Alex’s heart gave an odd lurch. He had never even considered the possibility that Charlotte might still be in Sheffield House. But what if she was? What if she too waited for him, not wanting to miss a moment of time with him?

On shore, he saw Lucien and Brigitte off into a carriage and then hailed a hackney himself. Even as they rounded the corner into Grosvenor Square he saw that the house was closed, the shutters down, and the knocker off the door. Charlotte must have taken Pippa to the country. Well, what else could she do? She had no idea when he would return. He had been able to send his wife only one cryptic note during the five months. Still, he supposed Lord Breksby had been in touch with her. First thing tomorrow he would deliver the Napoleon letters to Breksby and by the day after that he could be crushing his wife into the bed. Alex smiled to himself wickedly.

If there seemed to be an air of strain among the few servants left in Sheffield House, Alex didn’t notice. It would never occur to Alex to give a thought to the odd way the two remaining footmen eyed him. He didn’t bother going to his club. Instead he had a long bath and fell into bed, grateful to be on solid ground again. There was really no point in going to White’s, Alex thought drowsily. All his friends would be out of London. Only civil servants like Breksby would remain in London’s sooty streets.

But in fact Lord Breksby had also gone to the country. “He has retired to his estate,” Alex was informed.

And so it was that one of Lord Breksby’s underlings, one Ewart Hastings, had the pleasure of informing the Earl of Sheffield and Downes what a shocking scandal his wife had created in the last five months. The newest tale was that she was pregnant, presumably with his own brother’s child. Alex listened to Hastings’s tale with an absolutely unmoving face. Inside Hastings shivered and thought he’d never seen a more devilish look, but he didn’t stop talking. The allure of telling such an arrogant member of the Quality that his wife had been acting like a strumpet was just too strong. As a junior in civil service, Hastings had put up with endless condescension; he relished every minute of this set-down. So he told it all: Charlotte’s faint when she first encountered Patrick; the Tatler article; the fact that Charlotte entertained Patrick in Sheffield House; her subsequent pregnancy.

“About four or five months along,” Hastings said cheerfully, adding, “I’m very sad to say, your lordship.” It had suddenly occurred to him that he himself was in a precarious position. A nerve was pulsing in Alex’s jaw, and his eyes were glowing with rage. Hastings’s mouth shut, and then opened only to say, weakly, “I’m sure there’s no basis in fact for this report, my lord.”