I swiftly withdrew down the staircase, ducking Julia’s glare. Perhaps it was presumptuous on my part, but Julia would not act on her own behalf, and her health was, in my view, deteriorating under Dr. Thorgood’s ministrations.

A little while later, Julia joined me in the drawing room. I put down the absorbing novel I was reading, coincidentally about sisters—one sensible and one full of sensibility—and rose from my chair. “Weatherly reports that dinner will be another half hour,” I said as she closed the door. I picked up the brandy decanter. “Would you like a glass?” A vain attempt to deflect the reproach coming my way.

“That was ill-done,” she said, meaning, of course, Dr. McLeod. She cocked her head at the decanter. “Brandy? Before dinner?”

Indeed, it was unusual. Brandy was usually taken after a meal and generally by men. Nevertheless, I thought the situation called for something a bit stronger than ratafia or canary. Besides, it was a very good brandy, almost certainly smuggled from France. I did not question Weatherly’s sources and he did not tell.

“Call it medicinal,” I said.

She gave a weary nod and sat down on the sofa, looking into the fire burning in the hearth. I poured the brandy and handed it to her, the silence between us lengthening.

I sat in the chair opposite. “Did you speak to the doctor?” I asked.

She looked up at me, her expression unusually closed. “That is between me and Dr. McLeod.”

Ah, so that was to be my punishment: to have the outcome of my intervention withheld. My sister certainly knew how to admonish me.

Another subject, then.

“I have arranged to meet Lord Evan in Bedford Street two nights hence,” I said.

“For the club?”

I nodded. “The odds of discovering something are not in our favor, but I feel we must try.”

Julia took a sip of brandy. “It is dangerously close to Covent Garden, my dear, and you really cannot be seen there. Not after the scandal.”

She meant, of course, being seen in the low Covent Garden brothel where our father had died. I had gone to rescue his body from the gawking onlookers, and my presence—and interaction with the residents—had become a scandal. A number of people had turned their backs upon both of us until dear Charlotte and George Brummell had nipped that ostracism in the bud.

“I know. But it is on the far side of the Garden behind St. Paul’s. Besides, I plan to be dressed in men’s clothes on the night.”

“I should protest at such a mad plan but I am too tired and I know you will take no notice of me.”