Chapter One

PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY
151 FIFTH AVENUE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1876

The heavy door to Mr. Allan Pinkerton’s wainscoted private office was closed. Inside the well-appointed room, an aura of efficiency and stability emanated from the very furnishings, as well as from the agency owner himself. He sat ensconced behind his rectangular walnut-wood desk as Sarah Margaret “Yancey” Calhoun paced in slow ovals in front of him. She looked every inch the lady, but looks can be deceiving. And Yancey Calhoun was no mere lady.

True, a moss-green hat, similar in color to her eyes, perched atop her upswept auburn curls. And her fashionable street dress of merino wool trimmed in velvet matched the color of her feathered chapeau. She’d drawn off her white kid gloves which now, resembling protectively crossed hands, resided atop her drawstring handbag. In turn, that particularly feminine accessory lounged like an indolent cat on one of two padded leather chairs facing Mr. Pinkerton’s desk.

Putting the lie to the lady were her stiff movements and the halting manner of her speech. Neither fear nor illness underlay her behavior. The truth was Yancey Calhoun, sore over every inch of her body, was beat to hell. Her bruised jaw ached fiercely. A headache pounded with each beat of her heart, and her ribs hurt worst of all. But any movement of her bandaged right arm, where the whore’s bullet had grazed her skin, kept Yancey sufficiently mindful of her narrow escape from death only two days past.

“The only reason I’m alive, Mr. Pinkerton,” she was saying to her employer—a big man with a full beard, piercing deep-set eyes, and a prominent nose—“is I already had my gun at the ready and hidden under my handbag as I sat talking to Clara.”

Backed by two large windows between which his desk resided, Mr. Pinkerton’s frowning countenance told her that he wasn’t the least bit happy with that news. “Are you telling me that you went in there alone, knowing there would be trouble? That’s not how I’ve trained you, Yancey.”

“No, sir. It wasn’t until I was already seated in the room with the door closed that I realized something was wrong.”

“I see. Then, what tipped you off?”

“Clara’s behavior. She wasn’t acting the same as she had on my previous visits. She kept looking past me to the closed door of her room. Suspicious—and rightly so, it turned out—I secretly slipped my gun out of my handbag.” Yancey’s next thought had her attempting a grin, but her aching jaw reduced it to a grimace of pain. “You’d think a lady of ill repute would know she could trust an elderly Christian lady who’s there to rescue her from a life of sin.”

“And that’s what concerns me. The disguise, I mean.” Mr. Pinkerton tapped a finger against his lips, as if it helped him to think. “You did use a clever disguise, one that’s been successful in the past.”

“Something’s most definitely afoot. This is the third time in as many months that I’ve been found out. And I know I’ve been careful and well disguised. I know I have.”

“I don’t doubt you, Yancey. Still, it occurs to me that one of three things has happened.” He readied himself to count them out on his fingers. “One, someone in your personal life who, for some reason, may hold a grudge—”

“That can’t be it, Mr. Pinkerton. I have no family, as you know. And I’m not keeping company with anybody. So there’s no one to—” She’d almost said care. “No one to hold a grudge.”

“Then we must consider a second possibility. Someone from a past case of yours. Perhaps someone who didn’t seem important at the time.” He paused, staring pointedly at Yancey, who became increasingly concerned for what might follow. “You should know that I have assigned two senior agents to review the files of your recently closed cases.”

Just as she’d feared. Yancey’s posture stiffened with this direct hit to her professional pride. “You’re placing me under review, Mr. Pinkerton?”

He nodded in the affirmative. “For your own protection and nothing more. Do you understand?”

She could only stare at her employer. The agents would be looking for anything that, through her own carelessness or at least a lack of thoroughness, had rendered her unwittingly vulnerable. If such details were found with any consistency, her job with the agency would be at risk. Yancey swallowed the lump of angry pride clawing at her throat. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

“Good. Because I won’t sit idly by and have my agents threatened or allow them to come to harm.”

“No, sir. I wouldn’t expect you to.” Neither had she ever expected to find herself the target of a review. After all, she was careful. Calculating, even. She took pride in that. Living up to her code name—the Fox—she knew that she was crafty and sometimes sly. She had to be, if she hoped to stay alive. She’d been trained to approach each of her assigned cases as if it were a game of chess. Such forward-thinking tactics made her a highly successful agent. Or so she’d thought until recently when events began proving otherwise.

When Yancey realized that she’d been quiet overly long, she returned her attention to Mr. Pinkerton, only to see that he’d been watching her. Determined not to appear shaken, though she was, she moved the conversation along. “And the third possibility, sir?”

“Presumes upon the second one, actually. We could be looking for a relative of a criminal you’ve caught. Someone we knew nothing about. A brother. A widow. A son or a daughter or the like.”

Someone she hadn’t known existed. This was good, and Yancey perked up. “Yes, you’re right. Someone who may have bided his time until now.”

Mr. Pinkerton’s expression puckered and made him look older than his fifty-seven years. “Well, don’t look so happy about it. I fear someone may have put a price on your head.”

Yancey bit back a grin of pride. The bigger the bounty placed upon an agent’s head, the more respect that agent was accorded among the Pinkerton operatives. “I’ve thought of that, too, sir.”

“I’m certain you have. But it stands to reason. You can’t be as good as you are and not make enemies.”

Pleased at his acknowledgment of her abilities, Yancey pulled herself up to her full height, which wasn’t considerable—or even easy, given her bruised ribs. “Thank you, sir.”

Mr. Pinkerton’s frown was fierce. “Why are you thanking me? Do you think I’m happy that someone could be out to kill you?”

“No, sir. Not at all. I know you better than that.”

“I should hope so.” He leaned back in his chair, causing the hinges to squeak, and went on with the subject at hand. “Now, what I need from you, and in detail this time, is another recounting of what happened to you two days ago. I want to make certain I have the details straight in my mind.”

“Yes, sir.” Still standing in front of her boss’s desk, Yancey began. “As I told you, I was up in the red room with Clara. She was telling me about her last visit from Thomas Almont. About that time, a man burst in and shouted at Clara to shut her mouth. Surprised, we both jumped up. My purse and gun fell to the floor. The man told Clara I was a Pinkerton, pointed to my gun as proof, and said the agency is after Almont for that train robbery.” Yancey gingerly rubbed her jaw. “Clara certainly has a mean left hook when she’s defending her man.”

At last—a grin from Mr. Pinkerton. “Looks like it from here, too. Anything familiar to you about the man who burst in?”

Quirking her lips in thought, Yancey considered how best to answer that question. “Yes and no. What I mean is, when he burst in, I had time only to defend myself. Only afterward, when I had time to think, did I realize that I knew of him.”

“Let’s save that for now. What happened next?”

“Clara hit me and knocked me to the floor, practically atop my gun. And that’s the same moment I saw him charging. I knew I couldn’t fight both him and Clara—or allow a man of his size to get his hands on me. Clara tried to pull me up by my hair, but I twisted around and fired off a shot at him. He had no more than dropped to the floor when Clara let go of me, produced a gun herself from somewhere, and started shooting at me. That’s when I lit out.”

Recalling the chaotic scene, Yancey commented, “I don’t mind telling you that some surprised upstairs women and their customers will have a story to tell. There I was, a grayhaired old lady tearing out of there, a smoking gun in her hand and a dead man on the floor.”

“I expect you’re right about that.” Grim of expression, the man known as “the Eye” rubbed his forehead. “I’ve already talked to the police. As a favor to me and in consideration of your safety, they’ll pass this off as just another whorehouse disturbance. So that’s good.” He tapped a small stack of letters that lay atop his desk. “But now I want to talk about these. Why don’t you sit down and quit that pacing? You’re making me hurt just watching you limp around like that.”

“Yes, sir.” Yancey went to the overstuffed, leather-upholstered chair where her white gloves and velvet handbag lay. “Those letters started coming about the same time my cases began going sour.”

“Which is why they concern me.”

“Me, too.” Mindful of her many bruises from her fight with Clara, Yancey gingerly bent over and scooped up her belongings. When she straightened, she met Mr. Pinkerton’s concerned gaze. He was a good man whom she respected and admired. He’d taken a chance six years ago on a desperate and untried twenty-year-old girl with a burning in her belly to be an agent. Since then, he’d paid her very well, as he did all his agents, and had been nothing but good to her, much like a father—the one she wished she’d had instead of her own.

A fleeting yet hardened expression claimed Yancey’s features at the mere thought of her real father, that hateful man, Emeril Calhoun. He would have been well advised to stay away from his family and the small prairie homestead he’d abandoned years before. But he had returned home. And Yancey, an only child, had made him sorry that he had. But not before it had been too late for her mother. The remembrances ached too much. Yancey purposely blanked the long deceased and hateful man from her thoughts and lowered herself onto the chair that fronted her employer’s desk.

Mr. Pinkerton again indicated the letters that only today she’d turned over to him. “These letters, taken by themselves, say nothing to me except mistaken identity.”

“That was my first conclusion, too.” She arranged her gloves and her handbag—heavy with the weight of her gun—atop her lap. “An easy enough mistake to make, I suppose, since the writer doesn’t seem to have ever met her own daughter-in-law. Apparently all she had to go by was a name and a city.”

Mr. Pinkerton idly fanned the edges of the stacked letters, much as he would a deck of cards. “Very curious, indeed. Four of them. All from England.” He was thinking out loud. “All from the same woman saying she needs your help. Or that of someone with your name.” Suddenly he focused on Yancey. “When did the first one arrive?”

“Around Christmas. I didn’t pay it much mind, knowing this woman had the wrong American woman and thinking she would probably discover her own mistake. But I was wrong. She didn’t, and I’ve received a letter every month since.”

Troubling Yancey was the palpable desperation evident in the woman’s pleas. You must find it in your heart, she’d written in one letter, to forgive and put your troubles behind you. Please come to England at the earliest possible moment. We need you here more than words can say. I beseech you, Sarah. Please help us. Only you can.

Mr. Pinkerton hunkered over his desk and leaned toward Yancey, bringing her back to the moment. “Yancey, you are my best female agent since Kate Warne, God rest her soul. And the most experienced. So you should know better than to keep something like this to yourself. Why didn’t you tell me before today about these letters?”

“I didn’t think them important, not at first, not when I had only the one. But then they kept coming and got more insistent. In that last one, the lady as much as demanded this Sarah’s help. She called upon her sense of decency and duty to come to England at once.”

He’d been nodding as she talked. “Yes. I read that. And she’s British.”

“So was the man who accosted me in Clara’s room.”

His expression sharpened. “Aha. I see. Seemingly unconnected events connected.”

“Yes, sir. At first the letters appeared a harmless mistake. Then they continued to come, and my cases started ending badly. So, dismissing coincidence, I came to believe that this woman’s thinking I’m her American daughter-in-law could somehow be part of something more.”

“Turns out you were probably right, too.” Her employer’s stare was pointed. “You also made my point regarding the need to inform me immediately of curious happenings such as these.”

Yancey felt the warmth blooming on her cheeks. Being chastised by Mr. Pinkerton, who expected such high standards from his operatives, was never pleasant. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“All right, well, having said all that…” He waved a hand as if to brush away that subject. “Let’s look at what we have here. The letters. The complications in your cases. This Englishman who attacked you. And all occurring at roughly the same time. Hmmm.” He cocked his head at a questioning angle and frowned at her. “Did you never answer the lady to inform her of her mistake?”

Yancey shook her head. “No, sir. I was working undercover out in the field most of the time. I forgot about the letters. In fact, I didn’t even know about letters three and four until yesterday when I was home and could collect my mail.” She pointed to the letters as if she were identifying a suspect. “She’s a persistent lady, this letter-writer, I’ll give her that. You’d think in the face of no replies—here it is April—she’d stop trying.”

“Yet she didn’t.” Mr. Pinkerton eyed her and his brow furrowed. “I have to ask, Yancey. You’re not actually the wife of this woman’s son, are you? You’re not the Sarah Margaret Calhoun she’s addressing?”

A bit taken aback, Yancey’s chuckle was one of denial. “Of course I’m not, Mr. Pinkerton. I thought you knew me better than that.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m too much the detective, I suppose. Just being thorough. But that is your name?”

Yancey firmed her lips. She’d never go by the name given to her by a father she refused to honor, even after his death. She went by Yancey, her grandmother’s maiden name. “Yes, that is my name. But I’m the wrong woman. This dowager Duchess of Somerset has me confused with someone else.”

“Apparently. But is there another Sarah Margaret Calhoun in Chicago?”

He knew his agents, he knew Yancey, and he would assume that she’d check. She had. “Yes, sir, there is. Well, there was.”

“Was?”

“She died last year. In November.”

Mr. Pinkerton was quiet for an uncomfortable stretch of time as he held Yancey’s gaze. “How unfortunate. How long have you known that?”

Had Yancey been less sore, she might have squirmed. “Since January.”

“I see. So you were curious enough three months ago to check, but not enough to inform me of these letters. Or to inform this dowager of her mistake and the other Sarah Calhoun’s death? I’m surprised at you, Yancey.”

Yancey self-consciously picked at a piece of lint on her skirt before meeting her employer’s gaze. “Allow me to explain my reasons, Mr. Pinkerton. You see, this other Sarah was known as ‘Miss Calhoun,’ and not Mrs. Treyhorne—or whatever her title would be if she were a duchess. And I thought it curious that a duchess would be working as a maid, which is what this other Sarah did. None of that seemed logical. So I could only conclude that she wasn’t the duchess. Given that, I saw no reason to further distress this English lady by telling her this other Sarah, who most likely was not her daughter-in-law, was dead.”

Mr. Pinkerton rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. “Good points, those. Now, how did this Sarah die?”

“Badly, I’m afraid. Mrs. Palmer—the lady who owns the boardinghouse where this other Sarah worked—said an Englishman came around one day asking for Miss Calhoun, saying he knew her.”

“An Englishman? Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Yes, sir. And Mrs. Palmer, a very friendly lady who pitied her maid as a woman alone in the world, was delighted to meet someone with a connection to her. So she told him Miss Calhoun was working on the third floor. The man thanked her, tipped his hat, went upstairs”—Yancey drew in a deep breath—“and quietly murdered Sarah Calhoun.”

Mr. Pinkerton sat back heavily in his chair. “Murdered? Dear God.”

Yancey nodded. “It’s very shocking. No one, not Mrs. Palmer or even the other maids, heard a thing. Nor did they see the man leave. He just disappeared. One of the other maids discovered her body later.”

“This is most distressing. But how did he do his dirty work so quietly?”

Yancey felt a bit ill just thinking about it. “He … slit her throat. He must have come up behind her and surprised her.”

Mr. Pinkerton, looking slightly ill himself, ran a hand over his mouth and stared at Yancey.

She knew she had to tell him the rest, but her heart ached with the knowledge she was about to impart. “It’s worse than you know, Mr. Pinkerton. The woman was with child. Not greatly so but noticeably.”

Mr. Pinkerton’s expression fell. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. “What kind of monster would kill an expectant mother?” he asked, sounding world-weary.

“By all accounts, the same one who attacked me in Clara’s room. The description I got of Sarah’s murderer matches him … as did the accent.”

Mr. Pinkerton’s expression hardened. “Then I’m glad you killed him. And I don’t say that lightly. But tell me, what did Mrs. Palmer know about her maid? What did she tell you? I’m wondering if this man could have been Miss Calhoun’s baby’s father.”

“A good point, sir. But I don’t believe so.”

“Why not? It makes perfect sense. An unwanted child, an inconvenient mother. Perhaps she was blackmailing him for money.”

Yancey nodded. “I would have come to the same conclusions except for the way things ended, sir.”

Mr. Pinkerton considered her and then waved a hand at her. “I see you have a theory. Proceed.”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Palmer said Sarah Calhoun just showed up one day at the boardinghouse where she sought employment. She had no belongings and was very quiet. She kept to herself and, when questioned, seemed either confused about her past or secretive. She never spoke of her baby’s father and actually seemed unaware at times that she was going to be a mother.”

Mr. Pinkerton shook his head. “Very odd.”

“Yes. Mrs. Palmer pitied her and gave her work and a room of her own. But despite Mrs. Palmer’s friendly overtures, the woman never warmed up. Then, following Miss Calhoun’s murder”—Yancey experienced the oddest feeling coupling her own name with death—“the police couldn’t find any family to claim the body. So she received a pauper’s burial and remains a mystery.”

Mr. Pinkerton drummed his fingers on his desktop. “A mystery, indeed. A sad, sad case. And this Englishman who killed her. The man you shot, by all accounts. Hmmm.” Without warning, he hit his fist on his desktop, causing Yancey to jump. “You could have been killed.”

He was angry because he cared about her. Yancey knew that, but she immediately came to her own defense. “But I wasn’t, sir, and when I did put it all together—only yesterday—I came directly to you, Mr. Pinkerton.”

He exhaled gustily, appeared a bit mollified, though not happy, and eased his frown somewhat. “Yes, you did. And not a minute too soon, I’ll warrant. Give me the rest of it. You don’t believe this Englishman was the baby’s father?”

“No: Because right before he died, sir, the man I shot said there’d be others who’d come after me. He said this wasn’t over, and it wouldn’t be until I was dead.”

Mr. Pinkerton snapped to. Yancey believed her employer’s expression would have been the same had he been slapped with a glove and personally insulted. “Then you are a target and this other poor woman was killed by mistake?”

“Either that, or the man I killed meant to kill every Sarah Calhoun he could find in an effort to eliminate the one he’d perhaps been paid to kill.”

Fierce of expression, Mr. Pinkerton narrowed his eyes in thought. “Yes, very possible. Obviously he’d been following you. Add to that the fact that this dowager in England has your address. And the man you shot—mortally wounded and with no reason to lie at that point—tells you there will be others after him. This smacks of a mastermind behind these events, Yancey.”

It was Yancey’s turn to nod. “I agree. But I don’t think it’s the dowager duchess, sir. Because if she’d hired the killer, she’d have been informed of his success as long ago as last autumn when this other Sarah Calhoun was murdered. She, therefore, would have had no reason to write her letters.”

“True. Still, it’s important to your well-being that we come up with as many questions and probabilities as we can between us. Only then will we have a direction in which to proceed from here for the answers. We must act before we can again be acted upon.”

“Yes, sir.” Gripped with the excitement that always seized her when she took on a new case, Yancey sat forward as alertly as her sore muscles would allow.

“Let’s start here,” Mr. Pinkerton began. “Suppose the murdered Sarah was in truth the runaway duchess this dowager in England is pleading with. Why did she run away? And from what or whom was she hiding—not very well but with good reason as it turns out? We can’t simply assume it was the duke or his mother who sought to have her killed. After all, this distraught dowager appears to have been trying to get her to come to England, an act that very well might have saved the woman’s life and that of her baby.”

“I thought the same thing, sir.”

He nodded. “Yes. Would have been most convenient, though, if this dowager had stated what specifically the trouble was. Save us all a lot of bother and worry.”

“I can only assume the other Sarah, if she was the runaway duchess, knew what the trouble was, so there was no need to state it in a letter.”

“Good point.” Mr. Pinkerton was then quiet as he eyed Yancey in a way that warned her she was not going to like one little bit what he had to say next. “I have decided to take you out of the field, Yancey. It’s too dangerous for you here right now.”

Disbelief shot through her. “But Mr. Pinkerton, you can’t do that. My life is always in danger when I work undercover. This is nothing new—”

“But it is. Before now, you’ve had your disguises to afford you a modicum of anonymity and safety. Recent events have proven that is no longer true. So what I say stands. You will be taken out of the field here. To do otherwise would be irresponsible on my part.”

Yancey’s eyes widened. He was going to do it. He was going to take away her true identity. The Fox. Top Pinkerton female operative. It was all she had. The agency was her life. It was who she was. She had no one or anything else she cared about. Just her job. And now … it too might be snatched away, just as her mother had been. Yancey sat forward, clutching at the edge of his desk. “Please, Mr. Pinkerton, I beg you to reconsider.”

He shook his head no. “I won’t be talked out of this, Yancey.”

Her thumping heart and leaden stomach seemed to switch places as Mr. Pinkerton picked up one of the letters on his desk, opened it, and read it to himself. Then he directed his gaze her way. “Here’s the way I see things, Yancey. Right now, you’re no good to me here.”

His words sent a jolt straight to Yancey’s heart. “Please, Mr. Pinkerton, you can’t—”

He’d raised a hand, palm toward her, to further forestall her speaking. “You were almost killed, Yancey. And the man you shot warned you that other attempts would follow. That puts not only your life but also our clients’ concerns in jeopardy.” He paused as if allowing time for his words to sink in. “That being so, I’ve assigned other operatives to the Almont case, which means you don’t have any ongoing investigations. Correct?”

Yancey knew that he knew she didn’t. What he wanted was for her to acknowledge his point. What else, then, could she do but agree? “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, we have a dead and departed Sarah Margaret Calhoun. Killed last November. Maybe the actual American duchess. Maybe not. But in December, you started getting these letters saying there’s trouble in England and this duke needs you. Then, over the course of the next months, more letters, more appeals arrive, and your identity and disguises are repeatedly revealed, this last time nearly costing you your life.”

Realization dawned on Yancey that perhaps Mr. Pinkerton was pointing her somewhere. She listened now with more curiosity than trepidation. “That’s right, yes, sir.”

“Exactly. Now, it’s not so far-fetched to believe that this dowager Duchess of Somerset, with her money and influence and desperation, could have someone working for her in America. Someone doing her bidding, and I mean shutting off all avenues for you to operate undercover or even to live your private life in order to force you to go to England. Someone like that Englishman you shot.”

“I suppose.” Just talking about the man had Yancey seeing again, in her mind, the shocked, then horrified, look on the big man’s face that said he couldn’t believe she’d inflicted on him a mortal wound. She’d seen that same look once before … on another man’s face. Her father’s. She quickly blinked that memory away. “But he murdered the other Sarah. And then tried to kill me. Why would he do that if the dowager wants this Sarah to help her?”

Mr. Pinkerton mulled that one over. “Maybe a double-cross? Maybe the man was playing both ends against the middle for his own gain.” He sat up straighter with this new line of reasoning. “Maybe an unknown someone paid him more to kill his quarry than what the duchess would have paid him to get you—or the real duchess—back to England, Yancey.”

“It makes sense. It’s about the only explanation that does.”

“Then it must be true.” Still, he made a sound of frustration. “We just don’t have all the pieces. That’s the only thing I’m certain of right now. And I’m afraid that puts you in even worse danger.”

She was used to her life being in danger, but still a hard knot of healthy fear pressed against Yancey’s breastbone. “If only I hadn’t been forced to kill him. We could have questioned him.”

Mr. Pinkerton nodded. “True. But don’t blame yourself. The man caused his own death by bursting in like that and charging you. Remember, he knew who you were, so he had to know you’d be armed. I believe he meant to kill you just as he did that other poor woman. After all, if his intention had been merely to kidnap you, he could have waited until you walked out of Clara’s room and grabbed you from behind. Or simply have shown up on your doorstep. But he did neither of those things. So he got what he deserved.”

“Maybe. But I’ve never had to do that before. Kill someone, I mean.” But she knew she was lying. She had killed someone before. For a split second, she saw his hateful face before her eyes. His remembered scowl alone threatened to drag Yancey back to that day so long ago—

“You did the only thing you could, Yancey.” Mr. Pinkerton’s understanding words brought Yancey gratefully forward in time. “Something else that’s curious here, though, is this same Englishman knew Thomas Almont was your target. And you said that Clara was obviously waiting for someone to rush in. So this man could very well have been a confederate of Almont’s and meant to kill you for that reason. We’ll question Clara about that. But no matter what, you did what you had to do. It was either him or you.” Mr. Pinkerton smiled fondly at her. “And I’ll take you every time.”

“Thank you, sir.” High praise, indeed, from Mr. Pinkerton, the founder and owner of the foremost detective agency in America. And she was one of his agents. The best of the best. The Fox. She got the job done. She was experienced and smart and tough and … right now, none of those things. Instead, she was beat all to hell, shooting at everything that moved, and not so cocksure about anything anymore. Yancey stared unhappily at her boss. “What’s going to happen to me now, sir?”

“Happen? Why, you’re going right back to work, of course.”

Surprise had Yancey dropping her hand to her lap. “But you just said you were pulling me from the field.”

“From the field here. While I don’t want you to work, not while you’re so sore and stiff, I think I have a plan—if you’re up to it.”

Instant excitement seized Yancey. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

“That’s the spirit. Here’s how I see it. With the other Sarah Calhoun lost to us, as well as the dead Englishman, we’re left with our duchess in England as the only thread we can unravel.”

Suddenly, Yancey knew where this—and quite possibly she—was headed. “Oh, Mr. Pinkerton … England?”

“Yes. A lovely country.” He folded his hands together atop his desk. “As it turns out, I’ve been contacted by Scotland Yard regarding some new information on an old case we were working on with them a while back. It’s unrelated to this, but it needs our attention. Now, as luck would have it, I don’t have an agent in England at the moment.”

There it was. That word again. England. Yancey’s jaw suddenly throbbed, and her head ached. “How … unfortunate, Mr. Pinkerton.”

He smiled, clearly pleased with himself. “Yes, isn’t it? However, I think you could do with some rest while you mend. Rest combined with work, that is. Time spent on trains and ships ought to do the trick, don’t you think?”

Yancey could only stare miserably at her employer. “I wish I’d never brought those letters to your attention.”

“It’s a good thing you did because they’re your next case. Now, with you safely away, I’ll proceed with the investigation here into events surrounding your recent calamities. And you’ll be in merry old England answering this dowager’s cry for help. Between the two of us, I believe we can find the connection, if there is one, and solve this mystery.”

He’d obviously latched onto this intrigue like a child to its mother. Yancey knew when she was defeated. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t look so glum, Yancey. You’re not being punished. The simple truth is, you’re not safe here, not with the criminal element knowing your identity. Why, I’d have to keep you under armed guard around the clock, and I don’t think you’d like that. But quite frankly, I can’t spare the operatives to watch over you. So it’s possible, left unguarded, that you could be killed in your sleep.”

Yancey’s eyes widened. “Thank you for adding that to my nightmares, sir.”

Mr. Pinkerton chuckled. “It’s my job to think of every angle. And right now, the angle we need to pursue is our worried duchess in England. On the whole, she doesn’t sound the least bit violent, and she clearly needs help. Now, I have every bit of confidence in your ability to protect yourself when you’re across the Atlantic, Yancey. But if you like, I can assign another agent to accompany you.”

Yancey’s spine stiffened with pride. “I work alone, Mr. Pinkerton.”

“Knew you’d say that. Very well, then, we’ll discuss more of the possibilities so you’re totally prepared. And then, it’s off to England with you. You’ll travel in a new disguise, of course, and under another name. Don’t want anyone following you.”

Well, she’d walked right into that. There remained only one question. “In what capacity will I be going, sir?”

Mr. Pinkerton folded his hands atop his desk. “How would you like to be the long-lost and now newly found American Duchess of Somerset?”

“The what?” Dumbfounded, Yancey put a hand to her chest. “May I point out to you, sir, that this duke just might notice that I’m not the woman he married?”

“I’m certain he will. But you have the same name and it will at least open the doors to get you inside. And after that? Well, knowing you, my dear, this duke will probably wish you were the woman he’d married.”