Free A Dangerous Madness by Michelle Diener

morning.”
    He turned to go, and she thought again of the way he had run to her, had swung her behind him so that he stood between her and a loaded gun.
    The fragile barrier inside her, the one that only just held her back each time she seriously contemplated stepping over the line, snapped.
    “Wait.” She leaned further out the window. “Can you climb the wall using the trellis?”
    He stopped. Turned back to her, and then walked up to the wall, patted it with his hand, and she heard him give a quiet chuckle.
    It took him less than half a minute to reach her bedroom window, pulling himself up the wooden lattice covered in ivy, and she stepped back to allow him to climb through it.
    He smelled spicy green, the scent of crushed ivy leaves and cool spring air clinging to him as he swung his legs over the window sill.
    “What could be so urgent?” She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, feeling like a fish flopping about at the bottom of a boat. She had no point of reference for this, although she was prepared to trust him.
    “The man who killed Perceval is to go on trial on Friday. Tuesday is almost over. We have hardly any time to solve this before Vinegar Gibbs orders him hanged, and all that Bellingham knows about who helped him in this dies with him.” He looked from her to her rumpled bed and tugged a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Miss Hillier. I know this is extraordinary behavior on my part, but someone tried to kill you tonight, and I want to know if you have any idea why.”
    She didn’t want what he said to be true, but she couldn’t deny that the intruder’s behavior had changed when he saw her. He’d raised his pistol the moment he worked out who she was.
    “When Sheldrake said goodbye…” She couldn’t help the way her fists clenched at the memory. “As he walked away he said something about how I should be safe enough.” She tightened her arms around herself. “At the time I thought it a strange thing to say, but then, the whole conversation was strange. I think he was trying to convince himself he hadn’t put me in danger, trying to rid himself of any responsibility to me.”
    “Not to excuse him, but I would have thought he was right.” Wittaker seemed to realize how nervous he made her, taking up so much space in her bedroom, and he sat down on the window seat he’d just climbed over. “Unless someone saw you meeting him before he left?”
    She shook her head. “He was very careful to make the meeting secret. I suppose it’s the note he sent me. And my going to Newgate this afternoon. Someone must have been watching me, or saw me there.”
    Wittaker paused in the act of straightening out his legs. “I thought you said the note didn’t say anything.”
    She gave a jerky nod. “He only wrote the address of the inn on it. But he enclosed something.”
    Wittaker stood again, and this time he made no effort to put her at her ease. “You never said this before.”
    She shrugged, completely unrepentant. “I didn’t know which side you were on, before.”
    He narrowed his eyes at her. “And what did he enclose?”
    She walked across to her small writing desk and drew out the letter and the petition folded within it. Handed it to him.
    He stared at it a long time. “A petition to the Prince Regent.” He looked as though he was trying to remember something. “I’ll have to take it with me.”
    She nodded. “You can keep it.”
    He looked up at her, stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me, Miss Hillier, how on earth was it that you were Sheldrake’s fiancée?”
    There was rage, back in an instant, holding her close, almost smothering her, and she forced herself to breathe out. “The betrothal was a family matter, Your Grace.”
    He gave a slow nod. Then he folded the letter and slipped it into his jacket. His bow was formal, and he turned back to the window. “Please don’t go anywhere tomorrow. Stay at home.”
    Phoebe frowned. “You think they’ll try