Oh, very well, then. MacKay made as if to button his cloak, but instead snatched Harry hard by his lapels and hauled him up to his tiptoes.

“For myself, I hope you and Old Scratch are soon personally acquainted. He has much to learn from you. Tremont is planning to put you on remittance such that wherever you go, you are inspired to stay there. My wife, however, wants to know where you are so that when you do expire, and let us hope your passing is humiliating and agonizing and soon, news of your actual death can be conveyed to your widow. Your continued existence is a blight on her happiness, so now would be a good time to dredge up a bit of that advantageous honesty.”

He gave Merridew an admonitory shake and let him go. To assault a man in his own dwelling was a bitter insult, and yet, Merridew hadn’t offered the least resistance. MacKay entertained the notion that his host was flirting with inebriation and hiding it well.

Why get drunk? Why sit here swilling cheap brandy when victory was at hand?

“Why would Tilly care…?” Merridew paused, mid-brush at his lapels. “She loves that damned prig, doesn’t she? Has fallen for him, really fallen, not simply talked herself into him because he’ll look out for the boy.”

“Answer the question or prepare to part with a few teeth.” Dorcas would have advised him to relieve Merridew of what passed for his testicles. Mrs. MacKay wasn’t one to muck about when direct action was called for.

Harry took up the shawl and wrapped it around his shoulders. “Cheap, sunny Rome. Enough Latin was banged into my youthful head that I’ll be able to manage the language. Tell your wife I’ve gone to Rome, and the British Embassy will know my whereabouts. They’re fussy about that sort of thing in the Italian states. The French aren’t as bad, but I’d have a harder time with the language in France, and too many Englishmen find their way there.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Harry smirked, though the expression came across more tired than flippant. “You don’t. Good day, MacKay. Regards to your lady wife, and may God have mercy upon her soul.”

The insult was a distraction from the fact that Harry Merridew had for once in his life been honest, and not because the truth had served him any advantages.

“Start over,” MacKay said. “Clean slate, take yet another name if that helps. Get a legitimate job as a secretary, teach English, or offer your services to the embassy as a professional listener at keyholes, but make your peace with the past or be strangled by it.”

“You speak from experience?”