When I'd found her gone, truly gone, a madness had come upon me that I scarcely recalled. My wife had left a letter for Louisa Brandon, and Louisa had been forced to break the news to me. A young woman of twenty-five then, Louisa had already possessed a strength of will greater than that of any battalion commander. She'd taken the pistol from my hands herself, never mind that I must have tried to kill her with it. She'd ordered a subaltern to sit on me, and then had dosed me with coffee, brandy, and laudanum until I'd calmed enough to see reason.

I'd been hurt that day more than any in my young life, but Louisa had made me live through it and go on. The least I could do was help this woman live through whatever troubles drove her.

I looked in on her once or twice during the night, but she slept quietly, her breathing even and deep. She did not stir when I entered the room or adjusted the blankets. I left a candle burning so that she would not be in the dark if she awoke, but did not light the fire in the already warm room.

As I returned to my chair a third time, the double rectangles of windows lightened to gray. In the street below I heard the cries of the milkmaid who trudged through every morning offering her wares to the cooks and housewives of Grimpen Lane. "Milk," she cried. "Milk below!"

Her second cry trailed off, and at the same time, I heard someone clattering up the stairs. The tread was too heavy to be Marianne's, too heavy even to belong to Grenville's footman, Bartholomew, who was a spry lad with the strength of youth.

After a moment, I recognized, to my surprise and dismay, footsteps I'd not heard before in this house. I rose and opened the door.

Colonel Aloysius Brandon stood on my threshold, breathing hard from his climb. He was a large man in his forties with crisp black hair just graying at the temples, a hard, handsome face, and eyes as chill as winter skies. At one time he'd been my mentor, my commander, and my greatest friend. Since our return to London after Napoleon's first capture in 1814, Brandon had never visited my rooms. I had not thought he even knew where they were.