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abed a good deal, on her doctor’s orders. Sophy had had to go away to give Fashionable Society time to forget what the French widow she’d recently impersonated had looked like.
    That left Leonie, who could do what the other two did, but not with their brilliance and flair. Each sister had her special skills, and Leonie was missing her sisters’ talents acutely. And their company.
    And she was more worried than anybody about what would become of Maison Noirot. She’d put everything she had into the shop—mind, body, soul. The cholera had killed Cousin Emma and wiped out their old life in Paris. Emma had died too young, but here in London her spirit and genius lived on in their hearts and in the new life they’d so painstakingly built.
    “The girls will be better when my sisters are in the shop more regularly,” Leonie said. “Routine and habit, Jeffreys. You know our girls need not merely to be kept busy, but to have order in their lives.” Many had ended up in charitable institutions. Their lives before had been hard and chaotic. “But matters are bound to change, and everybody needs to adapt.” For these girls, adapting wasn’t easy. Change upset them. She understood. It upset her, too. “We’ll have our work cut out for us, getting them used to a new routine.”
    “You don’t need any more work,” Jeffreys said. “You need more rest, madame. You can’t be three people.”
    Leonie smiled. “No, but with your help, I might be nearly that. But do let us make haste. I must get there before it’s over.”
    Later that evening
    L eonie hurried into the conversation room adjoining the New Western Athenaeum’s lecture hall—
    —and stopped short as a tall, black-garbed figure emerged from the shadows of a window embrasure.
    “I thought you’d never come,” Lord Lisburne said.
    He was not, she saw, dressed entirely in black. In addition to the pristine white shirt and neckcloth, he wore a green silk waistcoat, exquisitely embroidered in gold. It called attention to his narrow waist . . . thence her gaze wandered lower, to the evening trousers that lovingly followed the muscled contours of his long legs.
    Leonie took a moment to settle her breathing. “Did we have an appointment?” she said. “If so, I must have made it while concussed, because I don’t recall.”
    “Oh, I was sure you’d be here.” He waved a gloved hand at the door to the lecture hall. “Swanton. Young ladies in droves.” He waved at her dress. “Advertising.”
    For this event, she’d chosen a green silk. Though a dress for evening, exposing more neck than day attire did, it was simple enough to suit a public lecture. No blond lace or ruffles and only minimal embroidery, of a darker green, above the deep skirt flounce and along the hem. The immense sleeves provided the main excitement, slashed to reveal what would appear to be chemise sleeves underneath—a glimpse of underwear, in other words. Over it she’d thrown, with apparent carelessness, a fine silk shawl, a wine red and gold floral pattern on a creamy white ground that called attention to the white enticingly visible through the slashing.
    “I meant to arrive earlier,” she said. “But we had a busy day at the shop, and the heat makes everybody cross and impatient. The customers are sharp with the girls in the shop, who then go into the workroom and quarrel with the seamstresses. We had a little crisis. It took longer to settle than it ought to have done.”
    “Lucky you,” he said. “You missed ‘Poor Robin.’ ”
    “ ‘Poor Robin’?” she said.
    He set his hat over his heart, bowed his head, and in a sepulchral voice intoned:
    When last I heard that peaceful lay
    In all its sweetness swell,
    I little thought so soon to say—
    Farewell, sweet bird, farewell!
    All cloudy comes the snowy morn,
    Poor Robin is not here!
    I miss him on the fleecy thorn,
    And feel a falling tear.
    “Oh, my,” she said.
    “It continued,” he said, “for what seemed to