Washington? He’d been in America as well? Bronwyn blinked. Then why had he sent her to Philadelphia? “Listen carefully. There’s a traitor in the War Office. I received word of an urgent cable. The American president was shot an hour ago at Ford’s Theatre.”

Horror filled her. “Is he dead?”

“We don’t know yet. He was taken somewhere for treatment.”

Bronwyn’s heart went cold. Her actions weeks ago had thwarted a kidnapping but the attackers had persevered. Sadness flooded her at the loss of a man who had been working toward equality for all, something the world desperately needed. “Will he survive?”

“I hope so.” Wentworth went quiet as a couple walked past them around the perimeter of the room. “I need the list of names from that report.”

“I don’t have it with me,” she whispered, her stomach clenching at the sound of the duke’s name and the report that belonged to him. “Wentworth, what is going on? Is this related to the man after me?”

He made an angry sound. “I’ll send word via Sesily for the list.”

“Wait,” she whispered, but he was gone. Damn it! Things had to be awful if he couldn’t help her and was worried about his own neck. Thornbury’s list included many names she hadn’t recognized. Was one of them English? And possibly the traitor?

The hairs on her nape rose as a new presence drifted over. “Who were you talking to?”

Valentine.

She glanced up at him, her gaze colliding with a burning amber stare and making a river of heat travel to every pulse point in her body. God, what he could do with those eyes alone was indecent! She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “No one.”

“There was a man dressed as Neptune in a fish mask on the other side of this pillar.”

She feigned confusion. “I did not see anyone.”

His lip curled, though anger flashed in his eyes. “But you did hear him, did you not? That seemed to be quite an intense, cozy conversation. Was he your contact?”

“If you’re so interested in him, whoever he was, why don’t you go harass him?” She glared at the duke, even as his full mouth flattened. “Why aren’t you in costume? Too uninventive and dreary to come up with an idea?”

“I’m not here for entertainment, Lady Bronwyn.”