The moment he was sure Mary was asleep, West extracted himself from the bed and hurried into his clothes. Slipping the pistol into his jacket pocket, he leaned over his wife’s sleeping form. Smoothed his hand over her soft, dark hair.

God, what this woman did to him. A part of him envied her such easy, uncomplicated sleep. He knew her well enough now to know she would slumber on for hours, as if caught in a laudanum-induced dream, until five o’clock in the morning when she would sit up, blinking in awareness. That gave him five hours to find the evidence he needed.

Not nearly enough time, given where he had to go to look for it.

He moved down the stairs, trying to be quiet. He’d been unsuccessful in his attempt to match Southingham’s shouts to the voice in his memory, but that didn’t mean he could so easily let go the possibility. Somehow, the duke was connected to the note Mary had received. If there was even the smallest bit of evidence to be found implicating the Duke of Southingham in this assassination plot, West was resolved to leave no stone unturned in his quest to uncover it.

Even if it meant returning to the scene of a past crime.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, a light loomed up from the shadows, stopping him in his tracks. “Master Geoffrey?” Wilson held up a candle. “Are you going out for the night? ’Tis past midnight.” The reproof in his voice echoed through the dark foyer.

“Not now, Wilson,” West warned, reaching a hand toward the front door. “I’ve . . . somewhere to be.”

“I admit some disappointment. I had thought, perhaps, that you had changed.” The butler’s gray, rheumy eyes fixed on him, disapproving. “If you don’t mind me saying, you have seemed happier of late. As it happens, I quite approve of your bride and the changes she has wrought in your life. Would she approve of your late night activity?”

West gritted his teeth. No, Mary would not approve, but he wasn’t going to admit that out loud. And hopefully, by the end of this long night, he’d have some bit of evidence in hand that confirmed his suspicions, something to properly share with her. “Save your disappointment for my wind-makers, Wilson,” he growled. “You don’t even know where I am going.”

The old servant straightened his shoulders. “I could hazard a guess.”

“Well then, guess away.” West tipped a finger to his forehead in a sort of salute. “And I’ll raise a toast when I get there.”

Irritation continued to poke at him as he stepped out of the front door and swung south toward St. Audley Street. It stung, a bit, that Wilson had presumed the worst of him. But there were more important things at hand than correcting the old servant’s presumptions. If he was being honest with himself, he was disappointed by the events of the night, and not only the exchange with Wilson just now. The conversation he’d suffered with Southingham tonight in the ballroom had opened old wounds, raw slices of his past that still rankled. But as incendiary as it had been, it had also been painfully unilluminating.

He’d wanted Southingham’s voice to match the voice in his memory. But it hadn’t seemed to, at least in the course of a heated conversation.

Which meant none of this made sense.

Was it because a man’s voice changed at a whisper, became something less discernible? Or perhaps Lady Ashington’s maid had lied about that business with the note. Or perhaps . . .

Perhaps West was losing his mind. Perhaps there were a dozen people involved in this plot, all of them dukes, and the joke was really on him.

The Duke of Southingham’s home was a white brick behemoth built in the most fashionable part of Mayfair. To the inexperienced bystander, it would appear to be an impenetrable fortress, a Queen Anne-style manor four stories tall.

But West wasn’t anything close to an inexperienced bystander. Thanks to his now-infamous prank, he had an intimate knowledge of the household and its various vulnerabilities. The gate to the inner courtyard could be breached with a running start, and the window at the far side of the scullery still boasted an insecure latch. He jiggled the frame until he heard the latch fall away, then opened the window and climbed inside.

Straightening, he took in the shaded shape of the kitchen. One year ago, he and Grant had navigated this space wearing skirts and smirks, then climbed the stairs with a bit of a drunken swagger. Only, he had fallen prey to the wrong pretty smile.

This time, however, his destination wasn’t the duchess’s bedroom, and his self-appointed task for the evening wasn’t a stolen kiss or two.

He crept along a pitch-dark hallway, feeling his way with a hand on the wall, looking for Southingham’s study. But when he found it, the muted glow of candlelight leaked from below the closed door. He stared down at that strip of light, hardly daring to breathe.

What the devil? It was close to one o’clock in the morning. Hardly the time of night to be going over household ledgers and accounts.

Carefully, he pressed an ear against the door. Caught the low murmur of voices.

The hairs on the back of West’s neck stood at attention.

Because the whispered voices were all too familiar.

“Keep your voice down,” he heard a man say from inside the room. “What did you need to speak with me about so urgently? It’s dangerous for us to meet here like this.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. It’s Westmore,” a woman’s voice answered, miraculously matching the one from his memory. “He’s married that girl who was asking questions about us. I am worried that he knows something.”

“Don’t worry about Westmore. He may think he knows something. But the man isn’t as smart as he seems.” Though the voice was muffled, something about the way the man said his name rang warning bells of familiarity again in West’s head. The whisper matched the memory from the library. Holding his breath, he reached out a hand to gingerly try the door handle.

It didn’t budge.

He lowered his ear to the locked door again, holding his breath.

“I told you,” he heard the man say, “no one will believe either of them. I’m more worried about our friends in Scotland. How goes our business there?”

“There’s a problem.” The woman’s voice lowered. “Vivian has disappeared, the money with her. Carlson says the money was never delivered. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her.”

A frustrated growl echoed through the door. “There’s no time to fix it. The date is set. It was in the papers just today. June 24^th. There won’t be a better chance.” There was a furious silence. “If they can’t be brought to heel, I’ll have to do it myself.”

The woman gasped. “That was never part of the plan.”

“Don’t worry, darling. They’ll bear the blame, regardless.”

West caught a soft moan, and then other sounds that told him something beyond a little negotiating was going on in the room. He pushed away from the door, even as his mind cartwheeled around the bits he had overheard.

June 24^th. It wasn’t much time.

And Scotland? That scarcely made sense. To be sure there was a good deal of nationalist pride in the Highlands, but it was the sort to inspire festivals, not murder.

Without warning, the light beneath the door snuffed out. West’s instincts screamed at him to go. But he couldn’t leave, not yet.

Not without some proof in hand.

West scrambled sideways as he heard a key turn in the lock, pinning himself into the shadows beside the door. He held his breath as the door began to creak open, and pulled his pistol from his jacket, just in case. His finger hovered ready on the trigger, but he would not, could not, shoot, not unless his own life was threatened. Because while he’d heard enough things to want to shoot the man about to walk through that door, he was the one skulking about Southingham’s hallway. The one who had broken into the man’s house.

The one the authorities would presume was in the wrong.

“Not that way,” he heard the woman hiss from inside the room. “Someone could see us. We should use the other door. Quietly, now.”

The door swung shut again. The footsteps grew fainter. West took a deep breath over the too-loud pounding of his heart. Reached out a hand to carefully open the study door. Nudged it open with his shoe and then crept soundlessly inside, his pistol raised.

But he was too late.

A door on the opposite end of the room yawned open.

The instinct to give chase nudged him in that imprudent direction. But what was he thinking to do? Stalk Southingham down in his own home and shoot the man in what would appear to be cold blood? If he shot Southingham tonight, he might disarm one of the traitors, but he would leave others on the loose. Worse, it would ensure his own arrest, and leave Mary vulnerable and unprotected. Because he had no proof of Southingham’s perfidy, no word against the man beyond his own.

And in the eyes of the authorities, his word was about as useful as a three-legged horse.

Instead of giving chase, as the blood in his veins demanded, he invested that burning energy into quickly searching Southingham’s desk. He pulled out his case of matches and struck one after the other, using the meager light to rifle wordlessly through drawers, looking for some piece of paper, some irrefutable proof of the duke’s involvement, something that might convince Scotland Yard to take the threat more seriously.

There was maddeningly little to be found, no notes outlining murder plans, no receipts for bullets or the like. He found a single scrap of paper, a note scribbled to some London modiste providing direction for a delivery.

Anger burned through him as he stared down at the note. It was in a handwriting that perfectly matched the writing he’d seen on Mary’s note.

Well. If he’d had any doubts before, they were well and truly buried now. He was more convinced than ever that Southingham was one of the traitors, and the one who’d sent Mary the note. But while it was a damning bit of evidence for him to see, it was still not enough to convince anyone in a position to act.

He could only imagine the sniggers of the Scotland Yard officials when he produced a note to a modiste and claimed it was a clue to a traitorous plot.

Finally, as he came down to his last, flickering match, West picked up the only other thing he could find, a much-folded copy of The London Times. As the last flame died, he shoved the pages into his jacket pocket. But even as he climbed out of the scullery window and vaulted over the courtyard gate, West couldn’t help but worry. Based on what he’d seen and heard tonight, Southingham was definitely plotting to kill the queen.

And he suspected he was going to need more than a few dozen rats to make this right.