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annoyed. Here she was, the lamb going to slaughter, and she was trying to make him feel better about it!
    â€œJustin, do you remember when I fell in love with Nathan? You were so strong then. You were the great baron, the head of the household, insisting that I would marry as I chose. Well, I did. You supported me when many a man wouldn’t have done so. Well, I have lost Nathan. And I will never love again. So if I marry a very rich nobleman who is ridiculously in love with me—without even knowing me!—it will not really matter in the least. Hopefully, we will be friends.”
    He looked straight ahead. “Friends, yes. Oh, yes, because he is surely one of the most decent fellows I have ever met.”
    She sat back. “You know him?”
    â€œOf course.” He gave a dry laugh. “He doesn’t run with the likes of Eddy. He is very close to the Queen. One of the few people she will see in private, and with whom she shares her mourning and her confidence. They console one another. His wife has been gone for years, as has Her Majesty’s still so lamented dear Prince Albert. Truly, he is decent, caring, and not at all bad-looking, really. Well, you know, for such an old tar! Tall and regal. Dignified. Indeed, you might make quite a pair, turning the world upside down.” He tried to smile.
    She smiled. “So . . . I meet him tomorrow.”
    â€œI don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”
    â€œYes, well, I don’t think either of us would like Newgate, either,” she said a little sharply. Again, for a moment, she felt the temptation to throttle him. Except that she knew that, whatever trouble he might have gotten into, Justin truly rued anything that might now hurt her. He was telling the truth. If she exhibited one bit of distress, he’d offer himself to the authorities.
    â€œLook, Maggie, you must listen to me—”
    â€œJustin, a few possibilities here are beginning to appeal to me. Do you know just how powerful I could become—with the right backing?”
    â€œBut there is no agreement, unless you truly wish it.”
    She didn’t tell him that she would wish it if he produced the devil himself—as long as it kept him from marrying a dowager with one foot in the grave and not a prayer of producing an heir.
    â€œNaturally,” she murmured, and started to leave the parlor. She was shaking too hard to stay.
    But at the arch to the entry, she paused, swinging back on him. “If you get into this kind of debt again, Justin, you won’t need to worry about Newgate. I’ll swing you from a yardarm myself, do you understand?”
    She didn’t want an answer. She fled.
    * * *
    â€œNine-fifty-five,” Mireau said, giving her the exact time before she could ask. She had voiced the question every few minutes for the last twenty.
    Like Justin, he had tried to dissuade her. He had come up with every other possible solution, none of which was actually possible. He had wanted to wage some kind of battle himself, but they both knew, even if he suddenly managed to make himself a respected literary name, it would be eons before he actually made money in any appreciable sum.
    Then they had talked about the pros and cons, because he was Mireau, and he always made her see herself and a situation clearly.
    â€œJustin has seen the man?” Mireau asked suddenly.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd his description?” Mireau asked.
    â€œTall and dignified.”
    Mireau was looking out the upstairs window above the entry. She realized that their visitors had come, and she rushed up behind him, carefully taking a position where she might be covered by the draperies.
    A carriage had arrived. Far grander than her uncle’s. Big, drawn by a pair of matched black stallions that were truly magnificent. A third horse was tethered to the rear. Three men stood at the open doorway to the coach, where velvet covered steps had been