“Go away,” he muttered, drinking the last of his whiskey in one swallow.

“Charming,” Alex replied lightly. He crossed one ankle over the other, his boot buckles imperiling the table’s polish and causing a nearby gentleman to gasp in outrage. “You look miserable. What have you been doing, handing out free food or something?”

Ned poured more whiskey from a crystal decanter. “Worse. Why am I looking at your ugly face, O’Riley? Aren’t you supposed to be in Ireland?” He made an offering gesture with the decanter.

“Cheers,” Alex said, taking it and drinking without any intervention of glass or good manners. The neighboring gentleman gasped more pointedly; even Ned raised an eyebrow. “Don’t mind me,” Alex said with a crooked smile. “I was indeed in Ireland, so I need all the alcohol I can get.”

“Your father?”

The decanter came down on the table with a thud. “Let’s not talk about it. What brings you to White’s on this fine day?”

“I’m meeting someone you don’t want to. Hence, go away.”

“Who?”

Ned answered with no more than a long, cold stare, and Alex stopped smiling. He swung his feet down from the table. “Not—”

“Yes. Have I mentioned, go away?”

Alex leaned forward, somber. “Damn, Ned, are you sure you should be doing that? I know he—”

“I’m sure.”

“Can’t I help you to—”

“No. I don’t need any help.”

“Everyone needs help sometimes.”

Ned scowled. Cilla had said those same words to him once, and her ghost had whispered them through the years ever since, reminding him of dark promises he had yet to keep. His scowl shifted into a grim smile. “I’m better off on my own, O’Riley. You can help by leaving before he gets here.”

“Look,” Alex said, uncharacteristically serious. “I know we’ve done some wild things in our day, but this is more dangerous than even I’d want to contemplate, and that’s saying something. I think you’ve gone mad.”

Ned laughed. “No doubt. Now, stop talking. He just walked in. If you value our friendship, go steal something—seduce someone—just go.”

“All right.” Alex stood, but he lingered a moment longer, frowning down at Ned. “I’ll leave, but know that I’m in London if you need me.”

“I won’t need you.”

Alex reluctantly left, slipping the neighboring gentleman’s gold cigarette case from the table into his coat pocket along the way. Ned would have whispered, I don’t need anyone at all, but at that moment a shadow fell over him, a coolness, a great dragging silence like the empty dark chambers of an ancient abbey. Ned sighed into his whiskey glass.

“Captain Morvath,” he said as the man slid into a chair. This one didn’t slouch or put up his feet. This one held himself like a cocked weapon.

“Edward Lightbourne.” It was a soft voice, typical of those who long had spoken with great power; a voice that could whisper death in a tower room and far below a man would be strangled among the garden roses.