Roger felt a touch of uneasiness. Well, in honesty, he’d been uneasy since they walked into the house on Hasell Street.

“Who do you suppose that is?”

Fergus glanced at him in surprise, then shook his head in mild reproof.

“I tell you, mon frère, you require a great deal more experience in the fields of sin, if you hope to be a good minister.”

“Ye’re suggesting that I send for Miss Marigold and ask for lessons?”

“Well, no,” Fergus said, giggling slightly. “Your wife would—but that’s not what I meant. Only that your own goodness, which is undeniable”—he smiled at Roger, with a warmth in his eyes that touched Roger deeply—“is one thing, but to help those of your flock who lack that goodness, you need to understand something of evil and thus the struggle that afflicts them.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re wrong,” Roger said warily. “But I know more than one man of the cloth who’s got himself in serious trouble while seeking that sort of education.”

Fergus lifted one shoulder, laughing.

“You can learn a great deal from whores, mon frère, but I agree that perhaps you should not make such inquiries alone. Still,” he said, sobering, “that’s not what I meant by evil.”

“No. But you said you’ve had passages with this Percival before. He didn’t strike me as—”

“He’s not. He’s a whore; he has likely been one all his life.” Seeing Roger’s expression, he didn’t smile, but one corner of his mouth lifted. “What is it they say? ‘It takes one to know one.’”

Roger felt a sudden contraction of his stomach muscles, as though he’d been lightly punched. He’d known that Fergus had been a child-whore in Paris, before encountering Jamie Fraser, who had engaged him as a pickpocket—but he’d forgotten.

“Monsieur Beauchamp is too old to sell his arse, of course, but he will sell himself. From necessity,” Fergus added dispassionately. “A person who has lived like that for a long time ceases to believe that they have any value beyond what someone will pay for.”

Roger was silent, thinking not so much of the recent Percival Beauchamp but of Fergus—and of Jane and Fanny Pocock.

“When you say ‘evil,’ though …” he began slowly.

“There were only two men in that room,” Fergus said simply. “Besides us, I mean.”

“Jesus.” He tried to think what the tall man had said or done that might have given Fergus the conviction—and it was a conviction, he could see that much in Fergus’s face—that the man was evil. “I can’t even remember what he looked like.”

“In my experience, the Devil seldom walks up and introduces himself to you by name,” Fergus said dryly. “All I can tell you is that I know evil when I see it—and I saw it on that man.”

Fergus stood up and went to the window, pulling back the lace curtain to look out. He drew a large black bandanna out of his pocket and wiped his face with it. “So the ink stains don’t show,” he said briefly, seeing Roger notice.