involuntarily over his shoulder, and John gave a short laugh.

“Wise of you,” he said. “So you’re wanting to prepare a soft landing on this side before you jump. And you thought you’d start with me?” There was enough spin on that question as to take the skin off Percy’s hand if he tried to catch it.

He didn’t catch it and he didn’t duck, either. Just stood and let it pass, regarding Grey with his soft, dark eyes.

“You saved my life, John,” he said quietly, looking at him. “Thank you for that; I hadn’t the chance to say so at the time.”

John flipped a hand dismissively, though his chest had tightened at Percy’s words. He’d suppressed everything at the time and he didn’t want it back now, twenty years later. Any of it.

“Yes. Well …” He turned slightly; Percy was standing between him and the terrace with the French doors.

“So I thought that you might possibly be willing to do me a much less dangerous favor.”

“Think again,” John advised him briefly, and, stepping round his erstwhile lover, walked rapidly away.

He heard nothing behind him; no protest, no offers, no calling of his name. At the open French doors, he glanced involuntarily behind him.

Percy was standing by the hydrangea bush. Smiling at him.

46

By the Dawn’s Early Light

THE SUN WAS WELL above the horizon when William came ambling slowly down Oglethorpe Street toward his father’s house. He’d had a long, fascinating—and very enlightening—conversation with Christopher Preston, about the Crown’s treatment of prisoners, prisoner-help societies, prison hulks … and Ardsmuir Prison. In the fullness of time, he might need to have a talk with Lord John. But not just … this … minute.

He wasn’t drunk, but wasn’t yet quite sober, either. One of his pockets sagged heavily and jingled when he touched it. He had a vague memory of playing cards with Preston and some friends of his—at least this experience seemed to have ended better than the last time he’d got blind drunk, ended up penniless, and … met Jane again.

Jane.

He hadn’t meant to call her to mind, but there she was, vivid, drawn on the surface of his mind with a sharp-pointed quill. The first time he’d met her—and the second. The shine of her hair and the smell of her body, close in the dark.

He stopped and leaned heavily on the iron fence surrounding a neighbor’s front garden. The scent of flowers and new-turned soil was fresh as the morning air on his face, the breath of the distant river and its marshes soothing, with its sense of flowing water, soft black silt, and lurking alligators.