“Has something happened, Thomas?” she asked without preamble. She had no need to add that he looked haggard and no normal occurrence could have brought him here at this time of day and in this state.

“A great deal has happened,” he replied, pulling out a chair for her and holding it while she sat down. “And it is uglier and more dangerous than anything I have ever imagined before.”

She waved to the chair at the opposite side of the elegant, octagonal table. It had originally been set for one, but a second place had been added by a maid who anticipated her mistress’s wishes.

“You had better tell me,” Vespasia instructed him. She looked at him critically. “I imagine you could do so over breakfast?” It was not really a question. “Although it might be prudent to suspend your remarks while the servants are in the room.”

“Thank you,” he accepted. Already he was beginning to feel a little ease from the sense of despair with which he had begun. He realized with surprise how deeply he loved this remarkable woman whose birth, heritage and entire life were so different from his own. He looked at her beautiful face with its perfect bones and fragile skin, the heavy-lidded eyes, the delicate lines of age, and knew the irretrievable sense of loss he would feel when she was no longer here. He could not bring himself to use the word dead even in the secrecy of his mind.

“Thomas…” she prompted.

“Did you read about the death of Sissons, the sugar manufacturer?” he asked.

“Yes. Apparently he was murdered,” she replied. “The newspapers imply it was by Jewish moneylenders. I should be very surprised if that is true. I assume it is not, and you are aware of what is.”

“Yes.” There was no time to be restrained or careful. “I found him. It was made to look like suicide. There was a note.” Briefly he told her what it had said. Then wordlessly he passed over the note of debt.

She looked at it, then walked over to her escritoire and took out a handwritten note. She looked at both pieces of paper, and smiled.

“It is a good likeness,” she said. “But not perfect. Do you wish for it back?”

“I think it is safer with you,” he replied, surprisingly relieved that it was not, after all, one more piece of self-indulgence.

He told her of the letter from Adinett, and the deduction he had drawn from it. He watched her as he spoke, and saw sadness in her face, and anger, but not surprise. Her belief was a tiny thread of comfort.

And then it was even harder to tell her what he had done, but there was no way whatever to avoid it. To weigh personal feelings now would be inexcusable.

“I destroyed both letters and took the gun away when I left, and dropped them in one of the sugar vats,” he said jerkily. “I made it look like murder.”

She nodded very slightly. “I see.”

He waited for her to go on, for the surprise, the distancing of herself from the act, but he did not see it. Was she so good at concealing her thoughts? Possibly. Maybe she had seen enough duplicity and betrayal over the decades that nothing shocked her anymore. Or perhaps she had never expected anything different from him. How well did he really know her? Why had he assumed so confidently that she thought of him as honorable, so that anything he did, or failed to do, would mark her more than peripherally?

“No, you don’t,” he replied, pain and anger sharpening his voice. “I learned from Wally Edwards, the other night watchman, that Sissons had an injured right hand. He couldn’t have pulled the trigger himself. I made a murder, disguised as suicide, look like a murder again.” He drew in a deep breath. “And I think I saw the man who did it, but I have no idea who he was, except that I have not seen him before.”

She waited for him to continue.

“He was older, dark hair graying, dark complexion, fineboned face. He had a dark-stoned signet ring on his hand. If he was one of the Jews from the area, he’s one I don’t know.”

She sat silent for so long he began to fear she had not heard him, or had not understood. He stared at her. There was an immense sadness in her eyes. Her thoughts were inwards, fixed upon something he could not even guess at.

He hesitated, not knowing whether to interrupt or not. Questions beat in his mind. Should he not have troubled her with this? Was he expecting far too much of her, thinking her superhuman, investing her with strength she could not have?

“Aunt Vespasia…” Then he realized with a wave of embarrassment that he had been too familiar. She was not his aunt. She was his wife’s sister’s aunt, by marriage. He had presumed intolerably. “I…”

“Yes, I heard you, Thomas,” she said quietly, no anger or offense in her voice, only confusion. “I was wondering whether it was deliberate or another piece of opportunism. I can see no way in which opportunism is believable. It must have been planned in order to embarrass the crown, or worse, perhaps to cause riots which could then be exploited…” She frowned. “But it is very ruthless. I…” She lifted one shoulder very slightly. He saw how thin she was under the silk of the peignoir, and again he felt her fragility, and her strength.

“There is more,” he said quietly.

“There must be,” she agreed. “Alone this does not make sense. It would accomplish nothing permanent.”

Suddenly he felt as if they were allies again. He was ashamed of doubting her generosity of spirit. Stumbling to find the right words, he told her what Tellman had said about the Duke of Clarence and Annie Crook, and the whole tragic story.

The clear morning light caught both Vespasia’s beauty and her age, the passion of all that she had seen in her lifetime. It was naked in her eyes and her lips, how deeply she had felt it, and understood.

“I see,” she said when he finally came to the end. “And where is this man Remus now?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. “Looking for the last shred of proof, I imagine. If he had it, Dismore at least would have printed it by now.”

Vespasia shook her head fractionally. “I think from what you say that it was intended to break at the same time as Sissons’s suicide, and you prevented that. We may have a day or so of grace.”

“To do what?” he asked, a sharp note of desperation back in his voice. “I have no idea who to trust. The Inner Circle could be anybody!” He felt the darkness close in on him again, impenetrable, suffocating. He wanted to go on, say something that would describe the enormity of it, but he did not know how to, except by repeating the same desperate, inadequate words over and over again.

“If the Inner Circle is at the heart of this conspiracy,” Vespasia said, almost as much to herself as to him, “then their desire is to overthrow the government, and the throne, and replace them with a leadership of their own, presumably a republic of some nature.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But knowing that does not help us to find them, let alone prevent it.”

She shook her head a little. “That is not my point, Thomas. If the Inner Circle ’s intent is to create a republic, then they certainly were not the ones who concealed the tragic marriage of the Duke of Clarence or murdered five unhappy women to make sure it was never known.” She looked at him steadily, her silver eyes unblinking.

“Two conspiracies…” he whispered. “Then who else? Not… not the throne itself?”

“Please God, no,” she answered. “I cannot swear, but I should guess the Masons. They have the power, and the will to protect the crown and the government.”

He tried to imagine it. “But would they…?”

She smiled very slightly. “Men will do anything, if they believe in the cause enough and have sworn oaths they dare not break. Of course, it is also possible it has nothing to do with them at all. We may never know. But someone has broken an oath, or been extraordinarily careless, and someone else has been cleverer than anyone foresaw, because the Inner Circle now has both the power to shatter everything and, it seems, the will to do it.” She took a deep breath. “You have delayed them, Thomas, but I doubt they will accept defeat.”