Seven Dials was notorious in London. Thomas heard it referred to as a neighborhood out of hell thrust up into the city, a place where the constables feared to go and where all manner of lawlessness occurred.

Thomas had been exploring its dark alleys, gambling hells, and cat houses since he was sixteen. It was a dangerous place, and it was true that there were plenty of ways for an unwary person to get themselves in trouble, but overall, it didn't bother him. Mostly, he had found the people to be poor and desperate, but also eager to leave him alone if he would return that favor.

Of course, at two in the morning, waiting in the sheltered doorway close to the seven sundials that gave the area its name, Thomas felt an unaccustomed pang of fear, not for himself, but for Blythe. It was a little strange to feel something so strongly for a woman he’d had fewer than a dozen conversations with, but there it was.

What do I do if she doesn't show up? I can't very well go to her house to find out if she was laid up with a cold. And Christ, what would happen if she were attacked or even kidnapped? She would just disappear into the stews, and no one would ever know what had happened to her. Hell, before she gained that inheritance, no one would care, either. Now she'd be the missing heiress, some terrible curiosity for the papers or a cautionary moral tale...

He was so worried that he almost missed her at first. Suddenly, there was a small figure next to his elbow, so anonymously dressed in gray that she blended in with the cold winter fog.

"If you can't stay any more alert than that, you should never leave the paths of Vauxhall." Blythe's tone was light, almost playful.

Thomas jumped before composing himself and turning to her with a scowl. "You're late. I was afraid that someone had popped you in a sack and spirited you away to France as stolen goods."

"You're wrong. I'm not late at all; I just heard the clocks chime. But you're here. I didn't think you would come."

Thomas might have replied that there was no way in the world he was going to leave her to wander around Seven Dials on her own, but somehow, he didn't want to confess how very worried he had been. It sounded like something a Carrow would say.

"Well, I suppose when I told you I wanted to meet again, it was your right to set the terms."

"Like a duel? That seems rather adversarial."

"You're a Martin, and my father was the former Duke of Parrington's first cousin. I think being adversaries runs in our veins. But if we're going to talk, we should start walking. There is a fair amount I want to accomplish before I need to be back at home."

Thomas offered her his arm again, and she took it easily. Something about walking arm in arm with Blythe Dennings just felt right, even if it was happening in one of London's most notorious slums.

"So, I don't know if you know this, but I do have something of a reputation for scandalous meetings with ladies living in repressive situations."

She shot him an amused look. "You mean seductions and trysts carried out at the better hotels?"

"Well, yes, but I wasn't going to be so blunt."

"Then let me be the first to tell you that when people talk about your exploits, they are far blunter than that."

"I will endeavor to take that in a flattering way. But what I am saying is that if we wanted to meet, it didn't have to be in the Dials. There are plenty of luxurious hotels in the better part of town that promise utter discretion."

To Thomas’ surprise, she tugged her arm away from him, looking up at him with shock.

"Thomas, did you sincerely think that I asked you out here to... to start an affair with you?"

"Well... not immediately. I suppose I guessed. Or hoped, maybe."

When he thought about it, however, Thomas wondered. He had liked Blythe almost immediately upon laying eyes on her, even if she wasn't really the type of woman he sought out. She was attractive in her gamine way, and once she was out of that plain gray gown and dressed up, there were few women in the ton who could compare to her. Yes, he wanted to sleep with her, but if he were honest with himself, that hadn't been the first thing on his mind when she’d told him she would see him again.

The first thing he had thought was, Thank God, I have missed you so.

Blythe, of course, knew none of this, and her look of shock changed to one of stubbornness. "No. I am not letting you seduce me."

A pair of passing women in bright glad rags stumbled by, arm in arm. One of them reached out to slap Blythe on the shoulder companionably in passing. "That's right, love, you make him work for that! Posh bastard like him, he can afford to put some effort in."

Thomas choked back a laugh because if he had actually expected anything out of the evening, it wasn't Blythe receiving love advice from a passing prostitute. "All right."

She looked at him suspiciously. "That's it? All right?"

"Are you disappointed?"

"No, but maybe I am a little suspicious. If you didn't come all the way out tonight to seduce me, then why did you come?"

Thomas gave her a look of exaggerated patience. "Well, I was rather hoping you would tell me. After all, you're the one who told me to come out here. If it were up to me, we'd be at a good hotel right now."

"Oh! Um, I suppose I did." For the first time, Blythe looked flustered.

It occurred to Thomas that for all of her strength and determination he had witnessed, she wasn't really comfortable with people, as if she had spent long stretches of time alone. "So?"

"In all fairness, you put me on the spot. We were at Almack's, and I may not have been at my best."

"So, you decided that we would go for a pleasant stroll in the most dangerous part of the city? Blythe, I say this with the utmost respect possible, but are you sure you're related to the Carrows? That sounds a great deal like Martin thinking."

"I love being a Carrow, so stop that at once. And I thought, well, maybe I could use your help."

Thomas looked around. The buildings around him that weren't actually crumbling were stained by soot, grime, blood from the butchers close by, and things even less pleasant. A pair of drunks passed a blue bottle back and forth between them, curled up under a pile of old newsprint for warmth.

"What on earth do you need help with here?"

To Thomas’ surprise, Blythe's face took on a stern look. She probably was a Carrow after all.

"Just about everyone around us could use some help or other. Are you going to help me, or are you just going to make fun of me?"

"I'm certainly going to help you, but if you somehow make us members of a thieving gang, I'll be rather irritated."

She ignored his little joke, offering him her hand, and they started walking down the street again. "So, Honey isn't the first girl I've gotten to safety with the Quakers," she said. "I helped another woman last year, and she's doing well now, living up north and married to a good man, but she's never stopped missing the daughter she lost in London."

"You think her daughter is working in one of the cat houses?"

"God, I hope not. They were separated when the girl was seven. She'd be ten now."

Thomas supposed he had imagined fights of the kind that mothers and daughters had, recriminations and slammed doors. This was obviously something different. "How the hell did she lose her daughter at the age of seven?"

"Don't take that tone about Sandra, Thomas. She was in a terrible place, and it was not her fault. The man she was with... didn't like that she had a daughter, I suppose. She woke up one day, and Rose was gone. Her man had Rose taken away, and Sandra couldn't do anything about it. The constables wouldn't listen to a fallen woman, and they think the poor down here sell their babies for gin anyway."

"Dear God."

"Yes. Sandra couldn't do anything while she was living with that awful man, and then she was escaping and making a life for herself in the north. She's doing well now, but she's never forgotten her daughter."

"And how do you come into this, exactly?"

"Well, I was the one who helped her connect with the Quakers, and much like you saw with Honey, I guided her there. It's not much, but it gave her the courage to leave, knowing that another woman would be with her. She's written to me like clockwork ever since she got settled, and she's told me a great deal about her daughter."

"And Parrington allows you to receive letters from a formerly fallen woman?"

"Tristan may believe that the letters are from the treasurer of a woman's league up north, but that's neither here nor there. But to finish, Rose has a distinctive birthmark on her face, dark red and covering her right cheek from chin to eye. Just a week ago, someone who was staying with the Abeggs mentioned seeing a girl like that in Seven Dials, in a workshop."

"And, of course, you are going to go investigate. In the middle of the night. In one of the worst neighborhoods London has to offer. And you were going to go alone."

Blythe offered him a slight smile. "Are you sure you're not a Carrow? That sounds like something Tristan might say."

Thomas scowled because she wasn't wrong. He supposed that the risks that he took, and even the risks that Georgiana took, were different than this. They were out for fun, novelty, or notoriety, to be talked about and admired. Most of the time, they did not take risks that might simply result in them being knifed and disappeared on a quiet foggy night.

"Anyway, the place we're going wouldn't talk to me if I showed up in my good-works guise. I decided that it was best to take a more direct approach."

"Well, I can't say that the cause isn’t just. Lead on."

They walked for another twenty minutes, and Thomas realized that Blythe was leading him away from the main thoroughfare, from the gin shops and cat houses that gave Seven Dials what custom it received. Now they were in the narrow residential buildings where people slept ten to a room and where fires from impromptu hearths were a common risk. The streets were dim, lit only by the occasional link boy making his way about and the light spilling from the quiet public houses, and Blythe kept to the shadows. Finally, she pointed at a shabby store that looked nearly identical to the others. A shingle hung over the narrow door, a shirt with patches painted on it.

"That's where the Abeggs told me that Rose might be being held. We need to get in there to see."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"Well, since you're here, you're going to keep watch on the very off chance that a constable somehow got lost and felt like arresting someone much smaller than him."

"And what are you doing?"

Blythe cast a quick look up and down the street and reached up her skirt. With just a quick tug, she freed a slender pry bar that had been dangling from a string around her waist and showed it to Thomas with a slight grin.

"Oh, my God, you're actually a criminal. I have fallen in with a housebreaker."

"Don't lose your nerve now, Thomas, or I'll start to think that the Martin reputation for wildness is all talk about parties and fashion. Are you going to help me or not?"

Thomas could say no, that this was insane, and see about getting a rented hack back to his home. Hell, he could have dragged Blythe along with him and prevented her from doing whatever insane thing she was going to do in the next hour. He found that he couldn't do any of that.

"Of course I am."

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