Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dreyer

calling me ‘madame’ in that perfectly odious way? I thought we
     had agreed on
Diccan
and
Grace
. Although,” she admitted with a chagrined smile at her destroyed attire, “I admit I don’t bear any resemblance to that particular
     appellation at the moment.”
    He made it a point to look her up and down. “A mistress of euphemism, I see. Think nothing of it. I’m sure you’llfeel more the thing after scraping an inch or two of Kentish mud off of you.”
    Wearily trodding up the steps, she nodded and sighed. “I hate to disoblige you, but I believe this might set back our plans
     a day.”
    “You mean fulfilling Captain Rawlston’s kind suggestion?”
    Grace blushed, and Diccan thought how unfortunate it looked. “That was no suggestion, sir. That was blackmail.”
    “Ah, wife,” Diccan said, as he guided her up the wide staircase, “What is life without a bit of blackmail? Certainly the
ton
would go quiet. For myself, I believe I will survive the wait. As long as it is not too long. A man has his needs.”
    The truly confusing bit of that speech was that he meant it. How could he be relieved at his reprieve and disappointed at
     the same time?
    The message reached White’s at ten o’clock that night. The Surgeon had escaped prison. The most feared mercenary agent on
     the Continent had been incarcerated in Newgate, awaiting trial for murder and espionage. According to their best reports,
     he had vanished sometime the night before, leaving behind two guards with slashed throats and the words
au revoir
carved into their foreheads.
    Reading the report over his Chambertin brandy in White’s reading room, Marcus Belden, Earl Drake, cursed quietly and pithily.
     As if they needed anything else right now. “Do you know why we’re just hearing about this?” he asked the man who had just
     delivered the news.
    A score years older than Drake, Baron Thirsk was a moderate man, so nondescript that people were hard-pressed to describe him after he’d gone. He occupied the other leather armchair, swirling his own snifter of cognac. “The
     officials at Newgate are not anxious to broadcast their peccadilloes.”
    Drake lifted an eyebrow. “A working girl caught servicing the warden is a peccadillo. The escape of one of the most dangerous
     men in Europe is a disaster. Especially now. You heard about Hilliard’s
contretemps
?”
    Thirsk shrugged and sipped his own brandy. “Got caught sniffing up the skirts of the most notorious virgin in the realm, I
     hear.”
    Drake was shaking his head. “He was set up. He told us that Evenham warned him about it.”
    “Convenient for Hilliard to notify us after the fact, don’t you think?”
    Drake lifted the report in his hands. “He also warned us about the Surgeon.”
    “Too late to do us any good.”
    “You think he made all this up, even the plot to blackmail him? For Heaven’s sake, man, Hilliard brought back enough information
     to take down the under-secretary of the Treasury. Do you think the opposition would not go to any lengths to stop him?”
    Thirsk sniffed. “He was married, not waylaid and murdered. Besides, no one but a very select few know about Hilliard’s activities.
     You’re certain Hilliard didn’t just make up his accusations to deflect attention from his mishandling of the boy?”
    “I’ve never known Hilliard to lie. Not in these matters.”
    “I’ve also never known an Evenham to commit treason.”
    Out in the foyer, the door opened to a fresh blast of rain-driven wind as two of the club members left. Drakewatched the comings and goings out beyond their little corner of isolation and considered the missteps that had dogged them.
     He thought of what kind of access it would have taken to arrange them. Any of the men walking into this door could be involved.
    “Sidmouth thinks this is all misdirection,” Thirsk said, staring into his drink. “Revolutionaries throwing smoke in our faces.
     By the time we realize this is all a