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harbor?”
    Barlow leaned forward eagerly. “Excellent idea! You’d be housed together under nominal guard. Easy to get him to trust you . . .”
    “If I can find out what you want to know, you needn’t interrogate the wretch at all. That will conceal that there has been a leak, which will preserve the secrecy of our effort.”
    Barlow’s smile was that of a predator crouched over his prey. “Exactly.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “Somewhere in the Atlantic making his way back to England. I got the news from a navy cutter. The frigate will be a week behind. A week to get the prisoners settled in the hulk . . . Expect to hear from me in a fortnight.”
    John gulped the last of his brandy and stubbed out hischeroot. “I’ll be ready. Portsmouth in April. Sounds like quite a little vacation.”
    Barlow stared at the end of his cheroot. He had something else to say. John remained, one leg stretched out before him. “I don’t think we have ever had a man in the field who knew quite as much of the overall picture, the positions of various agents, as you do.”
    John schooled his face to impassivity. “Your agents don’t normally last long enough.”
    Barlow nodded, thoughtful. “You are a precious commodity. Perhaps we shouldn’t send you after this particular information.”
    John held his breath. “So either you think I would become a double agent, or that under torture I would reveal too much.” There were two answers to that problem for Barlow. Barlow could retire him or kill him. John didn’t like either of them.
    Barlow’s old eyes rose from the tip of his cheroot to John’s face. “It is a danger.”
    “I’ve a fair tolerance for pain.” He wouldn’t answer the question of being a traitor.
    “All men break, boy.”
    “But you have no one better. So shall we save this conversation until after we find the center of this French web?” John sauntered to the door. “I shall expect to hear from you.”
    “You will,” Barlow muttered behind him.
    John slid down the back stairs of the club. He was glad he hadn’t told Barlow about the footpads. It would have given him another excuse to send someone less capable than John. The truth was, he only felt alive with the adrenaline of a mission pumping through him.
    His thoughts glided back ten years, twelve. When had he become what he was? After traipsing around the Continent, fleeing from the world’s derision and from Angela, life seemed empty. Then, while drinking an archduke underthe table in Vienna, he had come into possession of some very interesting information. When he woke the next afternoon, he realized his country might well have use for that information. John grimaced. Langley, volunteer spy. He had vowed to spend his life loving his country if he could not bring himself to love women. Painful, how romantical he had been even at what, twenty-seven? He thought having sex with women instead of loving them made him callous. What did he know then? That was before the killing, before he realized he was an expendable commodity to his government, before he knew what dragging oneself through the dregs of humanity could do to you.
    He wondered what he would do if Barlow ever retired him. He couldn’t imagine how flat life would be without even this slender purpose. If Barlow left him alive . . .
    Beatrix alighted in front of the imposing façade of Bessborough House, escorted by a young colonel of the Twelfth Light Dragoons, Fredrick Ponsonby, who just happened to be the son of the Duke and Duchess of Bessborough. Friday had been positively interesting. Only one night to procure an invitation to an exclusive engagement whose hostess was notoriously picky about the ton of her guests. Beatrix always made it into mainstream society in the end, but the duchess and her ilk were the last bastions to fall. A challenge. In fact, her focus on Langley’s dare had kept the memories at bay for almost two days.
    The only real risk had been the time frame. She had