Memory drifted across Susan’s face. “Curly black hair. Blue eyes. Not too tall, but nicely made if he’s taken care of himself. He had a fondness for yellow waistcoats.”
Melanie released her breath, though she hadn’t realized she’d been holding it. “Thank you.”
“It’s little enough.”
The whistles had given way to stomping feet. Amy Graves, now standing on the table, pulled her chemise over her head and tossed it into the crowd.
Susan swallowed the last of her gin. She looked at Melanie for a moment over the rim of the glass. “Your little boy—is it dangerous?”
“Yes,” Melanie said.
Susan nodded. “I hope—I hope it turns out all right.”
Two men were having a tug-of-war with Amy Graves’s chemise. Amy was stretched out naked on the table. A full glass of claret rested on the curling thatch between her legs. The pimply young man who had pawed Melanie was leaning forward and attempting to drink out of it, while onlookers shouted words of encouragement or mockery.
Charles leaned his arms on the table. He hadn’t so much as glanced in Amy Graves’s direction. “Someone else may come asking questions about your sister. A dark-haired man with a Spanish accent. It would be convenient if you could lose your memory.”
Susan smiled, a smile that curved her full mouth and lit her eyes and wiped the harshness from her face. “Faith, sir, my memory’s not what it once was. It’s a miracle I’ve remembered what I have tonight, it is.”
Melanie put some more coins on the table. “Do you think—”
“Here now—you’ve had your turn!” The crash of a chair hitting the floor echoed through the room. A man in a stained bottle-green coat grabbed the pimply young man by the shoulder and pulled him off Amy Graves.
The glass of claret tipped over and shattered on the table. Amy Graves sat up with a cry. The pimply man spun round and shoved the man in the green coat. The man in the green coat stumbled back and fell against a woman at the next table. The woman screamed. Her escort planted a fist in Green Coat’s face.
“Oh, hell,” Susan said, “now we’re in for it.”
She was right. Melanie wasn’t sure quite what happened next, but suddenly half those present seemed to be involved in the fight. Chairs splintered. Glasses shattered. A table was upended. Shouts and curses, cries of rage and pain and the sheer love of battle filled the air. A glass hit the painting and left a splash of red wine on one of Zeus’s wings. Amy Graves scrambled up on the table, arms crossed over her breasts.
Charles glanced at the door. “I wouldn’t try it,” Susan said over the din round them. “Wait till it calms down.”
Charles nodded and grabbed Melanie’s arm. Melanie snatched up her bonnet and pelisse and they drew back into the corner by the fireplace.
“It’s a while since we’ve had one of these,” Susan said. “This one’s worse than usual. Look out!” She ducked and Charles pulled Melanie down just as a bottle went sailing across the room and shattered against the brick of the chimney.
The fight was eddying out into the farthest reaches of the room. A man in his shirtsleeves vaulted over the stair rail and hurled himself into the fray.
Charles had gone still. He was staring across the room, as though he glimpsed something in the melee, though Melanie couldn’t imagine what he could make out in the sea of movement. She touched his arm. “Darling —”
He answered without looking at her. “Mel—”
She didn’t hear the rest. Someone crashed into them. She dodged, but the next thing she knew a fist smashed into the side of her face. Pain slammed through her head and down her side. Her head swam blackly for a moment. She felt Charles’s hands on her shoulders, heard his voice mutter, “Get under the table,” saw a rush of movement as he sprang forward.
The fight engulfed them. Charles knocked a man to the ground. Someone else grabbed him from behind and gave his arm a vicious twist. Melanie jumped on a chair and threw her pelisse over the attacker’s head. Charles spun round and hit him through the enveloping folds of fabric.
Another man crashed into Charles from the side—the man in the bottle-green coat, who had started the brawl. His hands went straight for Charles’s throat. Charles jerked and twisted. The first assailant struggled free of the folds of the pelisse and launched himself at Charles’s legs.
Melanie snatched up a glass from the table and brought it down on Green Coat’s balding head with as much force as she could muster. White fire shot through the wound in her side, but Green Coat yelped and let go of Charles. Charles kicked the other man, grabbed her hand, and jumped over an overturned chair.
“There’s a side door.” Susan Trevennen spoke beside them, fighting to make herself heard over the shouts and screams and crashes that filled the air. “This way.”
They dodged and elbowed their way past the fireplace and along the side of the room to a low wooden door. Their feet slithered on the liquor-soaked floorboards, and broken glass scrunched beneath their shoes. Susan had grabbed a spare bottle off a table as they moved past. She tossed the contents over two men who were grappling in front of the door. A temporary path cleared.
“Go now.” She tugged the door open, letting in a blast of rain-soaked wind. “Good luck.”
They stumbled out into a narrow, unlit alley. Charles pulled the door to behind them. The rain blew in their faces and the wind slapped against them, but the quiet was a blessed relief. Melanie leaned against the rough stone wall long enough to draw a deep breath of the night air. “The man who started the fight was one of the ones who attacked you,” she said. “The fight was a setup.”
“Very likely.” Charles stripped off his coat and put it round her shoulders. The umbrella had been abandoned inside, along with his greatcoat and hat and her pelisse and bonnet. He threw a sheltering arm over her shoulders and drew her toward the light at the near end of the alley. He walked quickly, but he wasn’t quite steady on his feet.
“Did you break anything?” Melanie asked.
“I don’t think so, but not for want of their trying. The first man very definitely meant to break my arm.”
“I noticed.” They walked a few steps in silence. The wind howled through the alley. The rain felt like melted ice through the thin fabric of her gown.
Charles steered her round a puddle of water. “I saw a familiar face in the midst of the brawl. Victor Velasquez.”
“From the Spanish embassy?” She lifted her face to the rain to look up at him. Victor Velasquez was an attache at the embassy, a distant acquaintance from their days in the Peninsula, an occasional dancing partner. He was also a committed royalist, violently opposed to those like Carevalo who sought to change the Spanish government. It took her a moment to put the pieces together, probably because she was so cold. “You think he’s Iago Lorano?”
“He fits the general description and it’s a bit too much of a coincidence otherwise. His grandmother was a Carevalo, which would give him an added interest in the ring. We were saying that if the royalists wanted to make use of the ring they’d have to find a royalist Carevalo cousin to take possession of it. Velasquez would be the perfect choice.”
They had reached the mouth of the alley. Villiers Street was empty in the immediate vicinity. Charles drew her forward into the yellow glow of a street lamp and glanced up and down the street. “Our best chance of a hackney is probably—”
A report ripped through the air. It was only when Charles collapsed against her and she smelled the cloying sweetness of blood that she realized the sound had been a gunshot.
“My leg. Right. Upper thigh.” His voice was hoarse. “Where did the shot come from?”
“I can’t tell.” She scanned the sliver of street behind them. Light shone behind several first-floor windows, but
