Chapter 10: Stormcroft Proposes an Alliance; Petra Negotiates the Terms

The interview was requested through proper channels, which Petra found both reassuring and suspicious. A note arrived at Henrietta Street the following morning, addressed in Lord Stormcroft's hand—she recognized it from the rout invitation, which she had kept, though she would not have explained why—requesting, at her convenience, a private interview on a matter of some urgency. The time proposed was three o'clock. The hour was entirely respectable. The word *private* was underlined once, with a precision that suggested it had been reconsidered and retained.

"He has learned," Petra said, handing the note to Fennwick, "from his previous errors."

Fennwick read it twice, turned it over as though the reverse might contain supplementary intelligence, and set it on the breakfast table with the expression of a man arriving at a conclusion he would prefer not to inhabit. "He is proposing a formal arrangement."