Fox needed Perry in the house, locked up tight, her pistols ready.

He slipped behind a rocky outcrop. Through his spyglass he could see the oars going on each side of the tub boat, casks strung to the sides, bobbing in heavy surf. That would slow them down more than a bit. The lugger he’d spotted earlier before the storm was likely sitting around the rocky point to the north, and the local Riding Officer was tucked in the bed of Scruggs’s maid, or drunk in the hearth room. Sex, drink, and money, they were all part of his payment.

He had time to get Perry inside and get himself down the cliff side.

Fox reached the stable door just as it opened, the lantern light flashing. He slipped in, slamming the door, grabbing her lantern and shuttering the light.

“What the devil are you doing?” she asked.

“We need to get back to the house.”

He could feel her gaze on him. “Smugglers?”

“Yes.”

She tried to push past, but he stopped her.

“I want to see.”

Her nightclothes might shimmer against the high rocks.

“Wait.” He found a dun-colored horse blanket and wrapped it around her. “You’re entirely too bright.” Entirely, completely, overwhelmingly too bright. And he could not deny her the excitement of seeing this.

With one hand she clutched the blanket in front, and the other slipped into his.

He led her to the outcrop where she pressed her hips against the boulder and looked through his spyglass. “Three men on board, two rowing.”

As he’d seen. He needed to get down there.

“It looks to be heavy work. Are those casks of brandy?”

“Brandy or gin. Look to the beach under that outcrop. What do you see?”

“Nothing—or…” She drew in a sharp breath. “Shadows. The locals?”

“Most likely.” He reached for her. “Come. I have to get down there.”

She handed him the spyglass and followed along. “Is that the man, then?”

His Perry. So bright.

“I want to go with you, Fox. I have a dark pelisse.”

“No.”

She stiffened and stopped. Dug in her heels, the blanket slipping. He pulled it around her while she slapped at his hands.

“Perry.” He jerked her close in her blanket. “Gregory Carvelle. That’s who we’re looking for.”

Her sharp intake of breath told him she knew the name.

“That’s the man?”

“Yes. You know him?”

“Yes. I saw him once at a ball.”

If she had seen Carvelle, she would recognize him. He’d chased Carvelle’s trail of snail slime across Holland without once seeing him.

“Charley’s wife was once promised to him. Father was looking for him. His cousin was a traitor and so is he. He’s a vile man.”

“Come,” he said. “Let’s hurry.”

Minutes later, Perry turned the key in the lock on the grand entrance door and went to stand next to Jenny at the windows in the nearby parlor.

“Like shadows, they are,” Jenny said approvingly.

“Yes.” What they were truly up to, she couldn’t be sure. Both men had donned the darkest of jumpers and trousers, black watch caps jammed tight over their already dark hair, and all done in minutes. Men’s clothing was so freeing.

“Are we really in danger?” the girl asked.

“Of course not.”

In the gloom, she couldn’t see Jenny’s expression, but her skepticism was palpable.

Her answer had been reflexive, unnecessary, almost disrespectful noblesse oblige. She was forgetting, this was Jenny, former urchin of the Seven Dials. Didn’t she herself hate being treated like a child?

“Well, maybe.”

Besides, Jenny might know more about this—didn’t the servants always know more than they let on?

“Did you hear tell in the servant’s hall of Gregory Carvelle?”

The girl stiffened. “Miss Gracie’s fiancé, who beat her? The one they never found?”

She sighed. “Is there anything the servants don’t talk about?”

“I only listened, my lady. Is Gregory Carvelle the one Mr. Fox and MacEwen are after?”

“So he told me.”

“He told you? Then you got more out of him than I did MacEwen. You promised to teach me to load the pistols, miss.”

“Indeed I did.”

Upstairs in her bedchamber, they closed the curtains, turned up the lamp just enough to see, and she showed Jenny how to load and prime a fine pair of Mantons she’d filched from Shaldon House.

“Shall we wait in the kitchen?” Jenny asked. “I can make us another pot by the light of the fire.”

Fox had warned them about keeping the house dark, so as not to draw interest out at sea. He’d issued a password, with instructions for them to keep the door closed to anyone who didn’t know it.

Her gaze landed on the sketchpad she’d pushed to the side. What other secrets was Fox hiding? He would go down the cliff side, do whatever he had to do, and would have to climb back up. She had plenty of time to investigate.

“I’m going upstairs, Jenny.”

The girl picked up a pistol and held it carefully pointed at the floor. “I’ll go with you, miss.”

Jenny went to the curtains in Fox’s room.

“Wait,” Perry said. “Don’t close them. He’ll notice they were disturbed.”

She shuttered the lantern as much as she could. Surely, they were high enough not to be seen, but she would risk a dim light anyway. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Fox’s coats and white shirt tossed carelessly on the bed.

“He’s made his own bed,” Jenny said.

Perry had noticed that before. “So he has.”

His paints and brushes were also in neat order on a table near the draped canvas, rather too near the window for searching by lamplight. A travel trunk lay on the floor near the bed. They would start there.

Perry took the trunk and had Jenny look through the mattress and bedding.

“What are we looking for?” Jenny asked.

“Something hidden. Careful. His neatness perhaps has a purpose.”

“Ah. Of course.” Jenny patted the pillow back into place.

Perry went through the clothing, looking for filled pockets and finding nothing. She sat back on her heels and studied the trunk. She’d seen similar ones in the attic at Cransdall. She ran her hand over the leatherwork, feeling for notches or latches. Nothing. She tapped the bottom—quite solid.

“Under the lid?” Jenny knelt next to her. “That’s a great deal of padding.”

Perry slid her fingers along the seams and picked at the corners until she found a button buried there. The lining peeled away, revealing a notebook of superfine paper.

“Numbers. Letters. What do they say?”

She looked at the girl. “You can’t read?”

“Yes, some.” Jenny frowned trying to puzzle out the text.

“This is a code book. It says nothing on its own. And you must learn to read more than ‘some’.”

The girl’s frown deepened. “Mr. Fox is a spy.”

“So it seems. And don’t ignore me about the business of reading. You are far too bright to be ignorant. Let’s put this back.”

“Who does he spy for?”

Perry ran her fingers over the pages. Likely, he’d been spying for the Americans during the most recent war. Except, that war had started the year after his visit to Cransdall, and by that time, he’d disappeared.

There was no war now, but he claimed to be here at her father’s behest, and MacEwen backed up the story.

“I think it’s true that he’s working for my father. Beyond that I cannot say.” She flattened the book back into its hiding spot.

“You don’t want to take it?”

“No. I’ll know where to find it.”

“Unless he moves it,” Jenny said.

They shared a wry glance. Perry tucked the book in, secured the lining, and closed the trunk. “He’ll know we were here, I suppose.” She might as well try to keep a secret from Fox as travel to the moon. He’d see right into her heart and do his best to confound her. As a young artist newly arrived at Cransdall, he’d gone right to the business of punching holes in her puppy love. Because she was too young, too high in station above him, and too much the ugly duckling.

No one had told her that—she’d just known.

She’d stepped down from her high station for good, and she wasn’t too young any more, nor did she have any illusions she’d transformed into loveliness. Let him come after her for searching his room.

“I might as well have a look at what he’s working on.”

“The light—”

“Be damned.” She got to her feet and lifted the drape on the painting.

“Oh.” Jenny breathed out the word.

A roomful of butterflies broke loose in her heart.

“It’s you.”

So it was. It was her, and not her. This woman looked like a goddess. She was no goddess.

“It’s beautiful, miss, but, er—”

“Improper.” The fluttering inside made her dizzy. “I didn’t pose for this.”

She wished she had. Her body tingled the way it had done when he’d kissed her.

She eased in a breath. “And look. In truth, there’s more to me than he’s painted here. He didn’t allow for my stays squeezing me in tighter here.” She touched the painting. It was dry.

Jenny giggled.

“Perhaps I should pose for him. You won’t tell, will you, Jenny? And everyone who sees this will assume that I already did anyway. I’ll remove all of Fox’s illusions.” And refute all of his lies to her. She was tired of lies. Tired of being an interesting specimen for the men in her world to poke at.

“Oh, my lady,” Jenny’s voice held a smile.

That the girl wasn’t judging her eased some of her tension. She smiled back. “Oh, Jenny. What were you and MacEwen up to while we were outside?”

“Nothing,” the girl said, too quickly. “That is, he’s a terrible flirt.”

And Jenny liked it. And she liked him. She and Jenny might both have a chance for a romantic adventure. “Will he talk to you? I need to know what’s going on. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not willing to do, of course. You have a reputation to protect also.” She pulled the drape over the painting. “There. I’m decent again. Jenny, I will work on learning things from Fox, and you can work on MacEwen. I promise, hand to my heart, no matter what happens, I will look after you.”

“If you’re not yourself exiled to an island somewhere like Napoleon, my lady.” She laughed. “But, as you said, in for a penny, in for a pound. I’ll work on MacEwen.”

And enjoy doing it, her smile said.

In the shadowed cove, the four new men leaned against the rocks, all of them turned to the sea, watching the oars pushing against the surf.

“There,” Davy whispered, pointing inland.

Gaz pushed the hand down and shushed him. He and his cousin Davy sat apart from the others, thank goodness. Blasted Davy and his ghosts.

“No such thing as ghosts.” Gaz wrapped the other man’s cold hand around the flask. “Take a swig. ’Twill wash out your brain.”

Davy took a long hit and wiped his mouth. “I tell you, I saw her earlier, on the outcrop in front of the cottage. Come back to haunt us, she has. Scruggs—”

“Shut your face.” The other four men he didn’t know, not well anyway. They’d been brought in, part of a gang from somewheres further north. “The drink and your flappin’ jaws’ll get us both kilt.”

Davy handed him back the flask and then froze next to him. “Look, Gaz. You’ve got to look.”

He sighed and turned, tipping the bottle as he did.