Frederick Ardleigh, fifth Earl of Thornbury, was thirty-two years old, fair where his sister was dark, and carefully dressed. He had the strained look of a man who had inherited a great name at twenty-four along with a great deal of debt, and had spent the eight years since trying to keep both from falling down. He was not a bad man. Sophia had told Edmund so, more than once, with the air of a woman reminding herself. He was merely an overburdened one. He was very white, and his hands were clasped behind his back to keep them still.
"Sophia," he said.
"Frederick." She came up the steps with her hair blown loose and her hem dripping. "How did you know?"
"Mr. Lowther came to the Navy Office an hour ago, looking for the secretary of the Victualling Board. He was kind enough to send a note to Brook Street on his way, since I am your brother and might be supposed to take an interest." Thornbury's voice was very quiet. "Before his note arrived, I'd already heard from three people. Darnell's cousin had it at White's before nine. All St James's knows you were at Chalk Farm at dawn. In a hackney. With your maid. On a duelling ground." He looked at Edmund for the first time, briefly, and then back at his sister. "You have done to yourself in one morning what Hugo Stannard couldn't have done in a year of talking."
"Stannard told a lie," Sophia said. "I've only told the truth. If the truth ruins me, Frederick, then I was never very securely made in the first place."
"Don't be clever with me. Not today." A muscle moved in his jaw. "You'll come home with me now. The carriage is in the Strand. We'll go to Shropshire on Monday, and in a year, perhaps, when this has been forgotten—"
"No."
"I can compel you."
"Yes," said Sophia. "You can. You would have to carry me out of Somerset House past the Commissioners of the Victualling Board, the whole of the Royal Academy's exhibition, and a party of Russian officers who are, I think, looking at us now." She did not glance toward the terrace, but Thornbury did, and his colour rose. "I'm going into that building, Frederick. I'm going to sit at the back of the Board room while Mr. Garrow and Mr. Toller lay their information. Afterward I'll come home with you and you may say anything you like to me, and I'll listen to all of it. But not now."
For a long moment brother and sister looked at each other on the water steps, with the river slapping at the stones below them and the crowd murmuring above.
"Father would have known what to do with you," Thornbury said at last, and it came out more tired than angry.
"Father would have locked me in the library," said Sophia. "And I'd have read every book in it, and come out worse." Her voice softened. "Freddie. I'm sorry for the trouble. I'm truly sorry for what it will cost you at White's. But ninety-one men died, and nobody has ever said so aloud in that room. I'd like to be there when somebody does."