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mind.
    â€œDaphne,” Martin said. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes with reluctance. “You are safe here,” he said gravely. He believed it; she knew the sound of lies and this didn’t have it. She wished she could believe as he did.
    Daphne would believe him. So for tonight, let her be Daphne; let her be comforted by his words and his touch.
    â€œYou are safe here,” he repeated, low and urgent.
    Slowly, she nodded.

Chapter 4

    You are safe here.
The words echoed through Joan’s mind as she lay awake, waiting for the household to settle. They whispered and repeated, like the sound of wind stirring dried leaves along the street. Carried forward, leading somewhere—somewhere she could not bring herself to follow. She had heard so many promises in her life. Promises of love, inspiring guilt or contempt. Promises of harm, which left a coppery taste on her tongue and her heart beating quick. Safety, though? No one had been foolish enough to promise her safety. Not even her father, when he still lived.
    The rest of dinner had been . . . strange. She had taken care to reconstruct her guise gradually, and by the end she thought she had them both convinced that her momentary lapse had been the overreaction of a silly girl. She’d made breathless excuses and giggled at her own misfortune, andwatched Martin frown more and more deeply each time he thought her attention was elsewhere.
    She couldn’t keep it up. She couldn’t be Daphne with Moses so close, with the threat of Bedlam still looming near. Just as well, then, that it was time to go, and find her own safety.
    She threw off the sheet and slung her legs over the side of the bed. Mrs. Wynn, whose acquaintance Joan had made after dinner, snored beyond the wall. A clock ticked in the hallway. A skitter in the wall marked the passage of some quick-footed creature but the sounds of human activity had vanished.
    She had slept better in Bedlam, with Mary Farley screaming into her mattress two beds down, strange as it seemed. Or perhaps not so strange: at least there, she hadn’t been waiting for Hugh’s tread on the floorboards, or Moses’s shadow to fall across her.
    She rose and dressed quietly, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. She would make her exit through the back door; there were plenty of trinkets along the way that she could tuck away, and she still knew a fence or two that owed her favors, though none with the coin or the contacts to handle her little pebbles.
    She had marked her route on the way upstairs. The bedroom door had a propensity to creak; she opened it shy of the point where the hinges would whimper their small betrayal and slid her body through the gap. Long rugs ran the length of the hallways, quieting her footsteps. She carried her shoes in her hand to silence them further. She made her way, counting doors. Mrs. Wynn, Elinor, sewing room. The servants were quartered in the basement, too distant to be disturbed by her movements.
    She made her way down the stairs, testing each step with her toe and dodging the creaks. She leapt from the last step and spun silently on the ball of her foot, taking a bow to an imaginary audience. ’Round the house in perfect silence. She hadn’t entirely lost her abilities.
    A snuffbox set out on display and a petite silver candlestick joined her shoes in her hand. She wished she could somehow repay Lord Fenbrook and his sister, rather than take more from them. But they would hardly miss the trinkets, and she had little choice. She stole to the rear door with no guilt, but still a measure of regret. She eased the door open and peered through the crack.
    The stars shone bright overhead. Bright enough to stir the shadows and sketch the outline of the slender form at the end of the street. She knew that silhouette, with its limbs like knobby sticks. Hugh. She swore, quietly and fiercely. Moses might be a brute, but Hugh was worse. He made Moses worse. He