“My lord, what happened?” Galston greeted Malcolm as he stormed through his front door.

“Nothing,” Malcolm grumbled, brushing past the man and down the hall toward his study. There was a large decanter of scotch waiting for him there, and he intended to drink most of it.

“But your clothes, my lord,” Galston said, following him down the hall.

Malcolm glanced down at his scorched and sooty clothes and paused. He was close enough to a mirror to peer at his black and sooty reflection. The fire seemed like a minor detail in the travesty of his evening. The destruction of The Black Strap Club was nothing to the desolation of his life’s work. His friends would laugh at him, call him childish for raging against the way things had turned out, and tell him to be happy that Shayles was captured at all, but to see a newcomer take credit for everything? To see Dowland rescue Katya and carry her to safety? To see the way she clung to Dowland? She could deny her involvement with the young dolt all she wanted, but Malcolm had seen the connection between them with his own eyes.

“My lord?” Galston prompted. “Would you care to change into something a little…cleaner?”

He’d lost his battle to bring Shayles to justice. He’d lost Katya in the process. He wasn’t going to lose anything else.

“Later,” he said, turning fully toward Galston. “Go up and pack my things. All of my things. Send one of the footmen to find out when the first train to Glasgow departs in the morning. I’m going home.”

Galston’s eyes betrayed his surprise, but he quickly schooled his expression and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

As Galston headed upstairs, Malcolm stormed down the hall and into his study. He needed that scotch to bring him the oblivion he craved. With any luck, he could sleep the whole way home on the train. With even more luck, some thief would steal his wallet, his identity, and his entire, miserable life.

“Papa?”

Malcolm stopped short inside his study as Cece rose from one of the leather couches near the fireplace. Her ball gown was rumpled and creased, but her tired face popped into a look of alarm.

“Oh my, Papa. What happened to you?” She flew across the room, reaching for him.

Malcolm dodged her, too miserable even to let his daughter comfort him. “Mind your gown,” he said, his voice heavy with defeat. “I’ll ruin it.” He marched past her to the table holding his liquor. “What are you doing here anyhow? I would have thought that ball would go on until morning.”

“I wasn’t enjoying myself.” Cece followed him to the table. “Not after Inspector Craig took you and Lady Stanhope away.”

Malcolm’s hands shook as he poured his scotch, but at the mention of Katya’s name he flinched so hard the lip of the decanter smacked against the tumbler, ringing like a crystal bell. “You should have stayed and enjoyed yourself,” he grumbled.

“How could I?” Cece took the decanter from him and finished pouring. She stopped before the tumbler was even halfway through, handing it to him. “I’ve been so worried about you. Especially since news of the fire reached me.”

He glanced up at her in surprise. “Who told you about the fire?”

She fixed him with a flat stare. “It’s all over town already,” she said. “Rupert and I had just made up our minds to leave the ball when someone ran in off the street to tell one of the footmen at Spencer House there had been a series of explosions near Kensington Palace that had caused a massive fire. I think he might have assumed the palace was on fire, but Rupert and I knew better.”

Malcolm huffed humorlessly, which caused a fit of coughing. He steadied it with a gulp of scotch, or at least tried to. In actuality, the liquor made his coughing worse.

“Dear Papa.” Cece tried to slide closer and rub his back, but Malcolm pushed her away.

“Leave it to gossip to get the story even more wrong than it already is,” he croaked.

“What is the real story?” Cece asked. The innocence in her eyes was almost painful. She was young and likely still believed life would treat her fairly and give her everything she desired. She had yet to learn that the world was a cruel place, where the people you loved didn’t love you in return and where justice could only be had with a price.

“We raided the club, as Craig had planned,” he forced himself to tell her. She had a right to know. In an indirect way, Shayles and his club were part of her story too. “The raid was a success. Shayles was caught unaware and arrested. But he must have known this day would come. His entire club was piped with gas. Somehow he managed to open all the valves and set the place on fire.”

Cece gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “How could he do that? What would have happened if there had been an accident before? Didn’t he care at all for the people who might have been caught in a disaster like that?”

“No,” Malcolm said. “Shayles never cared for anyone other than himself. And he must have been desperate.” Malcolm narrowed his eyes, trying to remember as much as he could about the moments in the dungeon. The pipes were shiny copper. They must have been newly installed. Shayles had released the gas in his dungeon and perhaps other rooms nearby, but someone else would have had to take similar action in the rest of the house. Shayles had had accomplices, which could explain why the house exploded in stages instead of all at once. Either way, mountains of evidence had likely been destroyed, which was precisely what Shayles would have wanted.

Malcolm slammed his tumbler down on the table. As likely as not, Shayles had destroyed his club as yet another way to rob Malcolm of the victory he’d been striving for.

“There’s more, Papa,” Cece said, resting her hand over his on the table. “I can see it in you.”

Malcolm glanced sideways at his daughter. She looked so much like Tessa, so much like the woman he’d rescued but failed to win, sought justice for, but failed to avenge. Why shouldn’t he be honest with her?

“I’ve been a damned fool and I’ve wasted my life running after something I’ll never get,” he said, the smoke he’d inhaled turning his voice into a wolfish growl. “All those years, and in the end, it was Christopher Dowland who played the hero and enabled Craig to arrest Shayles. Christopher Dowland.” He spat the name like a curse.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Cece sighed, squeezing his hand. “That must have been difficult for you. I know how much you’ve been longing to defeat Lord Shayles.”

“Oh, it’s more than that.” He straightened, facing Cece, then turning away, uncertain where he wanted to direct the full force of his anger. “As the club was burning and coming down around her, who did Katya turn to? Christopher Dowland. She clung to him like he was her savior.”

Cece’s brow knit in confusion. “Did she say why?”

“They’re lovers, obviously,” Malcolm growled, then fell into another coughing fit.

Cece rubbed his back, and he didn’t have the energy to push her away. “I really don’t think they are,” she said quietly. “As far as I know, they’re barely acquainted.”

“You didn’t see the way she looked at him,” Malcolm argued, part of him feeling like a mad idiot for justifying it all to his eighteen-year-old daughter. But Cece was there for him. She might very well be the only person to ever fully be there for him when he needed her. But with her attachment to Rupert, Katya’s son, how much longer would that last? He would lose once again.

“I can imagine that the peril of the fire was alarming and confusing,” she said, failing to sense the darkening of his mood. “Perhaps Lady Marlowe was terrified. Perhaps she latched onto the first person to offer her help.”

“I should have been the first one to offer her help,” Malcolm shouted, startling Cece into stepping back. “I should have been the one protecting her.” The ache of guilt that squeezed his heart came as a surprise. He pushed it away, latching onto anger once more. Anger was far easier to feel than the shame of failure. “She’s been making a fool of me for years, but I’m not having it anymore.”

He poured himself another glass of scotch, splashing the liquid over the tray, then downing far too much in one gulp. The result was a mess on the table, scotch streaking his sooty hands, and a coughing fit that caused him to retch and left his throat raw.

“Papa, you need to clean up and go to bed.” Cece surged forward to slide her arm around his back in spite of the soot in an attempt to steer him toward the door. “I’m sure everything will seem better in the morning.”

“No.” Malcolm shook his head, but his energy was draining as fast as a gutter in the rain, so he didn’t push her away. “We’re going home.”

“We are home, Papa,” she said.

“Home to Strathaven Glen,” he clarified. “Immediately. On the first train. So go pack your things.”

“Scotland?” Cece stopped short, staring at him with wide eyes. “Are you saying we’re going to Scotland?”

“Yes. Go pack,” he growled.

She continued to study him with alarm. “It’s not like you to retreat to the country when things go wrong.”

“Maybe that’s what I should have done all along,” he said. Part of him felt like he should argue with her. Part of him felt like he should stay and continue the battle. But too much of him was done. He’d lost. It was over. “We’re going home,” he repeated. “And we’re not coming back.”

“Very well, Papa,” she said as they continued forward. Her voice was hollow and sad, which raised more guilt in Malcolm.

“I’m sorry,” he said when they reached the stairs. “What am I thinking? You’ve just had your coming out. You should stay in London with your friends. You should enjoy your life. We can find someone for you to stay with.” Up until hours ago, he would have assumed she’d stay with Katya, but that door was closed forever now.

Cece shook her head and valiantly straightened her back as they mounted the stairs. “You’re my father, and I’ll stand by you no matter what.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. He needed to grow accustomed to the feeling of being alone anyhow. “Stay here.”

“No,” she argued. “I’m going with you.”

There was no sense in arguing. Cece might have looked like her mother but she had his stubborn streak. Malcolm knew full well no one could argue him out of doing something he insisted on doing, and the same went for Cece. If he were honest, he was relieved she would stay with him.

Cece also inherited his cleverness, though. Not more than half an hour later, as Malcolm walked from his bedroom to the dressing room where one of his footmen had drawn a hot bath for him, he caught Cece slipping an envelope to one of the other footmen. Her expression was sharp with conspiracy, leaving no doubt in Malcolm’s mind that the envelope was a letter, most likely for Rupert Marlowe, informing him of everything that was going on.

Malcolm sighed and dragged himself on to his bath. Let Cece and Rupert conspire all they wanted. They couldn’t change the facts. He’d spent his whole life giving his heart to the wrong people. Katya didn’t think any more of him than she did her other lovers. Their children could plot, but nothing they did could make love blossom where there were only thorns.

By the time she reached home, exhaustion like Katya had never felt before overcame her. She should have climbed out of the carriage Christopher hired on her own. She should have told him to go home and take care of himself. She should have done a lot of things, but by the time Christopher carried her over the threshold, alarming Mr. Stewart beyond measure as he did, she realized it was too late.

“She told me to send for Viscount Helm to treat her,” Christopher explained to her butler as Stewart directed him to lay Katya on a sofa in her private parlor.

“Right away,” Stewart said, turning to leave the room.

“Mama, is that you?” Rupert’s voice rang from the hall. As soon as he entered the parlor, his face flooded with alarm. “Mama, what happened?”

“I’m all right,” Katya insisted, instantly contradicting herself with another round of coughing that left her wracked and spent.

By the time she recovered from her fit, Christopher was already explaining things to Rupert.

“…entire place in flames. She was lucky to get out alive, but Craig told me her efforts saved the lives of numerous young women who would otherwise have been trapped inside.”

Katya blinked, sagging into the soft comfort of the sofa. She didn’t remember Christopher talking to Inspector Craig at all. She didn’t remember much after Malcolm had stormed off.

Malcolm. Thoughts of him hurt more than her lungs and the bits of her that had been licked by flames. It was shattering that he’d come so close to being the instrument of defeat for Shayles, only to have his moment of glory ripped from him. She was certain there was more to the story and that she would hear it in time, but the look in his eyes, the bitterness and the heartbreak of believing himself to have been pushed aside for a younger hero at the last moment killed her. She knew too well what it was like to be pushed aside for someone younger, and in so many ways.

“Mama! Good heavens, what happened?”

Katya was robbed of the luxury of wallowing in her own sorrow as Bianca and Natalia scurried into the room. They both wore dressing gowns over their night clothes, had their hair tied up in rags, and wore looks of extreme worry.

“I’m all right,” Katya wheezed. “It’s just a little smoke is all.”

“Rob has been sent to fetch Viscount Helm,” Stewart reported from the doorway.

“Good. Thank you, Stewart,” Rupert said, then turned his attention to Katya. “News of the fire reached us at Spencer House,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if rumors were flying through London as we speak. What really happened?”

Katya opened her mouth, but coughed instead of forming words. She gestured to Christopher.

“The raid was a success,” Christopher began.

Katya closed her eyes and submitted to Bianca and Natalia’s hugs and petting instead of paying attention. Everything had gone right—at least, as far as nabbing Shayles—but she felt as though she’d experienced a crushing defeat. All she wanted to do was sleep.

Sleep is what she did, she realized with a shock, when her eyes snapped open again. More lanterns had been brought into the parlor, and Armand had arrived. She must have slept for half an hour at least. No one had bothered to move her, and no one had bothered to go to bed. Christopher had left, though.

“Awake at last?” Armand asked, smiling at her—an expression that was clearly designed to hide his true concern—as he sat on the edge of the sofa beside her.

Katya answered him with another wracking cough that left her weak and shaky and feeling as though her lungs were balls of smoldering embers.

“Don’t try to talk,” Armand said, resting a hand on her forehead. He placed a long listening device on her chest and bent to listen at one end. His brow knit into a frown. “Your lungs are severely irritated,” he said. “Which is to be expected from someone who was caught in a fire but managed to escape.”

“What can we do about it?” Rupert asked. He hovered behind the sofa, looking as though he would perform surgery on Katya himself if it could help her.

“Rest and fresh air are the only things that cure the effects of inhaling smoke,” Armand explained. “You’ll likely continue to cough for weeks to come and to taste smoke as well.”

“Isn’t there something else that can be done?” Bianca asked, as doggedly determined to heal Katya as Rupert was.

Armand turned to her, no doubt to explain at length, but Stewart stepped into the room and cleared his throat.

“Lord Stanhope, a letter has just arrived for you,” he said.

Rupert pried himself away from Katya’s side and rushed to take the envelope Stewart held.

“What is it?” Katya asked, anxious to direct attention away from herself, but sounding so much like an aged frog that her girls hovered even closer to her.

Rupert opened the envelope and withdrew a single piece of paper. The note must have been short, because within seconds, his face fell into an irritated frown. “Of all the stupid….” He started, but didn’t go on.

“What is it?” Bianca asked. “Who would send you a letter at three o’clock in the morning?”

Katya’s brow flew up. Was it that late?

“It’s Cece,” Rupert told them, returning to the sofa. Katya didn’t like the look of uncertain sympathy he gave her. “She says that her father has ordered her to pack her things, and that they’re leaving for Scotland on the first train this morning.”

“That bloody—” Katya started, but a violent coughing fit stopped her from expressing just what she thought of Malcolm running away.

Being stopped from expressing her knee-jerk reaction caused her to think twice, though. Malcolm never picked up and ran away when things were difficult. Quite the contrary. He stayed and fought, even when he shouldn’t. Even when it drove everyone around him to distraction.

Something was horrifically wrong. He’d been so upset after the fire. Katya had been upset herself, but the calm of home and the circle of her loved ones had eased her back into the complacency of her routine. Her heart sped up and her mind raced all over again as the implication of Malcolm returning to Scotland hit her, like the fire breaking out all over again. And yet, with the rise in tension, her coughing grew worse, preventing her from speaking.

“Why would he do that?” Natalia asked, her lower lip turned down in a pout. “Less than a day after learning I’m his daughter.”

Armand turned to her with a look of shock. Katya wanted to explain and to tell Natalia to hold her tongue, but her lungs prevented her.

Instead, Rupert was the one to scold, “Natalia, hold your tongue. We do not discuss family matters in public.”

“But we’re not—oh.” Natalia blushed after glancing to Armand, then whispered, “Sorry.”

Katya gave up trying to speak and sank back into the sofa. Her coughing gradually subsided, but her lungs and her heart continued to burn.

“We can’t just stand by and let them get away,” Bianca said, crossing her arms. “Rupert, you need to get us tickets to Scotland too.”

“Yes.” Natalia leapt up from where she’d been kneeling beside Katya’s sofa. “We have to go after them. Lord Malcolm is making a terrible mistake.”

Katya shook her head, barely managing to whisper, “No. Leave it alone.”

Her children ignored her.

“It will take some time to pack,” Rupert said with a thoughtful frown. “We might not be able to catch the same train as them, but we can get ourselves together at least in time to catch one that departs before noon.”

“Yes, exactly.” Bianca rushed to his side. “We have to do this.”

The pain in Katya’s chest took on a different feel. No one had heard her protest. Her children were dragging her into a wild scheme she didn’t want to be part of. Once again, Rupert was assuming the role she’d held for years, leaving her as much of a nothing as she’d been when she was married off to his father.

“No,” she insisted, willing herself to be heard. They turned to her. “If Malcolm wants to lick his wounds in Scotland, let him.”

“Mama, you can’t be serious.”

“You can’t just give up like this.”

Bianca and Natalia spoke at the same time, flying back to the sofa to appeal to her. Armand was forced to stand and move to the side so they could crowd into his place.

“You have to fight for the man you love,” Bianca insisted.

“Yes. It’s what any good heroine would do,” Natalia agreed.

Katya squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Life is not a fairy story,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Your life is,” Natalia insisted.

“Fresh air is the accepted cure for your current condition,” Armand added. Katya opened her eyes to peek up at him, furious that he wore a grin, as though this were just another game and not a turning point in her and Malcolm’s lives. “Scotland is full of fresh air. London is not.”

“The air in London is terrible,” Rupert said. “Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, Mama,” Natalia went on. “And if we go to Scotland, I can see where that part of my family comes from.”

Katya frowned. She was going to lose the argument, and there was nothing she could do about it. At least if she traveled to Scotland, she could give Malcolm a piece of her mind for running out on her. And she could explain away the mountain of misunderstandings that seemed to have grown up between them.

“Fine,” she sighed, coughing. “We’ll go to Scotland.” Though whether it would do any good was beyond her.