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to be discreet,” he added. “I’m already considered something of a fool, and this would confirm it.”
    Rob made a rare smile. “Your secret is safe with me, my lord. I have met this sort of woman before and know how best to deal with her.”
    “Oh, thank God,” Lord Cheddersby sighed. “I will be forever in your debt.”
    Rob doubted that as he reached for a piece of parchment and a pen, which he dipped in the ink bottle. Although he believed Lord Cheddersby meant what he said at the time he said it, he was unlikely to see the nobleman again unless he got himself into another similar predicament. “If you would give me the particulars of the woman?”
    “She’s rather pretty, but not so pretty when you see her without her powder and patches and wig, let me tell you. Odd’s bodikins, she’s nearly bald. I know because her wig fell off when she was … when she was …” He colored. “She was being especially energetic.”
    “I meant her name and her address, my lord.”
    “Oh, yes. Delphinia St. Dunstan.”
    “Where does she live?”
    Lord Cheddersby muttered an address that, Robert thought, should have given the nobleman a clue that she might not be trustworthy.
    “I suppose you think I’m a great, blundering fool,” Lord Cheddersby said sorrowfully. “And I fear you would be quite right—especially when it comes to the fairer sex. I am quite hopeless. I always seem to be falling in love with the wrong ones. First it was my friend’s wife—not that they were married then—and then Richard’s wife—they weren’t married then, either—and, well, it just seems every time I see a pretty woman, especially one with lovely eyes, I fall in love and there you are! I am utterly enamored, and this time … when she seemed to like me back … Oh, I just had the most marvelous idea!”
    Robert set down his pen and regarded the young aristocrat.
    “It has just occurred to me that Richard has a new play at the King’s Theatre this afternoon and I would be delighted if you would come with me.”
    “Today?”
    “This afternoon.”
    Vivienne Burroughs was going to be at the theater today. Her uncle had mentioned it yesterday during their discussion.
    Threading the largest plume on his hat through his fingers, Lord Cheddersby sighed. “Oh, well, I just thought … I don’t have anybody to go with these days except Croesus Belmaris, and he talks through the whole performance. Plus, there’s that unfortunate wart on his nose. I find myself staring at it at the most inconvenient times.”
    He had no appointments this afternoon, and Lord Cheddersby, a very kind and wealthy nobleman, was asking him.
    “I shall be delighted to accompany you to the theater today, my lord.”
    After all, the theater was a crowded place. Even if he saw Vivienne Burroughs, it would be from afar.
    What harm could there be in that?

Chapter 7
    R ob left his chambers earlier than necessary to get to the theater to meet Lord Cheddersby. He could be fairly certain that the woman attempting to extort money from the nobleman would be in at this hour.
    He easily found the rooms of the woman who called herself Delphinia St. Dunstan in a building that had obviously started out as a market stall. Some time later, the stall had been enclosed, and some time after that, a second floor added. Still later a third story had appeared, jutting over the other two.
    This was not at all unusual in the city, unfortunately. Rob didn’t doubt that one day, some of these cramped and ramshackle structures were either going to collapse in a pile of rubble or burn to the ground and set the neighboring houses on fire, too.
    He went up to the second floor and knocked loudly on the woman’s door, inhaling the stale scents that came from cramped, crowded rooms with little ventilation, yet mindful that there had been a time in his life when a room in such a place would have seemed the height of luxury.
    A female voice wafted to him like the odors from the