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needed to. “And he very nearly succeeded. The Thames is freezing at this time of year. If Atherton hadn’t spent his youth swimming back and forth across the river . . .” He lifted one shoulder. “Needless to say, Atherton and Penelope want Clary’s head on a pike.”
    â€œWould that they could get it!” she said in a sudden burst of animation. “I never thought—”
    â€œThat he was so determined?” Jamie shook his head impatiently. “I think you did. Why else are you out in Gravesend, trying not to call attention to yourself, when no one in London knows where you are? Help me, Olivia. Clary tried to kill my sister. He’s wanted in London for that, as well as on suspicion of causing the death of Lord Stratford.” Olivia’s eyes widened. “The shock of seeing his son and heir leap into the Thames, apparently to his death, was too much for the earl. He dropped dead, or so Lord Clary told people. Atherton suspects his father was in league with Clary, which puts him in position to expose Clary. But it appears you know even more about Clary’s activities, and Atherton—or should I say, the new Lord Stratford—told me to implore you to help him. And since I daresay it wouldn’t upset you one whit to see Clary rotting in prison or swinging from a rope, I sincerely hope you’ll trust me and tell me what the devil he’s holding over your head.”

Chapter 6
    B efore he left London, Jamie had tried to answer three vital questions.
    The first one involved Henry Townsend. Years ago, right after Olivia married him, Jamie had inquired just enough to satisfy himself that Olivia would be taken care of. He made sure the man had a comfortable income and no serious stains on his character, and then he quit looking. That had been his own fault, his inability—unwillingness—to think too deeply about her with another man.
    This time he wanted to know everything, and there turned out to be a lot to know. Far from being the upstanding gentleman Jamie had presumed, Townsend had run with a fast crowd, which included the notorious Lord Clary. Clary came from a famous and illustrious family, the son of an admiral and the brother of a decorated commodore. He married the daughter of a duke and moved through the very best society with a commanding arrogance that earned him a great deal of deference but very few friends . . . except for Henry Townsend. And ever since Henry died, Lord Clary had been very attentive to his widow.
    That had led into Jamie’s second question. What could Clary’s interest in Olivia be? He didn’t doubt the obvious one; Olivia was a beautiful woman, even lovelier than she’d been as a girl. Despite his arrogance, Clary was reputed to be persuasive and charming when he wished to be, and many women thought him quite handsome. Their descriptions put Jamie in mind of a hawk: sleekly magnificent, powerful and ruthless. But somehow he didn’t think Olivia would have begged Penelope for two hundred pounds and fled London if Clary was merely trying to seduce her.
    The third question, though, had yielded the most sobering information. He knew Olivia had given up her house in the fashionable part of town after Henry’s death; to make the most of her widow’s portion, he assumed. But it turned out Olivia had almost no income at all. The annuity that should have kept her in comfort had been quietly canceled soon after the elder Mr. Townsend died, and Henry lost the capital at the races. Henry lost quite a lot at the races, Jamie learned, although he also spent freely on clothing and theater boxes and kept a very fine table. By Jamie’s rough math, Henry had probably spent his entire inherited fortune in the course of three or four years—and yet continued to live in the same high style for two more years without accruing much debt. That alone was suspicious. When added to the mystery about Clary, it made