Secrets of a Lady

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It was the sort of night that cloaks a multitude of sins. Clouds drifted across the three-quarter moon. Mist hovered over the cobblestones, like cannon smoke after a battle. Yellow pools of lamplight glowed with murky radiance. Even in the classical expanse of Berkeley Square, with its pedimented houses and stately trees and decorous gravel walks, damp and soot choked the air.

Two passersby in sturdy wool cloaks stuck close to the shade of the plane trees by the square railing. They could have passed for a pair of manservants returning home from their evening off, the better for a pint or two in a Covent Garden tavern or even a few glasses of blue ruin in a St. Giles gin mill. Which was exactly the impression they intended to give.

The slighter of the two paused to tug her felt cap more firmly over her hair. A long apricot-colored strand slipped loose and swung over her shoulder. The woman, whose name was Meg, muttered a dockside curse and pushed the telltale hair back into its pins. She knew she should have cropped the whole mass short. Vanity had no place in games where one played for life-and-death stakes.

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