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peaceful here,” Sir Walter said quietly.
    She nodded. “One would hardly know the city is just outside the gate.” The breeze was soft and cool against her warm face. “Well, Sir Walter, I suppose—”
    “I shall see you to your door.” He offered her his arm again. “My upbringing requires it, I am afraid.”
    “There is nothing to be regretted in gentlemanly behavior,” Miss Tolerance said. She took his arm, her gloved hand a white blur upon the dark fold of his sleeve. In ten steps they were at her door; the cottage was ivy-covered and dark, but here and there the whitewashed walls were stippled by moonlight. Sir Walter’s arm under her hand was solid, and she was aware of his warmth at her side. She was relieved to relinquish his support and step away.
    “There, you have done your duty. Thank you, Sir Walter. For the play and the company.” She curtsied.
    “The pleasure was all mine.” Sir Walter took her hand and bowed over it. Then, slowly, he raised it to her lips. The kiss was light, but the impression of it she felt even through the kidskin of her glove. “Good night.”
    “Good night,” Miss Tolerance echoed, and was inside her cottage with the door closed before her words died on the night air. She locked the door and prepared for bed, thinking.
    For a Fallen Woman, Miss Tolerance was peculiarly chaste. Her liaison with Charles Connell had lacked nothing but the ceremony itself to make it a marriage; they had been faithful to each other, maturing from the first surprises of passion to a companionable domesticity. Connell’s death had left her much in the same case as a young widow. She had not intended to become involved with another man—she had devised her profession to ensure that she would not need to become someone’s mistress in order to avoid starvation.
    Then, almost a twelvemonth ago she had formed an attachment to the earl of Versellion—against her better judgment but not, certainly, against her will. Their liaison had been a matter of attraction both sexual and emotional, and while Miss Tolerance had not been able to imagine how a relationship between a Fallen Woman and a politically ambitious peer could prosper, she had not had the will to quit it. Not, at least, until she had discovered that the earl had murdered a woman, and she had turned him in to Bow Street—to Sir Walter Mandif, in point of fact. In the difficult time after, when Miss Tolerance had gained brief notoriety by testifying against Versellion, Sir Walter had been a friend as well as a colleague. She relied upon that friendship, and made every effort to ignore the possibility of any shift in their association. Love, she believed, was a danger and a liability to a Fallen Woman with no interest in whoredom.
    Her dress brushed and hung away, Miss Tolerance put on her nightshft and brushed her teeth. The kissing of hands was an old-fashioned gesture, but it was not entirely out of style. And Sir Walter had likely been much swayed by the romance of the play; he was a greater fancier of Shakespeare’s work than she. The kiss had meant nothing more than friendship. A courteous gesture.
    She still felt the pressure of his lips on her hand.
    Miss Tolerance brushed her long, dark hair, braided it, and climbed into her bed to listen to the whispering of ivy at her window.
     

Chapter Three
    Miss Tolerance dreamed.
     
    It was dark, night, roiling with thunder. Each burst of blue-white lightning illumined her father’s face like a pantomime mask, a caricature of glaring eyes and hawk nose. She stood in her father’s hall, Connell’s hand clenched in her own. Sir William’s voice echoed, calling her whore and threatening to kill her and her lover. They fled the house, riding through the storm with certain knowledge that they were pursued. Rain drummed upon her back—in the dream she wore the linen shirt and breeches in which she had fenced—and could smell the wet wool of Connell’s coat under her cheek. She felt her