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contentedly into the worn leather chair. He stretched his long legs comfortably out in front of him. ‘Late last night. I left Paris Thursday, stopped for a couple of nights at Uppington Hall, and got into town about midnight.’ He grinned at his friend. ‘I’m in hiding.’
    Miles instantly stiffened. Anxiously, he looked left, then right, before leaning forward and hissing, ‘From whom? Did they follow you here?’
    Richard shouted with laughter. ‘Good God, nothing like that, man! No, I’m a fugitive from my mother.’
    Miles relaxed. ‘You might have said so,’ he commented crossly. ‘As you can imagine, we’re all a bit on edge.’
    ‘Sorry, old chap.’ Richard smiled his thanks as a glass of his favourite brand of scotch materialised in his hands. Ah, it was good to be back at his club!
    Miles accepted a whisky, and leant back in his chair. ‘What is it this time? Is she throwing another distant cousin at you?’
    ‘Worse,’ Richard said. He took a long swig of scotch. ‘Almack’s.’
    Miles grimaced in sympathy. ‘Not the knee breeches.’
    ‘Knee breeches and all.’
    There was a moment of companionable silence as the men, both fashionably turned out in tight tan trousers, contemplated the horror of knee breeches. Miles finished his whisky and set it down on a low table beside his chair. Taking a more thorough look around the room, he asked Richard quietly, ‘How is Paris?’
    Not only Richard’s oldest and closest friend, Miles also served as his contact at the War Office. When Richard had switched from rescuing aristocrats to gathering secrets, the Minister of War had wisely pointed out that the best possible way to communicate with Richard was through young Miles Dorrington. After all, the two men moved in the same set, shared the same friends, and could frequently be seen reminiscing over the tables at White’s. Nobody would see anything suspicious about finding two old friends in hushed conversation. As an excuse for his frequent calls at Uppington House,Miles had put it about that he was thinking of courting Richard’s sister. Henrietta had entered into the deception with, to Richard’s big-brotherly mind, a little too much relish.
    Richard took his own survey of the room, noting the back of a white head poking out over a chair back. He lifted an eyebrow quizzically at Miles.
    Miles shrugged. ‘It’s only old Falconstone. Deaf as a post and fast asleep to boot.’
    ‘And his son is one of ours. Right. Paris has been…busy.’
    Miles tugged at his cravat. ‘Busy how?’
    ‘Stop that, or you’ll have your valet baying for your blood.’
    Miles looked sheepish and tried to rearrange the folds of his cravat, which had gone from being a perfect waterfall to simply falling all over.
    ‘Lots of comings and goings from the Tuilleries – more than usual,’ Richard continued. ‘I’ve sent a full report to the office. Along with some information helpfully compiled by our mutual friend Monsieur Delaroche at the Ministry of Police.’ His lips curved in a grin of sheer glee.
    ‘Good man! I knew you could do it! A list of all their agents in London – and right out from under Delaroche’s nose, no less! You do have the devil’s own luck.’ Richard’s back was too far away to reach, so Miles slapped the arm of his chair appreciatively instead. ‘And your connections to the First Consul?’
    ‘Better than ever,’ Richard said. ‘He’s moved the collection of Egyptian artefacts into the palace.’
    Egyptian artefacts might seem a topic beyond the scope of the War Office. But not when their top agent played the role of Bonaparte’s pet scholar.
    When Richard created the Purple Gentian, the talent for ancient languages that had stunned his schoolmasters at Eton had come to his aid once again. While Sir Percy had pretended to be a fop, Richard bored the French into complacency with long lectures about antiquity. When Frenchmen demanded to know what he wasdoing in France, and