“That sounds like something he’d do,” she said, more of her tension fading. “He might even have lied when he said that Christopher had disappeared from his school, though his degree of anger at me implies that Christopher really is missing. If so, running away is by far the most likely explanation. I think Christopher would try to communicate with me, but I’m not sure he knows I’m at Thorsay House.”

“Communication will be difficult for him,” Lucas agreed. “But Christopher is surely out there somewhere, safe and trying to find his way home to you.”

“Dear God, I hope so!” she breathed.

“We will find him,” Lucas promised as he had before. “But brace yourself for some new information.”

When Kendra glanced up at him, he said, “Denshire has the French pox. Syphilis. That explains a great deal about why he’s become increasingly unstable in recent years.”

She stepped back, her expression appalled. “The French pox!” she exclaimed. “Why do you think that?”

“Did you see that red sore below his ear, almost covered by his hair? It looks like a gumma, a kind of soft tumor that’s a sign of the advanced disease,” he explained. “When I saw that, I looked more closely and saw some subtler signs as well.”

Kendra bit her lip. “Do I have it?”

“You don’t have any of the symptoms,” Lucas said reassuringly. “You told me that you haven’t lain with him for years, so it’s likely he contracted the illness after you separated.”

“I hope you’re right! For your sake as well as mine.” She closed her eyes, shuddering. “I’m so sorry. I . . . I would never have allowed any intimacy with you if I’d known I might carry the disease.”

“I know you wouldn’t have.” He raised a hand and tenderly brushed a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “Because you have honor and Denshire does not.”

She gave a crooked smile. “He certainly doesn’t, but any honor I have is debatable.”

“You have honor,” he repeated. “And also amazing strength. You have been struck by one blow after another, yet you’re still standing.”

“More like leaning on you.” She took his arm and guided him from the alley. As they resumed their walk back to Thorsay House, she asked, “Aren’t you getting tired of the maelstrom that is my life?”

He remembered the colorless drifting that had been his life before meeting Kendra. “If not for your troubles, we wouldn’t have met again, and that would have been a great loss for me, though probably not for you.”

She gave him a swift, shy glance. “Not meeting you again would have been a very great loss for me.”