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Manners looked towards Fielding. “He is in a worse case than we were told.”

“Much worse.”

Judith ignored them, although warmth crept into her cheeks. “If the same repairer handled Lady Marwood’s necklace, we have a connection between two disclosures.”

“And a real route,” Renforth said. “Not necessarily the entire route, but enough to narrow it.”

Renforth folded the paper and returned it to the clasp. “We do not alter anything at Blackthorn. The supposed meeting proceeds tomorrow evening. Whoever sent this believes the information arrived safely, and I want him to continue believing it.”

“Do you mean to let the traitor act again?” Judith asked.

“I mean to give him the opportunity.”

Judith looked at the little silver object and felt a chill wholly unrelated to the damp room. For weeks the disclosures had been words, suspicions and repeated phrases. Now treachery lay upon a scarred wooden table, small enough to close inside her hand. Someone beneath her uncle’s roof had placed information into a chain designed to carry it towards men preparing for rebellion, and that person might sit opposite her at dinner tonight.

The meeting continued for another hour. By the end, Judith understood why Baines spoke of these men as he did. They argued without taking offence, questioned one another without vanity and moved from humour to gravity with an ease born of long familiarity. Renforth did not need to issue an order twice because the others were several steps ahead of it. Fielding noticed practical difficulties, Stuart challenged assumptions, Chum possessed an unexpected talent for seeing how objects might be concealed or transferred, whilst Manners understood the habits of Society well enough to predict what each Blackthorn guest would do when confronted with an apparently private political gathering.

Baines was different when among them. Judith had known he was intelligent. She had watched him manipulate conversations, test suspects and remember details others dismissed. Yet here she saw more clearly the shape of the gentleman beneath the performance. The others expected his judgement. Renforth listened when he spoke; Stuart disagreed with him without dismissing him; Fielding asked his opinion before offering his own. No one treated him as ridiculous.

The realization touched something unexpectedly tender inside her. His foolishness had never been a disguise he wore because these men failed to see through it. They saw through it perfectly and loved him anyway.

By the time Renforth dismissed them, dusk had begun settling across the countryside. The men departed separately: Fielding to return the parcel to the messenger then follow it, Stuart and Chum back to their respective posts. Manners would return to Lord Harcourt’s and contrive an invitation to Blackthorn the following afternoon.

Renforth followed several minutes later, leaving Baines and Judith to return by the longer southern path so they would not approach Blackthorn from the same direction as any of the others. For a while they rode without speaking.

Judith found herself thinking about the clasp. “We were right.”

Baines looked at her.

“About the information being carried physically. We were right.”

“Yes.”

“Yet I do not feel particularly triumphant.”

Judith felt that same strange shift she had begun noticing more frequently in him, the moment when the charming Major Baines disappeared and the man beneath stepped quietly into his place. They reached the small stone bridge spanning the stream below Blackthorn. Judith reined in before crossing it.

Baines stopped beside her.

“I do not want to go back yet.”

He did not ask why.

They dismounted and led the horses down towards the water, where willows bent over the bank and the evening light lingered silver upon the surface. Judith had come there often as a girl when Blackthorn had become too crowded, though she had not visited the place in years.

She tied her mare to a branch. Baines did the same with Lucifer.

“Someone in the house is doing this,” she said. “I know that is not new, but seeing the paper has made it more personal. They have been seated at our table, have listened to conversations beneath my uncle’s roof, and all the while were deciding which words might be useful to people willing to spill blood.”

Baines stood beside her. “We will find them.”

Judith looked into the stream. “I thought I was helping people.”

“You were.”

“I passed on information too.”

“Not that information.”