“Um,” said the dumbstruck porter.

“Out of the way,” Ned demanded, and the porter shuffled back.

“I will not be recommending this hotel to my good friend the Duchess of Leinster,” Cecilia said as they marched through the doorway and along the corridor. “Do you remember, my dear, how Hermione was talking of her wish to come to Sidmouth?”

“I do indeed, my dear,” Ned replied. “But this place will not suit at all.” He didn’t need to glance back to know they were being watched. And then—

“Oh my heavens!” cried the lady, obviously having looked into the room.

Ned placed his hand on Cecilia’s elbow and they increased their pace so as to reach the stairs a moment later and disappear from view.

“Do you really know the Duchess of Leinster?” Ned asked as they hurried down the stairs.

“Of course,” Cecilia said. “That is, we would have been introduced had she not been engrossed in the opera while I was relieving her of an emerald hair comb. The weight of such jewelry causes terrible headaches in women, you know.”

“So kind of you to help her in that way. How is your own headache?”

“It will surely kill me.” They turned off the stairs and into a corridor leading toward the kitchen. “But as long as it does so after I have rescued the Society, I cannot complain.”

“Brave girl,” he said, and shoved her into a broom closet.

“Well I n—”

He slapped a hand over her mouth and, pushing his own way into the small space between brooms, buckets, and mops, closed the door silently behind them.

“Jacobsen,” he whispered in her ear.

Cecilia’s heart leaped, for she did not recognize the name, but Ned’s breath, so warm and heavy in the darkness, ignited something a great deal warmer, farther down her body. They listened for a while as footsteps sounded along the corridor, dwindling finally into silence.

“My apologies,” Ned whispered, lowering his hand. “That was one of Morvath’s men. I didn’t expect to see him here.”

“We must have been traced.”

“Obviously Morvath doesn’t trust me after all.”

“Does anyone?”

He did not reply, and Cecilia’s heart unexpectedly cringed with regret at having asked. She certainly did not trust him, whoever he was. She remained in his company only to keep him where she could see him—not that she was looking at him, mind you, noticing the bunching of muscles beneath his skin, the slow glide of his eyelashes when he blinked so purposefully at her, the way he cocked his gun, the strong—er, which is to say, no trust there at all. Nevertheless, his silence seemed almost wounded, and reminded her that beneath his several names, he was a real person, just as beneath his shirt and trousers he was—

She shoved the thought away, but too late. Her wits held up several illustrations of it, some of which were animated. Thank goodness for the darkness within the closet, because she felt herself blush scarlet.