As startling incidents went, this was a particularly interesting one.

He kept moving, not altering his stride or giving any other indication that he knew he was being followed.

Several of the doorways along the lane had been built with deep vestibules and entranceways. The pools of darkness offered a variety of hiding places. He chose one at random and moved noiselessly into a well of shadows created by ancient stones.

The footsteps stopped a few seconds later. Whoever had followed him into the lane had just realized that his quarry had disappeared. Adam breathed slowly and waited, motionless. He willed his pursuer not to abandon the chase. He had some important matters to discuss with whoever was out there.

A few seconds later the footsteps started up again, hurrying now.

Adam watched for movement in the tiny lane. The single gas lamp at the far end provided barely enough light to reveal shifting shadows. But that proved sufficient for the task at hand.

The figure of the pursuer materialized as a dark shape in the greater darkness that drenched the passage.

Adam vaulted out of his hiding place. He slammed into the man with enough force to send them both sprawling on the pavement. The pursuer landed on the bottom, taking most of the shock of the fall. A metallic object clattered on the stones.

The man's hoarse, astonished shout of fear and rage ended abruptly. Adam heard a wheezing sound as the villain fought to regain the breath that had been knocked from his lungs.

"Don't move," Adam ordered.

He rolled to his feet, stepped back and slid one foot along the paving stones until it contacted an object. He bent and picked up the knife.

"I see you came armed," he observed. "Therefore, I must assume you did not follow me with the intention of inviting me to join you for a pint at the nearest tavern."

The man made a gulping sound and found his voice. "Message. Just trying to give you a message. That's all. No use to attack me like that, you bloody bastard."

"What was the message and who sent—"

He broke off when he felt the hair on the nape of his neck stir a second time. Another set of footsteps sounded, pounding toward him out of the shadows.

He swung around and tried to move aside but he came up hard against an iron railing. The second villain was upon him in an instant, lashing out with a heavily booted foot. Adam turned away from the blow, trying to limit the damage that was going to be done.

He succeeded to some extent. The boot caught him on the ribs but it did not land with the force that the attacker had intended. Off balance, Adam slammed down onto the pavement.

"This is the message," the attacker hissed. He closed in swiftly and prepared another jolting kick to the ribs.

Adam managed to grab a pant leg. He hauled on it with all his strength.

"Bastard" The assailant danced wildly, trying to stay erect and retrieve his foot.

He failed, hitting the stones hard.

The first man was on his feet. Adam heard him coming up fast from behind and turned to face him, knife in hand. The man froze a few steps away.

Holding the confiscated blade in his left hand, Adam reached inside his overcoat.

The second man scrambled awkwardly to his feet. "What are ye waitin' for, Georgie?" he whined. "Stick him. He deserves it after what he done to us"

"He's got me knife, Bart"

"True," Adam said. "But I prefer to use my own" He slid the blade from the hidden sheath inside his jacket, letting the men hear the whisper of steel on leather. "I'm more familiar with it, you see."

A short silence greeted that announcement.

"Now see here, we didn't bargain for any knife play." Georgie edged away.

"He's right," Bart assured him hastily. "Been a misunderstanding here, I believe. We were paid to deliver a message, that's all."

"Then why assault me?" Adam asked.

"The cove what commissioned us to give you the message said you would pay more attention to it if we roughed you up a bit."

"This cove you mentioned. Would he, by any chance, have been heavily whiskered and walk with a limp?" There was another short silence.

"How'd ye know that?" Bart asked, sounding deeply uneasy.

"Never mind. Now, as you have gone to all this trouble, why don't you deliver the message?"

Georgie coughed. "You're to stop poking around in certain financial matters what don't concern you." He sounded as if he were reciting a school lesson. "And if you keep prying into other people's business affairs, a certain diary will be turned over to the press."

"Thank you," Adam said. "You have confirmed my suspicion. The killer evidently does have the diary."

"What killer?" Georgie demanded nervously. "What are you talking about?"

"The man who sent the pair of you to deliver his message has recently murdered at least once and quite possibly twice."

"Ye're mad, ye are," Bart snarled. "The cove what hired us was no murderer. He were a man of business."

"So am I," Adam said.

He held the knife up slightly. There was just enough light to glint evilly on the blade.

Bart and Georgie turned and fled away down the lane.

THIRTY-ONE

"Edmund," Lydia whispered frantically. "You must not do this. You know you will regret it when the terrible fever of your rage has passed and you discover the truth. You are wrong about me, I swear it."

Edmund responded with ruthless kisses, plundering her senses with the determination of a marauding pirate intent only on gaining the abject surrender of his victim.

Trapped beneath him, her skirts a tumbled sea of delicate blue silk, she looked up into his savagely set features. She knew at once that she was powerless to stop him. He was so lost in his fury and despair that he was likely not even aware of her puny struggles.

When sanity returned, he would be horrified by his own actions. But by then it would be too late for both of them. Desperate to save herself and Edmund as well, she

placed her dainty hands against his broad shoulders in a vain attempt to check his rash assault.

Caroline paused and put down her pen. She was not entirely satisfied. It was certainly a very exciting scene but I Edmund Drake seemed to be out of control. That did not fit his character.

The muted clang of the door knocker sounded just as she made to pick up her pen for another attempt. Emma and Milly were home early. Evidently the play they had at-tended that evening had failed to live up to expectations. They must have left during the intermission.

Mrs. Plummer was in bed upstairs, having taken her usual sleeping tonic: a mix of laudanum and gin. The combination was guaranteed to ensure that she slept like the dead until morning.

Caroline listened closely and then got to her feet when she did not hear the scrape of iron in the lock. Perhaps her aunts had neglected to take their keys.

She crossed the carpet and went along the corridor to the front hall. There she paused to peer through the small panes of beveled glass that framed the door. Shock snapped through her when she saw Adam. He seemed to be leaning rather heavily against the jamb.

Hastily she unlocked the door and yanked it open. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

It is a long story." He braced one hand against the doorjamb and looked at her with a veiled expression that did nothing to conceal his prowling tension.

She was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was garbed only in a dressing gown and slippers.

"Something is wrong," she said, trying to read his hard lace. "What is it?"

"May I come in?"

"Yes, of course." She stepped back to allow him into the hall.

He shoved himself away from the doorjamb. When he walked through the opening, she saw that he was not moving with his customary masculine ease.