Ever since the men Dobbins had hired to kill Lady Eleanor had failed and been taken up by the police, he’d been hiding in different squalid rooms. This was all that bitch’s fault. He hated this city. He hated that he didn’t have any status, that there was no one who looked up to him or at least obeyed him. And if he wanted a woman, he had to pay for her. He peered in the small, poorly made mirror at his hair. He had to use blacking to make his hair darker and change how he looked. He stopped staring in the looking glass. The men he’d hired must have told the police everything they knew. The constables had gone to the pub where he’d met the scabs and then started searching the area. He’d got out of the place he was staying just in time but lost the money he’d paid for the week. The newssheet Dobbins had read said her wedding would be in two days. He just wasn’t sure of the time. Marrying some lord, she was. He’d make sure she never saw her wedding night. Dobbins wished he had a pop. It’d be easier than a knife. But pops cost a lot. A knife would have to do. Besides, no one would expect him to be at the church.

* * *

John really had enjoyed the opera, but he would have liked it better if he knew Italian. The gossip had turned out to be more humorous than not. Several gentlemen who had not, apparently, seen him enter with Eleanor and her family, visited the box only to be disappointed when he greeted them.

The following day Worthington, Charlie Stanwood, his other future brothers-in-law, Turley, and Exeter all came to see John. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“We need to make a plan for tomorrow,” Stanwood said. “There have not been any more attempts on Eleanor, but the blackguard is still out there. He knows who she is, and news of your wedding has been in the gossip columns.”

He was right. There had been no further attacks on her yet. The criminals had given up the man who hired them, but he’d not been found. John knew another attempt would be made and he’d just as soon have it over with.

“We do know who the scoundrel might be,” Stanwood said. “Worthington received a letter from the steward at the estate where the mine is located. He wrote that a man by the name of Dobbins had been extremely angry about being dismissed. He gave a description, but I have to assume the man has disguised himself.”

That was something, John supposed. “How do you suggest we proceed?”