How bitter it was that the most guilty party, Calvin, was untouchable by shame, and therefore could not have his adultery used against him, unless Lord Ashworth was a champion dueler (and even then, Margaret suspected that in a duel with Calvin, Lord Ashworth would find that his pistol would not fire and his sword would break right off). But that was the way of the world—seducers and rapists rarely bore the consequences of their acts, or at least not as heavily as the seduced and the broken-spirited.

Dinner would be at four o’clock. Only a couple of hours away. Fishy had not waited for a return message, and in all likelihood Calvin wasn’t waiting either. Either she would meet him or she would not—and indeed, his heartfire showed him unconcerned. It was only a whim for him to meet her. His purpose was as much to find out who she was as to cling to her skirts in order to get in to see the King.

And even the wish to meet King Arthur contained no plan. Calvin knew Napoleon—this exiled king would not impress him. For a moment Margaret wondered if Calvin planned to kill King Arthur the way he had murdered—or, as Calvin thought of it, executed—William Henry Harrison. But no. His heartfire showed no such path in his future, and no such desire in his heart at present.

But that was the problem with Calvin’s heartfire. It kept changing from day to day, hour to hour. Most people, limited as they were by the circumstances of their lives, had few real choices, and so their heartfires showed futures that followed only a handful of probable paths. Even powerful people, like her husband Alvin, whose powers gave him countless opportunities, still had their futures sorted into a wider but still countable number because their character was predictable, their choices consistent.

Calvin, on the contrary, was whim-driven to a remarkable extent. His attachment to this French intellectual had shaped his life lately, because Balzac had a firm character, but once Calvin’s futures diverged from Balzac’s, they immediately branched and rebranched and forked and sprayed into thousands, millions of futures, none more likely than the others. Margaret could not possibly follow them all and see where they led.

It was in Alvin’s heartfire, not Calvin’s, that she had seen Alvin’s death caused by Calvin’s machinations. No doubt if she followed every one of the billion paths of Calvin’s future she would find almost as many different ways for Calvin to achieve that end. Hatred and envy and love and admiration for Alvin were the one consistency in Calvin’s inconstant heart. That he wished harm for Alvin and would eventually bring it to pass could not be doubted; nor could Margaret find any likely, way to prevent it.

Short of killing him.

What is happening to me? she wondered. First I think of extortion by threatening to expose Lady Ashworth’s sin, and now I actually think of murdering my husband’s brother. Is the mere exposure to Calvin a temptation? Does his heartfire influence mine?