At the end of the tour, suitably placated, Lord Herndon bid West join him in the music room for tea.

After it was served, his lordship came to the point of his invitation. "I have recently received a letter from Mr. Beckwith of Sunbury in regard to your concern about the school at Gillhollow. He indicates that you are interested in a seat on our board."

"I expressed that to him, yes."

"Good, then there is no mistaking the matter. You are aware, are you not, that none of us takes compensation for our contribution? It is more often that we must contribute or find others who will do so.

This is a charitable indulgence on our part. The school is barely solvent most years."

"I am very well aware."

Herndon nodded, his dark eyes shrewd in their appraisal.

"No doubt Miss Ashby has informed you that she spends a considerable portion of her own funds on supplies for the students. What I wonder is if you can appreciate that she indulges them?"

"It seemed to me that a seat on the board would provide opportunity to remedy both those things."

"Your father could not take her in hand."

"I am not in every way the duke's son." West underscored this with a knowing smile that spoke of confidences between two intimates. "Beckwith suggested I might want to keep her on a short tether.

After due consideration, I have come around to his manner of thinking. A tether would suit her very nicely."

"The tighter the better, eh?"

"Indeed."

Lord Herndon rubbed his chin. "Miss Ashby is a treasure. If it is your intention to interfere with her running of the school, it would not be wise for you to sit with us."

"You've spoken to the other members?"

"Most, not all. Those who are in London only. There has been correspondence with the others." He sipped his tea. "There is agreement among us that you will be an asset in our endeavors. There is a long history of good works here that we should like to continue. You will appreciate that we are breaking with tradition by inviting you. Seats on the board have always been given to those who have had a member of the family serve before them. New blood is in order, we think."

West wondered if he would be required to spill his own. "You do me a great honor. I had not permitted myself to hope. It seemed unlikely, given that you did not extend the same invitation to my father." Both of Herndon's salted brows lifted a fraction. "I was not aware you knew he had inquired about a position on the board."

"Miss Ashby knew. She told me."

Herndon said nothing immediately. "She encouraged you to approach Mr. Beckwith?"

"Discouraged me, actually."

"I see." There was a pause as he set his cup and saucer on the table at his side. "But she has said other things, I believe. About the student who left the school?"

"Yes, she mentioned it. She is naturally concerned... as lam."

"Then you will be pleased to learn that Mr. Lytton, the man we approved hiring to find the girl, has recently been to every dressmaker on Firth Street. I believe the instruction to do so came from Miss Ashby and was based on some particulars she learned from one of her students."

"And?"

"And he has recently made a report to me. I am certain there is also a written one going by express post to the academy. Mr. Lytton tells me that Miss..." His eyes lifted as he tried to recall the name. When he grasped it, he returned West's level stare. "That Miss Petty was indeed seen at several of the shops. She was in the company of a young gentleman who indicated he was her brother and guardian. He was purchasing her traveling garments, nightclothes, and other intimate items. Miss Petty has no brother. I think we can safely conclude that she has put herself under the protection of a man who can afford her, but can afford no better than she. Miss Ashby will be vastly disappointed to learn of it, I think, but she cannot hope to influence every girl to comport herself in a decent fashion. It is to be desired that she will not blame herself."

"Yes," West said quietly. "That is an outcome I would also desire."

West waited in a stand of trees and watched the flicker of light in the upper window of the cottage. It was cold, and he stamped his feet in place and blew on his cupped hands to ward off the piercing chill.

The ride to Ambermede had been a hard one, almost without pause. Snow squalls made the journey doubly trying, preventing him from seeing the road ahead or even much of what was under Draco's hooves. He had persevered because he did not know how to do otherwise.

It would be a relief to speak to South about the paintings, then quit this place and continue on to Gillhollow. Visiting the cottage was never to his liking, though Mrs. Simon from the village always kept the place in good order for him. He was never certain why he kept it up after his mother died. She had not asked it of him; he could have let it fall into disrepair. Of late he had begun to think he'd held the property to keep it vivid in the duke's memory, not his own. His interest in maintaining it had waned almost immediately upon hearing of his father's death. That was a sure indication that his motives were spiteful, not high-minded. If South had not asked to use the place, West felt sure he would have already spoken to the solicitor about selling it.

A slim beam of moonlight penetrated the canopy of pine boughs and slanted across his gloved hands as he raised them to his face. He took a single step backward and was swallowed by shadow again. It was likely that South and Miss Parr were sleeping. That was a state he longed for himself. He thought of Ria and wondered what manner of sleep she was enjoying. Peaceful? Fitful? Dreamless? He would wager the answer would have a great deal to do with whether she had received Mr. Lytton's report from London. Moreover, if she was in possession of it, whether or not she believed it.

Either way, West knew he was going to be the bearer of news that would be difficult for her to accept, and she was unlikely to be grateful to him for bringing it.

Rather than think on the consequences of that, he let himself into the cottage and waited to be discovered. Until it happened, though, he decided to avail himself of the settee.

It looked infinitely more comfortable than the saddle that had been his home of late.

South's tread on the stairs was light, but not without sound. West heard him try to time each step so that it accompanied the intermittent gusts of wind that buffeted the cottage.

"You may as well announce yourself with a cry from the crow's nest," West said dryly. "Land ho! Avast, ye mateys. Or whatever it is one cries from the mainmast."

South stopped in his tracks, one foot on a step, the other hovering above the next. "Bloody hell, West. I might have shot you."

West regarded the pistol in South's hand, unconcerned. "Not if you were aiming."

"If that is evidence of your wit, pray do not strain yourself."

West shrugged. It was an awkward gesture, given the fact that he was still laid out on the settee as if it were a stiff hammock, his head propped at one end, his feet at the other. He sat up slowly, stretching as South finished his descent. He reached for the oil lamp on the end table and turned up the wick. "I apologize for waking you. Not at all what I meant to do. I thought I could come in from the cold and get a few hours sleep before daybreak." That had not been his first plan, but once he was stretched out, it had seemed a better one.

"You didn't stop on your way here?"

"No. I came straightaway from London."

Both of South's brows rose. He ran a hand through his hair and managed to suppress a yawn that would have cracked his jaw if he had given in to it. "Then I take it you are not here to look after your recent inheritance. That business cannot have been so urgent."

"No. I may go there later. Have you been to the estate?"

"I rode past it yesterday morning. Your brother is in residence, I believe."

West nodded. "Unless it is your intention to shoot me still, you might put down the pistol."

South looked down at his hand. The pistol was indeed leveled in West's direction. Grinning, but unapologetic, he set it on the table beside the oil lamp and pulled up a stool. "Is it Elizabeth?" he asked. West shook his head. "No. She is back in London with North. I have not seen them yet, but the colonel says they are indecently happy."

"That is good, then."

"It may be, yes."

South smiled faintly. "Why have you come, West? If it is not that you mean to wrest all of the Westphal keep from your brother, then what is it?"

West pointed to where he had placed his satchel against the opposite wall. "There," he said. "I came across them in the course of some work I am doing for the colonel. When I showed them to him, he sent me here to you." It was not a thorough lie, West thought, but definitely pressing that boundary.

South shifted on his stool to get a better look. "What are they? Maps?"

"No. You need to see them for yourself." South started to rise, but West leaned forward and laid one hand across his forearm. "I will get them." He rose and crossed the room. "Miss Parr is sleeping?" he asked.

"If we have not awakened her." Belatedly, South realized that West should not have known who he brought to the cottage. "Did the colonel tell you it was Miss Parr I had here, or did I make some misstep?"

"It was the colonel. Offered quite reluctantly, I assure you. I had no notion of it. You can Be a deep one, South." West bent and picked up both cylinders, one in each hand, and carried them back to where South was sitting. "I did not know what to make of these. The colonel thought you might." He placed one in South's open palm but did not release it. He glanced once in the direction of the stairs, then back to his friend. "Perhaps it is better that you heard me come in. I think it would have been more difficult in the morning."

"Because of Miss Parr's presence, you mean."

West nodded. He watched South take the canvas and lay it crosswise on his lap. When he started to unroll it, West took a step backward, giving his friend a modicum of privacy.

"Oh God." South spoke the words under his breath, part prayer, part curse, as the painting was unfolded before him. He stared at it for a long moment, then swore softly and shoved the canvas off his lap.

West plucked it out of the air and rolled it up quickly. "Do you wish to see the other?"

"Should I?"

West could not school his troubled expression. The painting with the bull's head was more grotesque than the one South had already seen. Still, South should not have asked the question. It was not a decision West could make for his friend.

South held out his hand. "Give it to me."

West hesitated. His friend's complexion was ashen. Clearly he had some feelings for Miss Parr, else hewould not have been affected so deeply by what he saw.

"It's all right," South said. "I want to see it."

West placed the second rolled canvas in South's extended hand. He looked away this time.

South opened it and gave it little better than a cursory glance before he returned it to West. "Where did you get them?"

"I stole them."

"Can you say more?"

This time West lied willingly. There was no reason for South to know the personal nature of his investigation. "I can tell you I got them from one of the ambassadors."

"They are not the sort of works of art likely to be reported missing."

"That's what I thought." West returned both paintings to where they had previously stood against the wall. As he considered what he must do next, he rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. Strands of dark red hair were lifted from his collar to lay lightly at his nape. "You will not credit it, South, but what I am uncovering appears to have something to do with the bishops."

South's head jerked upward. "The bishops? Are you speaking of the Society?"

"I am."

Shaking his head slowly, South glanced toward the rolled canvasses again. "But not the Hambrick Hall boys."

"No. At least I hope it doesn't end there. Men are at work here, not children." West's voice dropped a fraction lower. "Not yet."

South nodded once. "What do you require of me?"

Ria sat curled in her favorite reading chair in the corner of her bedroom, the soft folds of her nightdress spilling round her. The book in her lap was unopened, but this was not her first reading. She had already memorized some of the verse, and as she rested her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, the words of The Lily came to the forefront of her mind.

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble sheep a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright. She was no Lily, Ria thought, nor even a modest Rose. More an immodest one, if she wanted to be strictly honest with herself-which she did not. Of late she had concluded there was no aspect of honesty that was inherently virtuous, especially in an examination of one's own character. Delusion and denial served better. At least she was finding it so.

While the Lily white shall in love delight. The words drifted through her mind again as she considered whether it would ever come to pas? that she would in love delight. Most likely it was a state of being confined to mad poets and young girls. No doubt Jane Petty had thought herself in love. She must have been filled to overflowing with the possibilities it presented to her, the realization of her every dream. It would be cruel to have that love crushed, crueler still to have it done by the very person one loved above all others. That was Jane's most likely fate.

An ache formed at the back of Ria's throat. She was becoming familiar with that pressure, the clog of tears that lodged there, the others that pressed at the back of her eyes. Blinking, she lifted her chin and turned her face toward the window. This winter's day sunlight was pale. There was barely strength enough in its transparent beams to push through the occasional fissure in the clouds.

The students would be rising soon. Ria could already hear the movement of the housekeeper and maids in the corridor. Cook and her young helper would have the porridge bubbling in the big cauldron, and the misses Taylor and Webster would be taking the last steps of their early morning constitutional. Mrs.

Abergast disliked both porridge and walking, so she slept a few minutes past all the others and swore she was better for it.

Ria found that routines comforted. It eased her mind to know what she might expect in the next hour, day, even in the week. For the immediate future, she wanted to go forward as if by rote. What thought she could apply to this business of living would be given over to functions as dull as choosing what dress to wear or counting the number of brush strokes she applied to her hair.

Embracing the familiarity of these rituals would serve another purpose. Boredom, perhaps, was what she required to sleep deeply again.

A distinct thump in the adjoining sitting room caught Ria's full attention. This noise was followed by a softly pronounced curse and a flurry of movement in aid of making right whatever had gone wrong. Ria fairly catapulted out of her chair to get to the open doorway.

West did not look up, but continued to rub his thigh where the sharp corner of an end table had caught him solidly. "This table is not where I remember it. You moved the furniture."

"I hope Your Grace is not accusing me of laying a trap," Ria said. A smile edged the corners of her mouth upward. "It is daylight, after all."

Grinning, West lifted his head. "True enough."

It was not his reckless grin that made Ria's own smile collapse, but the condition of every other part of him. Indeed, the slightly wicked curve of his mouth was all about him that was familiar. She hurried forward, only to be stopped by the arm he put out.

"You should keep a distance," he said. "I am not at my best."

Ria's wide, blue-gray eyes swept the length of him, then made the same assessment from toe to head.

She bit the inside of her cheek, holding back intemperate words. That he described himself as not at hisbest was a nice bit of understatement. Streaks of soot and sweat made his face almost unrecognizable.

His features were drawn, the eyes infinitely weary. He smelled of smoke, and a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead was frizzled and singed. There were black streaks also on his nankeen breeches and ash on his boots. She suspected that when he removed his caped greatcoat, she would see more of the same. Only his hat seemed none the worse for his adventure.

All manner of questions occurred to her, but she asked only one. "What can I do for you?"

"Help me out of this coat, then find a sheet to cover a chair so I might sit."

It was a good measure of his complete exhaustion that he required assistance to remove his greatcoat.

Ria gave it willingly, placing the coat over the back of a rocking chair while West tossed his hat aside, then gingerly stretched his stiff limbs and slowly rolled his neck. She disappeared into her bedroom and returned quickly with a sheet. It did not matter to her in the least that his soot-smudged clothes would mark her furniture; she supplied the sheet because he would not sit down if she didn't.

West dropped into the armchair behind him as soon as Ria covered it. As tight and sore as he had been moments before, now he melted. His legs splayed, and his arms fell loosely on either side of the chair. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

He did not stir for so long that Ria thought he had fallen asleep. Several minutes passed when there was nothing but the light sound of his even breathing. She was preparing to rise from the bench beside him when his fingers caught her wrist.

"No," he said. "Sit with me a while longer."