“In his absence, might I perhaps prevail upon you for this dance myself?”

“Forgive me, sir, but do I know you?”

“It is I who am at fault. My name is Nicholas Stricklend, and I have the honor to be permanent private secretary to the minister for foreign affairs. A dull title, I understand, but there it is.”

“And how do you come to know my brother?”

Stricklend pauses and does his best to arrange his features into what he hopes is a gentle smile. The lie he is about to present is distasteful to him not because it is a falsehood, but because it paints him as having a weakness, and a weakness of a variety that he finds particularly repugnant.

“Let us say your brother and I, we share a predilection for adventures of a singular and, some might say, moribund nature.” He watches her face with interest as she processes this information.

“I have no wish to associate with anyone who leads my brother into the destructive pastimes that are destroying his health and his mind. Will you kindly tell me where he has gone?”

“All in good time. Let us talk while we dance.”

“I will not dance with you, sir.” Lilith turns on her heel, but Stricklend calls her back, his voice still soft, his demeanor, should anyone observe it, friendly.

“Dance with me, Lady Lilith, or you will never see your brother alive again.”

Chapter 18

18.

I struggle to take in what I am being told. There is something so very frightening about this stranger, I knew it the moment he spoke my name. I knew it before he uttered those terrifying words. I have no choice but to let him take my hand and lead me onto the dance floor. As we step this way and that, following the music that I scarcely hear, instinctively avoiding other dancing couples as we glide about, we must appear, for all the world, a perfectly respectable and undistinguished pair of dancers. This Stricklend is probably ten years my senior with a strong, fearsome energy about him. A dark, dark energy. I contemplate calling my guardians. I know they would come quickly to my side. But what manner of confrontation do I imagine I could instigate here, in the ballroom, among all these people? No, I must let him speak. He wants something from me, and Freddie is in great danger. I have no alternative but to play his abhorrent game and listen to what he has to say.

“I fear,” he begins, “I am not such an able dance partner as Viscount Harcourt. You and he are friends of long-standing, I believe, and now engaged to be married.”

“What has my relationship with Louis Harcourt to do with Freddie?”

“I am merely curious.”

“You have just informed me my brother is in peril, Mr. Stricklend, I have neither time nor interest in your curiosity. Say what it is you have to say.”