‘Father, what happened?’

‘Some girl...brought it. Don’t know why.’ His right hand moved restlessly. Marcus knelt by the chaise, taking his father’s hand in his as his mother got up and moved aside to give him room.

His father gripped his fingers. ‘There.’ He turned his head towards the desk where a brown-paper parcel lay undone, something heaped in its midst. ‘My boy.’ His voice dropped to a whisper and Marcus leaned close to hear. ‘That old business. Hebden and Wardale. Dead and buried...I thought.’ He closed his eyes again. ‘Don’t fuss. Shock, that’s all. Damn this heart.’

Lady Narborough met Marcus’s eyes across the room, her own wide and questioning as he curled his fingers around his father’s wrist and felt for the pulse. ‘He’ll do,’ he murmured as the housekeeper came in with the tea, the valet at her heels with the belladonna drops.

Between them, they got the earl propped up and sipping his tea. Certain his mother was occupied, Marcus moved to the desk and examined the parcel that had caused all the trouble. Ordinary stout brown paper tied with string and sealed with a blob of red wax. The Earl of Narborough and the address in a firm black hand, probably masculine. Marcus bent and sniffed: no perfume.

And lying in the centre, beside the knife his father had used to slash the string, a length of coiled rope. It was perhaps an inch thick and a strange colour, a mix of fine soft threads—blues, reds, yellows, white, brown and black.

Frowning, Marcus lifted it and it slithered, snakelike, in his grip. The feel as it moved was somehow alive. Silk? Then he saw the loop and the knot in the end, and recognised it. A silken rope, a luxurious halter to hang a man. The privilege, if such it could be called, accorded to a peer of the realm who was sentenced to death.

Hebden and Wardale, his father had said. One a victim, the other his murderer. Two dead men. And now, after almost twenty years, this rope delivered to their closest friend. Coincidence? He did not think so and neither, it was obvious, did his father.

With a glance to reassure himself that the earl seemed stable enough, Marcus slipped from the room. Raised female voices could be heard from the White Salon, but the hall was empty save for Wellow, on the watch for the doctor.

‘Wellow, what the devil has been going on here?’

The butler tightened his lips, his face once more impassive beneath the imposing dome of his bald head. ‘A young woman called—at the front door, my lord. Richards answered it. He says she appeared a lady, despite carrying a parcel, which is why he did not send her to the tradesmen’s entrance. She asked to speak to his lordship, insisted that she must deliver the package into his hands.

‘Richards showed her through to the study.’ The butler’s expression boded ill for the junior footman. ‘I regret to say he has now forgotten the name he was given to announce. He left her alone with his lordship. A few moments later the young woman came out of the room, calling for help. His lordship was in a collapsed condition. I told Richards to shut her in the library and lock the door until your return, my lord, considering that the entire affair had a most irregular appearance.’

‘Very wise, thank you, Wellow. I will speak to her now. Call me when the doctor arrives.’

The key was in the lock. Marcus turned it and went into the library, braced for almost anything.

The woman who turned from her contemplation of the street was tall, slender to the point of thinness and clad in a plain, dark pelisse and gown. Her bonnet was neither fashionable nor dowdy; the impression she gave was of neatness and frugality. As he came closer and noticed the tightness with which her hands were clasped before her and the rigidity of her shoulders, he realized that she was under considerable strain.

‘The butler told me to wait for Lord Stanegate. Are you he?’ Her voice was a surprise. Warm and mellow, like honey. Hazel eyes watched him, full of concern. Feigned?

‘I am Stanegate,’ he said, not troubling to blank out his feelings from either his face or voice. For whatever reason, she had made his father very ill. ‘And you?’

‘Miss Smith.’

Why couldn’t I have thought of something more convincing? Nell stared back into the hard eyes, as dark as wet flint. He was too big, too serious, too male. And far too close. She locked her knees against the instinct to edge backwards as she read the anger under the control he was exerting.

‘Miss Smith?’ No, he didn’t believe her. There was scepticism in the deep voice, and one corner of his mouth turned down in the reverse of a smile as he studied her face. ‘Why, exactly, have you delivered a silken rope to my father?’

Nell made herself withstand the compelling dark eyes. ‘Is that what it was? The parcel seemed innocuous enough. I saw no harm in it.’

‘The rope looked like a snake. You are fortunate that he did not die of the shock. The earl is not a well man, his heart is weak.’ There was the anger again, like fire behind the flint. A man who loved his father and was afraid for him.

‘I had no idea what it contained. It was only a parcel to be delivered.’ Just let me go...

‘Indeed? You hardly look like the sort of female to be employed delivering parcels.’ The viscount—she supposed that was what he was; her grasp of the ranks of nobility was escaping her under stress—folded his arms across his chest and looked her up and down. She knew what he was seeing. Shabby gentility, neatness and decency maintained by sheer willpower and a refusal to give in and allow her standards to slip.

‘I am a—’ Lie, her instincts shouted ‘—dressmaker. I deliver garments for fittings to clients’ homes on behalf of my employer. One gentleman asked, as a favour, if she would have me deliver that parcel here. He has spent a good deal of money at the shop recently. Madame did not like to refuse such a good customer.’

‘His name?’ He did not seem to actually disbelieve her despite the sceptical line of that hard mouth. And it was true. Almost.

‘I do not know it.’

‘Really, Miss Smith? An excellent customer of your employer and you do not know his name?’ He moved closer, just a little, just to the very edge of discomfort for her, and narrowed his eyes.

Nell lifted her chin and stared back, letting him see that she was assessing him in her turn, refusing to be cowed. Almost thirty, she guessed; six foot, give or take half an inch; fit; confident, used to getting his own way. Was that because of his station in life or his inherent qualities? All she could tell of the latter, just now, was that he was an angry man who loved his father.

‘No, I do not know his real name, my lord. I know the name he gave: Salterton.’

‘And how do you know that is false?’

‘I assumed by the style of what he chose that he was buying items for his mistress. He spent a lot of money. Money, I deduced, that he would not want his wife to know about. I was there when he first came into the shop and I heard Madame ask him his name. He hesitated, just a fraction, and then there was something in his voice. He was lying; one can tell.’

‘Indeed, one can,’ Lord Stanegate said, that mobile corner of his mouth twitching up into a fleeting smile that held no humour whatsoever. Nell felt her cheeks grow hot and stared fixedly at the cabochon-ruby pin in his neckcloth. ‘What does he look like?’

‘I hardly saw him and I think that was deliberate on his part. I do not think even Madame has fully seen his face. He always seems to come in the evening and he wears a slouch hat, his collar is turned up. He pays in cash, not on account.

‘But one can see he is dark.’ She struggled for remembrance and to assemble her impressions into a coherent description. ‘He is foreign perhaps, because there is something in his voice—not quite an accent, more of a lilt, although he speaks like an English gentleman. He looks fit, he moves well.’ She frowned, chasing the elusive words to describe the shadowy figure. ‘Like a dancer. He is not quite as tall as you and of slighter build.’