A Flaw in the Blood

as always—but he'd lost his topper.

The sole cabbie lingering at the stand was more interested in the sight of their money, however, than the state of their clothes. Fitzgerald did not respond to Georgiana's remark until the lap robe was tucked over her knees and the reins snapped over the horse's back.

Bells still rang throughout London for Albert's passing, a dull monotony after all these hours; lengths of black crepe had appeared on door knockers and window fronts. Shops in Henrietta Street, Fitzgerald noticed, already sported black mourning shutters—which were closed, like the premises. There would be a considerable loss of custom in the weeks running up to Christmas, except among the linendraper firms—everyone, even the children of the lowliest clerk, would go into blacks for at least a month.

“I asked about von Stühlen because I hated the way he looked at you,” he told Georgiana.

“Like a wolf with a cornered sheep?”

“You saw it, too?”

“Well, he has earned a dreadful reputation.”

“—For shearing sheep?”

“No. For raping the unwilling.”

There it was again—Georgie's appalling worldliness. “How do you think he lost his eye?” she continued.

“In a duel—or so it's said. Was that over a woman?”

“A fifteen-year-old girl of excellent birth—kidnapped, raped, and returned like a piece of soiled goods to her family several weeks later, when von Stühlen tired of her. The child's brother tried to kill the Count—but in the event, only added to his air of dash, by giving him the eye patch.”

“How do you know all this?”

She shrugged. “I may still claim a good part of the acquaintance I formed at school, you know—and am everywhere received. Do you really think ladies talk only of fashion?”

“I'll warrant the word rape never crosses the lips of your select friends.”

“No. They use gentler terms—a kind of code for men of that stamp. They call von Stühlen dangerous, or the very worst of rakes, or unreliable. By which they mean he hasn't a feather to fly with, is a gazetted fortune hunter, and has any number of women in keeping.” Georgiana's eyes were trained on the horse's head as it trotted toward Russell Square. “He even offered to keep me, if it comes to that.”

“He what?”

“—Was so obliging as to suggest I should be his mistress. In the enclosure at Ascot, last June. He gave me his card on the strength of it.” Her smile was twisted. “Women such as myself, he assured me, were excessively diverting because of our intelligence; we added a certain spice to amour; but we could never hope to receive an offer of marriage in the general way. I believe he considered his notice an exceptionally great honour.”

“I'd like to whip him the length of Pall Mall,” Fitzgerald said through his teeth.

“I'm afraid I did something much worse. I laughed at him. And tossed his card back in his face. He was furious—publicly humiliated. If I'd been a man, I daresay he'd have demanded satisfaction.”

“How could he think you'd listen to such a dishonourable proposal?”

“He first made my acquaintance in the company of the Prince—and no doubt assumed I was Albert's mistress. Although the Consort was the least likely of men to have a lady in keeping, I daresay any number of gentlemen have made a similar error. How else to account for my intimacy with the Prince?” She worried the torn leather of one glove, her face averted. “But tell me, Patrick—why should von Stühlen be concerned with these attacks? That pack of ruffians may be bent upon killing Septimus Taylor for reasons wholly unrelated to us. Perhaps they merely followed you because you'd discovered their handiwork.”

“Sep was at the Inner Temple, nowhere near Hampstead last night,” Fitzgerald said flatly. “Somebody cleared away that palisade on the Heath—and your dangerous Count was on the scene within hours of the wreck. That much we know. I go further, Georgie—I say von Stühlen saw murder done in the wee hours of the morning, then ordered the destruction of all evidence.”

“Why?”

“What other business could bring him to Hampstead? He came direct from Windsor!”

“He admitted as much,” she retorted impatiently. “But you've nothing to tie him to the attack at the Inner Temple, much less that pack of hounds in St. Giles.”

“Sweet Jesus, woman—would you defend such a man? This madness began last night, with my summons to Windsor. I was probably called there in order to be killed on my return.”

“But why, Patrick? Why is it necessary to silence you? What do these people fear?”

“I don't know,” he admitted bleakly as the hackney pulled to a halt before Georgiana's door. “But I won't risk dying before I find out. I leave London tonight—and you're to come with me, Georgie lass.”

Her smile wavered. “Another carte blanche?”

It was the polite term for von Stühlen's type of sexual arrangement. Fitzgerald's heart stuttered, and a wave of heat surged through his body. Before he could speak, however, she pressed her fingers against his lips.

“I should be so fortunate. No, Patrick—I won't come with you. I have poor Lizzie to think of, and others —”

But her words died in her mouth. Fitzgerald looked toward the doorway. Georgie's housekeeper was racing to meet them, a stricken expression on her face.

Georgiana's rooms were like the woman herself, Fitzgerald thought—elegantly spare; intelligently arranged. Not for Georgie the excess of velvet hangings or the wave of bric-a-brac crowding every surface, the plant stands overflowing with ferns; Georgie's walls were cream, picked out with gold, the simplest of hangings at the tall windows. Light poured into the rooms even in the darkest months of winter. To sit there with Georgie was to stem the turbulent beat of his days, the wild disorder of his thoughts and passions. Georgie was the voice of reason. The air of decision. The order of science. Caught in a form as breathtaking as Venus.

Now, however, the house was a scene of devastation.

The Aubusson carpet was rucked up over the floorboards; a gilt picture frame lay smashed in the fireplace, its canvas torn; a piece of the marble mantel had been broken off and tossed at yet another picture, which hung askew and ravaged above the settee. Chair upholstery was slit down the middle and feathers strewn everywhere.

“I just stepped round to St. George's, Hanover Square, to pray for the repose of the dear Consort's soul,” the housekeeper said as Georgie stopped dead in the middle of her drawing room, her medical bag slipping to chaos on the floor, “and you always give the staff their afternoon out, of a Sunday. So the place was empty, do you see? And when I returned—just look at it! We've had thieves, miss, and what I can't make out is what they thought to come for! All the silver's in the pantry, and your jewels never touched in the boudoir . . . but my word, your desk!”

“My desk?” Georgiana repeated faintly—and then swept through the drawing room to the library beyond. “Oh, Patrick!”

Papers scattered everywhere, as they had been in Fitzgerald's chambers.

He took one step forward into the room and stopped short. He had never seen Georgie cry before—not even when John Snow died.

“My darling,” he said, and went to her.

“It's just that it's so cruel,” she muttered against his shoulder. “These aren't my things, Patrick—they're Uncle John's. All his case notes. Documents he kept for decades—statistics of populations, meticulous research. It will take me days to reorder them all. And for what?”

He held her away from him, studied the swimming eyes.

“You'll have to find out,” he said. “Now, not later—because whatever you may think, Georgie, you're leaving London with me tonight. I will not allow you to remain in this house.”

“But—”

“Those men came here. They tracked you to St. Giles. They wanted something