He had borrowed a suit of rough clothes from one of his mother’s servants, and wore his hair tied back in a heavy tail, bound with a scrap of leather, with a slouch hat to hide its fairness. There was nothing to distinguish him outwardly from the dyers and fullers, smiths and weavers, bakers and butchers whose haunt this was, and he walked anonymous through the churning throng. Anonymous unless he spoke—but there should be no need for speech, until he reached Lavender House. Until then, the swirl of Barbican Street rose round him, dark and intoxicating as the beer-drenched air.

A trio of laughing men brushed by him, leaving a smell of yeast, sweat, and fresh bread in their wake—bakers.

“D’ye hear what that bitch said to me?” one was demanding in mock outrage. “How he dares!”

“Ah, come on, then, Betty. Ye don’t want ’em smackin’ your sweet round arse, don’t wave it about!”

“Wave it—I’ll wave you, you cheeky cull!”

They disappeared into the dark, laughing and shoving each other. Grey walked on, feeling suddenly more comfortable, despite the seriousness of his errand.

Mollies. There were four or five molly-walks in London, well-known to those so inclined, but it had been a long time since he had entered one past dark. Of the six taverns on Barbican Street, three at least were molly-houses, patronized by men who sought food and drink and the enjoyment of one another’s companionship—and one another’s flesh—unashamed in like company.

Laughter lapped round him as he passed unnoticed, and here and there he caught the “maiden names” many mollies used among themselves, exchanged in joke or casual insinuation. Nancy, Fanny, Betty, Mrs. Anne, Miss Thing . . . he found himself smiling at the boisterous badinage he overheard, though he had never been inclined to that particular fancy himself.

Was Joseph Trevelyan so inclined? He would have sworn not; even now, he found the notion inconceivable. Still, he knew that almost all his own acquaintance in London society and army circles would swear with one voice on a Bible that Lord John Grey would never, could not possibly . . .

“Would you look at our Miss Irons tonight?” A carrying voice, raised in grudging admiration, made him turn his head. Holding riotous court in the torchlit yard of the Three Goats was “Miss Irons”—a stout young man with broad shoulders and a bulbous nose, who had evidently paused with his companions for refreshment en route to a masquerade at Vauxhall.

Powdered and painted with joyous abandon, and rigged out in a gown of crimson satin with a ruffled headdress in cloth of gold, Miss Irons was presently seated on a barrel, from which perch she was rejecting the devotions of several masked gentlemen, with an air of flirtatious scorn that would have suited a duchess.