His glare turned chilly. "Is that what you think of me?"

I sipped my wine.

After a moment, he finished the rest of his whiskey and set the glass down on the table beside him. "Remind me to thank Lady Harcourt when next I see her."

"What has she to do with anything?"

"It was she who told me you might be a girl."

"You already knew before today?"

"Suspected."

"Then why continue to allow me in your room? Not that I cared," I added quickly, "but you are the one who seemed upset by it."

"I wasn't sure I agreed with her suspicion. I thought spending more time with you would help me decide one way or another, although she was very much against it. It didn't help, by the way. Your disguise was impeccable. I did realize you were educated and from a well-off family, but not that you were female."

"What gave me away to Lady Harcourt?"

"You took an interest in her clothes and not the woman inside them. She claims the way you looked at her was that of one woman appraising another out of curiosity, not desire."

"She thinks every male looks at her with desire?"

"She is a desirable woman."

I took a long sip of my wine. Lady Harcourt was everything I would never be. There was no point wishing it could be otherwise, but his words stung nevertheless.

"She confided her suspicions to me the night she returned for dinner," he said. "I didn't believe her until last night. When Seth and Gus returned with the tale of the ageless boy, it began to make sense. As a thirteen year-old girl, you had done most of your growing, although perhaps your lack of nourishing food has kept you on the small side. Thirteen year-old boys still have some growing to go, but you never changed. That's why you had to move on every few months. With Lady Harcourt's suspicions in mind, I returned to Tufnell Park today to follow a different line of inquiry to Seth and Gus. I asked about a girl who arrived in their midst five years ago. There was one who stood out, but she appeared only briefly. The boys remembered her as being a miserable, frightened thing with beautiful golden brown hair. That hair and her pretty face—and innocence—made her a target for every whore's minder in the district. When you suddenly disappeared, they assumed you'd been taken and put to work. Or died."

"Clearly I didn't die." I hated how my voice sounded weak. I cleared my throat and sipped my wine.

He picked up his glass, but seeing it empty, set it down again. He didn't let it go, and the fingers gripping it turned white. "How did you escape?"