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had gone to ground, and Hazlit had a sneaking suspicion he knew why. A word whispered in Helene Ander’s ear by a certain presuming, statuesque redhead, a little warning between Helene and her sister-in-law, and that would be that. He tried to feel some stirring of regret for Lord Norcross, but taking on the man as a client had been a mistake.
    Hazlit made his way back to his chambers, only to find some servant had pulled back all the drapery, leaving his sitting room flooded with sunlight.
    Spring was trying to advance, but it was heavy going. Hazlit considered spending the morning loitering at the coffee shops rather than catching forty winks, and his eyes fell on the jacket he’d worn to Moreland’s meeting earlier in the week.
    A little glint of fiery gold at the cuff had him examining the sleeve.
    And damned if there weren’t three long, reddish-gold strands of hair caught on the button. Very long. So long that when he coiled them around and around and around his finger, they made a band as thick as a wedding ring.
    A token of a well-fought skirmish. He rummaged in his wardrobe for the sewing kit, bit off a length of silk thread, and tied it around his prize.
    “Excuse me, sir.”
    Hazlit’s butler, Morse, stood in the doorway, attired in sufficient dignity to grace the Regent’s residence.
    “What is it?”
    “A lady to see you. I put her in the small parlor and ordered her tea and cakes.”
    “A lady?” As opposed to a female, since Hazlit employed women as eyes and ears at many levels of society. They generally came in through the mews, after dark, cloaks pulled up over their hair, or they suffered his wrath.
    Morse extended a calling card on a silver salver, the salver held in a gloved hand. Hazlit read the card.
    Well, well, well.
    Another skirmish. His fatigue fell away. He shrugged into a morning coat, gave his cravat a last-minute inspection, and headed downstairs. His only detour on the way to the small parlor was to tuck his little token into the pages of Wordsworth, several poems away from the drying rose.
    “Miss Windham, a pleasure.” He bowed over her hand, automatically taking in the details.
    She was pretty in the morning sunshine, though that wasn’t a detail. He put her age around thirty, which by his lights was the start of a woman’s prime or her decline, depending on how she lived her life. Too often late nights, excessive food and drink, and moral laxity aged a lady before her time. She might catch a man’s eye by the light of the evening’s candles, but morning sun was a brutal mirror of truth.
    And the truth was, Maggie Windham was lovely. She had none of the lines of incipient dissipation creeping up around her full mouth. Her eyes were clear and limpid green, the same shade as her beautifully tailored walking dress. Her hair had the healthy luster of a lady who enjoyed fresh air and proper nutrition.
    That hair…
    She half rose to offer him a little curtsy, then subsided onto the sofa. “Will you be seated, Mr. Hazlit?”
    He took a place next to her, just to watch her eyes widen in surprise, though that was her only reaction—no nervous shifting away or popping out of her seat.
    “It is a pleasure to see you, Miss Windham, as stated, but an unexpected pleasure. Particularly as you’ve come calling all on your lonesome, no lady’s maid trailing about, no younger sister at your side.”
    A question dangled on the end of his observation, but his guest was saved responding by the arrival of the tea tray.
    “Shall I pour, Mr. Hazlit? And I assure you, my footman is flirting with your scullery maid as we speak.”
    “Please. It isn’t often my tea tray is graced by such a pretty lady.”
    She drew off her crocheted gloves and set them beside her on the sofa, revealing, of course, pretty hands. Not small, but slim, long-fingered, and ringless. Her nails were short and unpainted, which surprised him a little. Practical hands, not ornamental.
    “How do you like your