“No doubt. It’s just I’m starting to think you’re not the only one making our Jack sing like a canary, that’s all.”

“Oh?”

“The duchess knows everything about me.” I waved my hand in the direction of Government House, which still glowed above us from the top of George Street. “Although I don’t suppose it’s done me any harm. She practically invited me inside the sanctum, just now. The chance I’ve been waiting for.”

“Did she, now?”

“She did. She’s concerned about the Windsor public image, poor dear. Wants to make sure it’s shown in the most flattering light possible, by a pet journalist trained to eat right from her hand.”

“And that pet journalist . . . ?”

“Yours truly. The idea’s to feed me all the best tidbits, in order to keep body and soul together. Exactly what the magazine had in mind, in fact. If I play my cards, I’ll have my own column, a nice salary, expenses all paid in an almost-tropical paradise. Everything a girl could want, and just exactly when I was down to my last dime. It’s almost too good to be true, don’t you think?”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s everything.”

“That’s the truth?”

“That’s the truth.”

“I see,” he said again. He reached up to the basket of flowers that hung from the streetlamp and plucked a small pink flower I didn’t recognize. “Some might feel themselves obliged to offer you a word of warning, where the duke and duchess are concerned. Caveat emptor, or something like that.”

“Except I’m not buying anything, am I? I’m selling it.”

He just looked at me, mere black and white in the darkness, the feeble crescent moon. I reached out and took the flower from his fingers.

Around us, Nassau had fallen asleep. The air was warm and still. If you listened hard, you might detect a faint hum of gaiety trailing from the windows of the British Colonial, an automobile rumbling down an unseen road. A dog barked from some great distance, no louder than the beating of our hearts.

“Where’s home for you, Thorpe?” I asked softly.

“Home? Now there’s a question. I was chiefly raised in the Scottish Highlands by my fearsome grandmother—”

“I mean here,” I said. “Here in Nassau.”

“Ah. I see what you mean. At present, I live in Shangri-La, Mrs. Randolph.”

“Shangri-La? Do you mean Hog Island? Wenner-Gren’s place?”

“A cottage on the property, yes.”

“You’re his guest? Why didn’t you say anything? Back there in the study.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it—because he—” I tucked my nose in the flower. Curiously, it had no scent. “How do you know him?”

“He was kind enough to offer his cottage as a base for my research, when I first arrived.”

“Your research?”

“I’m a botanist, Mrs. Randolph.”