From that window Cecilia now glimpsed a flash of light and knew it reflected off the telescope through which Miss Darlington was watching her progress. She waved a hand in reassurance. The house moved toward her slightly, as if wanting to wrap a scarf about her neck or make her don a coat, but then shifted back again and settled on its foundations with a shrug. Miss Darlington was apparently going to be brave.

Relieved, Cecilia turned away, entering a lane that meandered between brambleberry hedges toward Bath. Soon after, a bandit attempted her purse. She disabled him with an application of elbow then fist, which did not require her to pause in her stride, although she did skip a vital sentence in her book and had to reread the whole page to make sense of it. Then the bandit, collapsing in the dirt, moaned so wretchedly that she felt obliged to return and provide him with a handkerchief, after which she was able to continue on in peace.

The countryside offered more to her sensitive spirit than Mayfair had. She noticed a skylark springing from the earth, although it looked less like a “cloud of fire” the poet Shelley would have her anticipate and more like a flying clod of dirt. She breathed in the fragrance of sun-warmed dust with no thought of lung contamination. She even lifted her face to the gentle breeze. It was altogether so pleasant that by the time she reached the city she was prepared to call herself happy indeed.

And then she saw the pirate.

He loitered near the river, hatless once again and indecently dressed: he wore no tie, his waistcoat was secured with pewter buttons, and his trousers were far too tight. The way he had his sword belt slung low around his hips inexplicably disturbed Cecilia.

She had long been hoping to attract an assassination attempt. It was a significant development in her career. That it had been provisioned by Lady Armitage disappointed her only slightly, for there would always be the lingering suspicion that the real target was Miss Darlington; besides, she remembered the lady teaching her many years ago how to use a sextant (for both navigation and dismembering purposes) and always considered her a mentor, not a murderer. But at least Aunty Army had employed a pirate and not just some street thug—although Cecilia did consider tipping him a little money to buy himself a decent suit. She nodded across the street to him as she passed.

Suddenly, he was at her side. Cecilia sighed, lowering her book and looking at him sidelong beneath an arched eyebrow. She did not know how to more clearly convey her disdain, but he just grinned in response.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

“I hope you are not intending to do me the discourtesy of assassinating me in the street, Signor de Luca,” she replied.

“Call me Ned.” He nudged her with an elbow as if they were old friends.