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Clare interpreted. “He means, Hazelwood, that you are to use that polished address for which you are so well known to get the girl eating out of your hand.”

Hazelwood had not misunderstood. Goldsworthy wanted him to be his old self, the man he was before he’d been recruited as a spy. He had been only too willing to respond to female interest from the first blushing housemaid who’d giggled at him to the highflyers who’d offered their services at the going rate. He let Goldsworthy wait.

If he could figure out what information the government wanted, maybe he could avoid being a complete villain in the girl’s life.

“My guess is that whether Jane Fawkener realizes it or not, her father has left her in possession of the names of his friends in the Middle East, and that every one of those friends would be in grave danger if that information fell into Russian hands.”

Goldsworthy assumed a sudden deafness while he rustled through a pile of loose documents on the vast desk. Hazelwood and Clare exchanged a glance. The big man’s feigned disinterest was as good a sign as any that Hazelwood had hit it right.

A moment later, the papers shuffled to his apparent satisfaction, Goldsworthy pulled an envelope from the pile and lifted his head. He fixed Hazelwood with another fierce stare. “Can you do it?”

“You mean can I captivate the girl? Make her smile at me, look my way when I enter a crowded room, ignore all other partners, and offer me her confidences? Of course.”

“Good. Do you know who followed you today?”

“A hired spy, a local, and not a serious tough. He scared off easily. Tomorrow, I’ll send Wilde around to the livery stable where the fellow came from to see who sent him. Anything more, sir?”

“You’ve secured the information tonight?”

Once again Goldsworthy’s attitude left him with a vague distaste for the assignment. “Protected the girl, you mean? I left a guard outside her door.”

Goldsworthy nodded his approval. “Here’s an invitation to a dinner party next week. Take the girl. See what you can learn.” He tossed an envelope across the desk, and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed them both. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

Hazelwood and Clare rose. They passed through the darkened coffee room without speaking until they reached the foot of the stairs, where they stopped to pick up candles, and Clare spoke again. “Do you think Malikov’s behind these attacks on your girl?”

Hazelwood took up his candle. He needed to get his head straight. He had been thinking of Jane Fawkener as his, which was a sure way to make mistakes and muff his assignment. “If Malikov is involved, then someone inside the Foreign Office is sharing information about the girl a little too freely. Her Walhouse cousins were at her door at an uncivil hour this morning.”

“Chartwell could have told the family that she’d returned,” Clare suggested.

“True, but I don’t like it that we’re lying to the girl at every turn.”

Clare laughed. “It’s your last case, and you’re complaining because you’ve been ordered to make love to a pretty girl. Just do it, and be thankful you’re not facing a Spanish fort with French guns trained on you.”

“Clare, is that envy speaking? Remind me sometime to ask you about your faults, if you have any. Has Goldsworthy saddled you with something particularly disagreeable or dangerous?”

“Worse than that. Dull. I’m looking for a blind man, who may be mad.”

“Ah.” Hazelwood understood. Clare liked to lead charges in battle, sword drawn, facing the enemy head on. He had no stomach for lurking in dark places listening to random talk, seeking crumbs of information.

“So far my blind man hasn’t turned up in any of the usual places, nor is he known in the almshouses. Usually, a blind man has his territory, and the neighborhood folks look out for him or know how to avoid him. I don’t think this fellow is doing any begging.”

“Then someone is sheltering him. Why does Goldsworthy want him?”

“He may be the only witness to a murder.”

“A blind witness?”

Clare shrugged. “That’s Goldsworthy for you. Our inscrutable leader won’t share what he knows until you’re up to your neck in assassins.”

At the top of the stairs, as they prepared to go their separate ways, Clare had a last question. “Have you made plans for leaving the redemption club?”

“‘Redemption club?’ Is that what you’re calling it? No plans. You?”

“None.” Clare grinned at him and they parted.

Hazelwood sought his own rooms. Though he could joke with Clare, Hazelwood didn’t like the part he’d been assigned to play in Jane Fawkener’s life. He had thrown himself into youthful love affairs, but he had never deliberately deceived a woman for gain.

He entered his room, set down his candle, and began to undress. Goldsworthy’s club was not the Albany, but the original owner of the club had designed spacious rooms for lordly tenants. Hazelwood liked his single and quite comfortable bed with its fresh herb-scented linens. The handsome dark furniture and the Turkey rugs suited him. There was a good hearth, a leather chair, and a desk and bookshelves. He realized he had come to think of them as his, too, though, nothing in the club belonged to him. And he would have nothing of his own in the world until he finished his service and his debts were paid.