It was commonly held that in the Season of 1784, Miss Moira Dearden became the greatest success that London had ever seen on the marriage mart. Her impending marriage to the thirteenth Duke of Starling and how she had taken the ton by storm were all that was said about the enchanting duchess-to-be, not a single conversation failed to include a variant of effusive pronouncement on her grace's charismatic beauty and exquisite taste.

Granted, this occurred at the height of Georgian excess, when the ennui-laden aristocracy was seized with a zeitgeist such that they considered morals something of a bad jest.

What the ton did not know, was that in the Season of 1784, Moira committed the gravest error in her life: she allowed herself to deal straightforwardly with her new husband. It was inevitable. The young Miss Dearden was still an innocent for all the worldly posturing that the ton had been so intrigued with and deceived by, and she genuinely believed that one could lie to the rest of the world but truth was essential between husband and wife.

Moira Dearden, now Her Grace the Duchess of Starling, told Robert Queene, Thirteenth Duke of Starling, everything. She revealed to him the flaws on her form: the freckles that spread across her left side like a constellation of russet, or the scar on her right hip, a relic of reckless horseback riding in her erstwhile youth. She confided in him her hopes, her dreams, and her fear that after a lifetime of battling the ton for dominance, Moira would be alone, to die surrounded by all the trappings of her triumph but without a stalwart supporter by her side.

He did not say anything in response that night, but remained alluringly mysterious in their marriage as he was in his courting of her. They were together for eight years, before she found out about his string of inamoratas, uninterrupted since before he even knew her.

Moira did not cry after she discovered the betrayal, neither did she act against the woman that had been as helpless to Robert's charm as she had been. What Moira did was to swear her allegiance to the following principles of living: that survival required one to remain opaque to those about you, and that one could not allow oneself to forget the potency of absolute truth, or trusting another with it.

Truth in its raw form was the acrid taste at the back of one's mouth, but in carefully cultivated and proportioned doses, it could create pleasing possibilities to whet even the most particular of appetites, or turn a starving man away from the most sumptuous of feasts.

And never again would Moira Dearden Queene offer bitterness when she could give a saccharine drug that enslaved another, and protected her self.

With the effluxion of time, the duchess had only reinforced her belief in those principles, sedulously concealing or embellishing pieces of the truth where appropriate. It was thus that she considered her current misfortunes as a wife and mother divine retribution, steeped in irony and perhaps the result of fate's malcontent at the feats she had accomplished through concealing the total truth to begin with.

It appeared that removing himself from her side and then damning the family and their every advantage was not spite enough for Robert. In death he still sought to perpetuate his treachery through the son he had given to her.

Having recovered from her initial shock and anger at the possibility of Oliver taking up Robert's mantle, Moira was more than willing to do anything to protect her own again, just as she had five years ago. The trouble was that she needed to first know the truth before she could twist it to serve her purposes.

Following Oliver's dismissal of her that morning, six long hours had passed, which she confirmed as she darted a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. As she waited she went about the mundane domesticity that occupied a woman's day, all the while stewing in her indecision about the way in which she would begin this necessary conversation with her son.

How did one ask one's son if he had preferred the cause of his dead father as opposed to his very much alive mother and sister?

As the clock chimed the indubitable fact that her son had deferred their talk for yet another hour it was finally relayed to the duchess that the duke had returned to Starling House at noon with a guest named Mr Bartholomew Allen, and that they were presently ensconced in the library.

A stab of alarm rose in her chest.

Mr Allen was famous for two traits, and she did not think it was his rather poor dancing skills that Oliver sought to consult at present.

She put away her knitting methodically and headed straight for the library, her gait a measured rhythm such that the sound of her every step was a reverberant knell drumming in the miscalculation she had made last night.

Moira took in a single breath before she entered the library.

Four men were presently in the room, including her son and Mr Allen, the latter of which was stooped over next to one of the bookshelves behind the desk used by the Smoak woman. John Diggle and the lad she had kept on as a stable boy after he was caught attempting to steal a horse from the Starling stables stood slightly behind the duke, too absorbed at the damning spot to which Mr Allen had been pointing at. For some odd reason, Roy Harper was wearing Starling livery even though she had not been informed of any promotion given to the boy.

"…residue of tallow wax consistent with my conclusion…" Mr Allen trailed off as he laid eyes on her, and hastily stood to bow a greeting. "Your grace!"

Mr Allen's mention of leftover wax caught her interest at once. Her gaze travelled to the spot over which Mr Allen had bent and she spotted the evidence of her carelessness last night. A twinge of annoyance touched her mood – she thought she had cleaned away all incriminating traces of the truth, but it appeared her acuity for concealment still paled in comparison to Mr Allen's skill in observation.

The weight of the men's regard was fully on her person now, but she knew her expression betrayed nothing of her involvement in the conjecture Mr Allen was just putting forth. She offered a polite smile to the company. "I came regarding the matter I mentioned this morning, duke."

No flicker of recognition flashed in the pale blue depths of Oliver's eyes. "Now is not a good time for us to speak in private, mother."

She studied the red limning his eyes, the shadow of a beard that covered his jaw. "What have you discovered, Mr Allen?" she asked instead.

The young man darted a glance he presumably thought to be furtive at her son before answering with, "Someone dropped a tallow candle whilst standing behind that desk last night. The candle rolled across the carpet and only stopped its traverse to the other side of the room because it struck this bookcase here. That same someone was no servant, or at least whoever cleaned up was competent servant, your grace, because the removal of wax was less than thorough. As if the person did not know where the candle had been, or had never removed wax off wood and fabric before. Judging from the splatters remaining on the edges of the desk, I'm inclined to think that the person who dropped the candle was the same height as Miss Smoak."

It was no exaggeration to say that it was widely held amongst the ton that Bartholomew Henry Allen, Esquire was singular when it came to finding the obscure and the misplaced. He was entirely right in his guesses, and Moira nodded slowly, allowing a tasteful half-smile to break out on her face, while maintaining the concerned furrow of her brows.

"I must say I am impressed, Mr Allen. And what else have you found?"

He was not above preening slightly at receiving recognition. "Whoever did pack up Miss Smoak's things was less than thorough as well, or at least unfamiliar with where she was accustomed to keeping her things. Several letters addressed to her were tucked under the mattress and left behind, as was this." He pulled out a miniature depicting a beautiful woman with similar colouring to Miss Smoak.

"Her mother," said Moira, which was answered with a nod from Mr Allen.

"I believe Miss Smoak did not leave Starling House of her own will, your grace. You wouldn't happen to have heard anything odd last night, would you?"

Her son's valet was staring at her, as if subjecting her every reaction to scrutiny. Moira deliberately put on her best concerned expression, ratcheting up the disquietude which showed in the way her eyes widened and her hand rose slightly towards her open mouth.

"Goodness. Poor Miss Smoak. No, I didn't hear anything at all – though I'll certainly check with my staff. Excuse me."

Throughout the exchange, Oliver had remained silent, his eyes trained on the damning spot that Miss Smoak and Moira had left behind, in shock and in carelessness respectively. He stirred slightly as she made to leave the library.

"Mother, could I ask if you have heard of a Leander Seldon?

Her next machinations had already begun forming in her mind, but she was rather taken aback at the sudden question. "The Cooper boy?"

Oliver frowned in confusion.

"He's Leander Cooper Seldon, or at least he would have been, were he still alive," she explained. "His father – a country squire – married below him and had to take on the extra family name of Cooper, though it never did quite pass down to the next generation, if I recall rightly."

"You are correct, your grace," injected Mr Allen. "Cooper was at Cambridge with me."

"Where is he now?" inquired her son.

This Moira answered. "The boy himself is deceased, I'm afraid to say. It's said that he contracted consumption and was sent down to warmer climes in the winter of 1809. There was news of a death."

She saw her son's face crumple for a second, into the same expression he had made at three years of age when she informed him that Robert was not coming back for Christmas to spend time with the family, that his father had work to do and so could not teach him how to ride like he had promised to. At that moment she realised her mistake in the whole affair.

"Your grace," put in Mr Allen hastily. "There is something here you may want to see."

It was a long time before Moira could slip out of the room. She did not know how long it would be before Mr Allen's skills would rouse Oliver's suspicions about her again.

It would appear she had underestimated the importance of Felicity Smoak to her son, and this was not how she wanted to begin the conversation about what Robert had divulged to Oliver of his purposes at all.

A housemaid was going about her duties when Moira entered the duchess's bedroom, and the girl jumped as the Duchess of Starling showed herself. Moira studied the nightgown made of white silk in her rough hands, stained with blood now dried from last night. It had been hastily stuffed into a chest, after the duchess had scrubbed away the blood and tallow wax off the library floor with her own hands last night.

"Beg yer pardon, yer grace!" sputtered the housemaid, backing toward the yellow wallpaper, mortification crossing her features. "I be cleanin' 'e room, an' –"

Loring, Moira's maid, entered the room then, and she stopped short at the tableaux before casting a questioning glance at her mistress.

Moira let herself smile back calmly. "I seem to have made a mess last night. Loring, kindly see to it that this nightgown is burnt."

"Yes, your grace," said her maid, whisking it away at once.

The Duchess of Starling threw up a hand to stop the housemaid from leaving. Her writing paper remained as it had been left on the small writing desk she used, and she addressed a message to the only person she could think of who was better than she was at hiding things.

As she reached for her seal and wax, she read the three words she had inscribed onto the paper again: Tempest. Kill her.

Moira folded up the letter and bade the housemaid go to Merlyn House at once.


The road to Bath was paved with rather unskillful highwaymen.

Sara drew back the walking stick she was accustomed to carrying about and adjusted the pale blonde wig she had pinned to her head before she inspected her work: three burly creatures that were taken down as easily as they had been throwing their weight about whilst demanding that the valuables owned by the women in the carriage be handed into their meaty paws.

From behind her, Helena peered over her shoulder, disgust for the men stamped across her features.

"You should have just let me shoot them," said the former opera singer.

Sinking back into her seat, Sara shut the door of their vehicle and struck the roof to indicate that they were to continue advancing towards the city.

"I would rather leave the business of strewing bodies about the roads of England to the fictions that Killer Frost creates," she said, resting the walking stick on the empty plush seat next to her.

Next to Helena was Cassandra, who had remained her characteristically quiet self for much of the journey from Bristol to Bath. Unlike the older women, Cassandra travelled well, and never once clamoured for the vehicle to stop so she could have a break from the rattle of wheels scurrying across uneven dirt roads. Secured to their chaise was a wagon of flowers selected from their hothouse, to be delivered to their clients.

Helena crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at Sara's reply. "Oh certainly, leave the fun to the other Birds of Prey while you guard these stupid flowers as they make their way into the homes of pampered aristocrats and gentlewomen, not to mention force us to go with you."

"The Canary's Posies does provide some income for our work," Sara pointed out. "It is not just a cover."

"But you never take charge of the deliveries. And I never have to follow."

Sara curled her fingers over her reticule, tracing the outline of the unopened letter from Lance House that had arrived from London yesterday.

"The terms when I agreed to take you under my wing were that you never leave my side without my permission, Helena."

Her eyes flashed. "I don't need your protection anymore, Canary. The Duke of Starling has gotten what he wants from me, and my life is no longer in danger."

The real reason that Helena Bertinelli had not been allowed to return to her life in London since Ollie's discovery of her in Bristol went beyond the covenant between them. Sara had received word from Nyssa that Helena was under suspicion of actively sympathising with the burgeoning nationalist movement in Greece. As daughter to a vizier in the Ottoman Sultan's Imperial Council, Nyssa Raatko was more than happy to let Helena return to London so that her possible activities as a spy would be exposed and the Ottoman Empire could put her down.

Sara was a little more reluctant to send a woman to her death, even though she would rather die than betray Nyssa's confidences.

"Be that as it may, here we are."

They entered into the city, much to Cassandra's delight, for the girl had never spent much time in such an environment. It was vicarious pleasure Sara felt as she witnessed the excitement shown by the child, at the way Cassandra's eyes darted from sight to sight outside the small window of their chaise.

Bath was less of a horror than London was, much as it retained the conveniences and charms of city living.

They passed the long rows of Georgian houses rendered most neatly in honey-coloured brick and guarded by black iron grilles. Their carriage drew to a halt along Sydney Street, where Aunt Barbara kept a house ready for the Birds to use whenever they came to Bath.

It was not the most fashionable of neighbourhoods and the interior was furnished very sparsely. Cassandra ran forward to explore almost immediately, while Helena turned her nose up at the peeling wallpaper in the corner of the entrance hall. Biting back a slight smile of amusement, Sara perused the stack of letters left on a side table by the stairs.

A tersely worded message from the Gordon household indicated that her aunt expected them for dinner that evening, and there was a letter from Caitlin confirming that a body matching Donna Smoak's description had been arranged to turn up near St Albans, on the road to London, as Sara had requested.

That left the letter from Lance House which she had yet to read.

She raised a hand to her wig instead, checking once again in a nearby mirror that it had not slipped when she crossed the threshold of the house, though of course that was ridiculous – it was not like Nyssa was here to muss her hair during their journey.

"I would like to go to the Pump Rooms while we are in Bath," came Helena's voice from behind her.

"Certainly not – there would be questions asked about your sudden reappearance and I most certainly am not bringing you there and leaving Cassandra behind to watch the house."

"I highly doubt the brat will notice. And I wasn't planning on going with you, not with this ridiculous disguise that you think will prevent people from recognising you here. I can turn up unaccompanied, you know. I'm no sheltered young miss like you were. Like you still pretend to be."

"I beg your pardon?" Sara blinked.

Regarding the wig with a wave of her hand, Helena's tone was almost mocking as she said, "You may call yourself Sara Raatko and have taken a woman as a lover, but you adhere to societal conventions in every other way, Canary. Your freedom is a pretense."

Sara tried to laugh it off. "I highly doubt removing one's bonnet in the middle of the street is the height of liberty - "

"You know what I mean. You don't live openly. You won't be seen in society. Your life consists of finding pockets of space around the secrets you still keep from everyone you used to know."

"Says the woman who has been spying for the Greek nationalist movement whilst posing as an opera singer," Sara snapped.

Surprised by the accusation, Helena's eyes widened slightly, before she broke into a smug grin. "I live for song and freedom, Canary – can you say the same when you hide your real life and real self away everyday?"

A protest lodged itself in her throat before sinking to depths of her gut. Sara could not answer that question. It was dishonest to say she lived for Nyssa or her work alone, for the two reasons did not lead naturally to her current reluctance to read the letter that was still in her reticule.

Sara picked her letters up and placed them methodically into her reticule. "Get dressed for dinner, Helena. Aunt Barbara has invited us to join her."

Smirking at having had the last word on the matter, Helena disappeared up the stairs. Sara's fingers lingered on the thin envelope bearing the message from Lance House that had been in her reticule the whole time. The seal was unmistakably the viscount's, though the hand that had rendered the address was Laurel's, from the slant of the words to the bold curve of each letter.

Sara traced the rosy wax that her sister had used with her thumb, pausing ever slightly as she felt every familiar indent and bump on its surface.

She blinked.

"I'm sorry, Laurel."

Sara Lance Raatko left that letter behind and went upstairs to dress for dinner.


"You're unhappy," John heard Lyla say, before she laid a hand on the curve of his cheek and smoothed her thumb over his brow. He looked up at her.

"You're unhappy about something," she repeated, her grey eyes softening,

John caught her fingers with his own and pressed his lips into her palm. "It's work."

It was strange, how he had no trouble holding back any of what he had witnessed while he was in Mysore, and she struggling to be content with her public failure as a barren wife.

Now they rarely discussed the details of what they did ever since they began working for Amanda Waller. Now they both held secrets for a living.

Lyla bent down to look him in the eye. "Work rarely bothers you like this, Johnny. This is personal."

He stared back at her for a long while, before the ending of a sigh passed through his lips. "I have a suspicion that I cannot articulate lest it impact a personal relationship."

"Like father and Andy?" she made a small smile, more rueful than triumphant, as shock crossed his features. "I always knew your suspicions on the matter; I wish I could give you closure by confirming or denying it. But that's not what's bothering you now, is it?"

What was bothering him was the way the Duchess of Starling had reacted in the library to Mr Allen's conclusions. There was nothing inherently suspicious about the mild concern she had shown or the way she answered her son's questions, and yet John could not shake the feeling that there was something not quite right about her disavowal of specific knowledge when it came to the subject of Felicity's disappearance.

Or was it the worry that he privately felt for Felicity's safety colouring his observations?

Despite his speech to Oliver that afternoon, John could not deny that he was concerned for Felicity Smoak. He was rarely wrong in his first impressions and she did seem guileless and genuinely worried for her life when they had encountered her in Cambridgeshire. Was it truly all an act for her to spy on the duke's true motives and steal his papers?

Mr Allen's evidence would suggest otherwise – that Felicity was taken. But by whom?

"My friends may be endangered if I don't speak."

There was every possibility that Oliver, or Felicity, or both of them were in peril.

"Then speak to the Duke of Starling. It's not like you to hold things back of your own volition, Johnny." Lyla rose to unlock the trunk that sat at the foot of her bed. "Though you may want to open with this to soften the blow."

She plopped a thick bundle of documents onto John's lap. It was a dossier on the previous Duke of Starling, a vast collection of documents that detailed his service to His Majesty's interests.

The smell of her clean skin wafted into his nose as Lyla leaned over his shoulder to point at a page in the file, a tendril of her brown hair brushing his temple.

"As you can see, the thirteenth Duke of Starling was a most active part of his majesty's government despite not being in the Cabinet."

"Lyla, this file has details of almost every major conflict that has happened… Hell, the duke was helping with the handling of the Gordon Riots even when he was supposedly courting his duchess," said John, scanning through the list of dates imprinted on the letters and reports adduced.

"The thirteenth Duke of Starling was an agent, with a far higher clearance than you and I. His grace was especially skilled in managing conflicts through negotiation, or perhaps more specifically, ensuring that successful negotiations happened without actually being a party."

"But who was his grace's partner? And this file stops in 1793 – was his grace working on anything in 1807?"

Lyla shook her head. "I'm sorry – I don't know. I'd ask my father for more details, but that means that I need to be able to tell him why I want to know this, and Mrs Waller's officially redeployed me such that I have no reasonable story to give… Unless you would like come to Colyton for Christmas with your family."

Once again that evening shock coursed through his person, and the familiar heartache he felt whenever he thought of a future with Lyla came swiftly on its heels. To join her in her father's countryseat was to declare to all who mattered that they dared to defy society. There was no question that he loved her, and that he was confident that she cared for him, but telling Sir George was another matter altogether.

"My sweet love, the amount of information in this file will take the whole six months to reconnoitre properly."

If she was hurt by his rejection, she did not show it. "You're not that good, Johnny. Not without my help."

He had taken her hand into his as he denied her the opportunity to declare their love to the world; every jot of his being thanked providence that she did not pull away from him now.

"So help me, oh wise and mighty Lyla…"

She snorted a laugh, and indicated the last few pages detailing the duke's time in Paris in 1783. "You should start with Lacroix-Saint-Owen. The previous duke held a piece of property there by the name of 'Stellmoor'…"


She could not breathe.

It was her sight that they took away first. As the blindfold came over her eyes and further obscured what little she could see in the faint moonlight that penetrated the hack, thick cords were wound round her wrists and a wad of cloth rammed into her mouth as a gag.

The restraints inspired a fit of panic, and she struggled as best as she could, to no avail. Her senses were suspended in a state of heightened fear, unable to ward off the terror that washed over her person in dreadful waves, leaving her insensible to her surroundings. She heard not the rattle of carriage wheels or the steady clip-clop of horses' hooves as they persisted, onward and away. She would not remember how long they travelled, or how she was bodily removed from the hack and placed in a foreign environment. Only with the gradual return of her reason over time, when the edges of her visceral reaction were whittled down and she felt the pressure on her chest ease somewhat, did she begin to think again.

She was no longer bleeding, or at least the blood on her forehead had since dried up.

From the muffled sounds outside her wheeled cage and the occasional lengthy pauses it took in its journey, she sensed they were still in London. She tried squirming in her bonds, to no avail, though she ascertained the fact that she was not alone in the hack.

She tried to articulate a plea for help. The dry fabric in her mouth obscured what sound she could produce, and she broke into spasms of coughing from the attempt. Still her companion remained dispassionately reclined in the seat next to her.

Finally her coughs subsided, and she was still in an itinerant point of anonymity making their way across a city's winding streets. Nobody noticed a hack travelling about London, she thought again, as she had when she elected to leave Starling House without any struggle.

Enough of her blood had been spilled and enough threats had already been directed at Oliver when she made that decision, and she had calculated that the author of her abduction would have no reason to cause her lasting harm insofar she could offer the service of her abilities.

She was unsure how it long it was before the hack drew to a complete stop, on a relatively quiet street or part of the city. The sound of a heavy step and the slight rocking of the hack told her that her companion had left the vehicle, and Felicity waited for her fate to come.

A rush of sooty air brushed the back of her neck as the door to the hack was flung open, and the voice that greeted her chilled her to the bone.

"O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!"

Cool lips were pressed to the tears that had begun running down her cheek: a mockery of affection, an allusion to the most famous betrayal, and a testament to her misprision.


Firstly I'm so sorry that this took so long - I went through a month of writer's block and I have the 12,000 discarded words' worth of drafts to prove it. I think I wrote at least 4 scenes that didn't make it into this chapter and every scene in was written at least 3 times. In the future if you want to chase me up I do post about my writing process on my tumblr blog so that's a good way of checking in to make sure I'm alive and working on this if you ever get anxiety. I'm really grateful to everyone who cheered me on there this month (especially Marni and Ruth, who deserve all the love for always encouraging me), and I appreciate your patience in waiting.

Just to clarify, I am still in the thick of Law school, which would probably explain a little better why I'm really busy with school work - I try as hard as I can to write but my previous 1 chapter a week schedule would not work at all. That being said hiatus for a month+ was not planned in the slightest! I'll try to update as soon as I can.

DC easter eggs in this chapter include Jean Loring's cameo (toyed with gender bending to make her a solicitor before I decided Moira needed an ally in the house and Mrs Raisa did not count), the inclusion of Cassandra Cain and the mention of Barbara Gordon (you guys realise it's Birds of Prey in Bath, right?). Sara is living in the house that the Austens occupied whilst they were living in Bath, though I did not do my research properly on its interior so take what I write about it with a pinch of salt. Helena is indeed a spy against the Ottoman Empire, which will naturally put her into conflict with Nyssa, who will appear eventually.

Diggle's section was the reason why I originally asked if you would like me to up the rating. That version of the scene did not make it in because it would have been too confusing with all that is going on in this chapter. I'm going to have to resolve a couple of them before I can properly address some of the relationship issues that just about everyone is facing in this story.

Lastly the final paragraph makes a reference to the kiss of Judas, while the line before that comes from Act 3 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. And yes, the reference to the anonymity of a hack is a nod to Sherlock's A Study in Pink.