Philip and Richard had arrived in Cambon an hour ago.
Ryan's letter had given the address as *Blissbury, Feltham*, and their first instinct had been to go there directly. Philip had been on the verge of writing ahead to announce their arrival when Richard stopped him.
"Think about it. Will Ryan actually be glad to see us? He might simply throw us out. And besides—" Richard's expression had taken on a particular quality that Philip had learned, over years of close acquaintance, to regard with suspicion "—I want to know what he's been doing in this village for so long."
Philip shook his head. Richard had already decided that Ryan was conducting some sort of romantic intrigue, and once Richard decided something of that nature, dislodging the idea was essentially impossible.
"He'll never introduce her to us willingly. We'd need to catch him off guard."
"So what are you proposing?"
"The nearest town is Cambon—we go there first. Take a look around, get a sense of things, then make our way to Blissbury."
Under ordinary circumstances, Philip would have told him to stop inventing reasons to be ridiculous and pack his things. But he had to admit, privately, that he was also curious. And he was worried—which he would not have said aloud.
In the capital, Ryan had never let them see how badly things were going. If they sent word ahead, he would put everything carefully back in order before they arrived, present himself as fine, and they would leave knowing nothing.
After some deliberation, Philip agreed.
They had taken three months' leave from Headquarters. Given that neither of them had taken proper leave throughout the entire war—remaining constantly at Ryan's side through all of it—there was no reasonable objection to raise. The war was over. The treaty was signed. Headquarters had nothing urgent to detain them.
And so, an hour ago, they had arrived in Cambon.
---
The town had exactly three hotels, as befitted a place that received few visitors by design. They took rooms in the best of them for a fortnight and went out to see what Cambon had to offer.
The answer, it emerged within approximately ten minutes, was: not much.
"This is the entire shopping street?"
"Apparently."
"There's no park?"
"There's wilderness in every direction outside the city limits. A park would be redundant. Parks are for places like New, where there aren't any trees."
Richard made a sound of profound dissatisfaction.
"What are we supposed to do until tomorrow... There was a bookshop on the way here. I left New in such a hurry that I forgot to buy newspapers."
They were crossing back toward the square when a cluster of young women spilled out of one of the cafes ahead of them, talking freely and at some volume—rather more freely, both Philip and Richard noted, than the ladies of the capital tended to manage in public.
"—they say Blissbury's new manager has arrived—"
"—Miss Severton was with him, she called him Sergeant Thornton—Ryan Thornton—"
Philip and Richard stopped walking at the same moment.
They looked at each other.
*Ryan Thornton.* The alias he used for missions. There were enough men named Ryan scattered throughout the Albion army that the name alone pointed nowhere—using it as a cover was almost elegantly lazy, the kind of solution that worked precisely because it was too simple to seem deliberate.
"—my friend in Feltham says he's terribly arrogant—"
"—she didn't say he wasn't handsome though, did she—"
"—well, no, obviously not—"
They followed the group at a careful distance, keeping far enough back to avoid being noticed. The women turned into a grocery shop—*Archie Wilson's*, occupying the entire ground floor of a large building, well-kept and clearly prosperous—and Philip and Richard drew up short outside.
Going in was out of the question. If they walked through that door and came face to face with Ryan, the element of surprise would be lost entirely, and they would not hear the end of it.
They positioned themselves outside and tried to see through the window. The shop floor was too busy—too many customers moving between the displays. Shifting sideways, they found a better angle, and there, visible through a doorway into what appeared to be a private sitting room—
Ryan. Seated. Holding a cup of tea.
Talking to someone in the chair opposite, whose face was entirely obscured by the height of the chairback.
Philip and Richard stood very still.
Ryan was smiling.
Not the contained, controlled expression they occasionally saw when something had gone exactly according to plan—not the faint, sardonic curl that accompanied a particularly well-timed remark. This was something else. Something easy and unguarded, the kind of smile that didn't seem to know it was happening.
"...Is that actually Ryan?"
"I genuinely don't know."
This man looked as though he had been eating spoonfuls of sugar for weeks and found the experience entirely agreeable.
As they watched, the middle-aged man seated to one side of the room suddenly leapt to his feet, delivered several rapid bows, and departed with the expression of someone who has just survived something they weren't sure they would. Ryan barely seemed to register his exit. He turned back to the person opposite him, and his expression remained—easy. Calm. Faintly amused.
Philip was still staring.
In the capital, there had always been a shadow over Ryan's face—one that had deepened after the accusations, after the war council, after everything that followed. He had become more closed, more still, the kind of stillness that wasn't peace but its careful imitation. His face in those months had been the face of a man who had decided that expression was an unnecessary expense.
This was not that face.
His hair had grown out, too—longer than they had ever seen it, slightly disheveled in a way that the army would never have permitted, and which, somehow, made him look less severe. Younger. Less like Lieutenant Colonel Wilgrave and more like an ordinary young man their own age, which was technically what he was.
His color had improved as well. He'd spent months in the capital behind drawn curtains, and had gone pale in that particular way of people who have stopped going outdoors as a matter of principle. Now he'd caught enough sun to look, simply, healthy.
"The trip did him good," Richard said, quietly.
He remembered Ryan's words before he'd left. *I don't think village air will do much for me, but at least it gets me away from the war council's complaints for a while.* Richard had agreed with him at the time—had thought the old men who insisted on the restorative power of nature were simply people who had run out of better ideas. His own prescription for forgetting trouble was the capital's better establishments, and whiskey enough to alter the composition of one's blood.
He'd offered to take Ryan to a resort town. Ryan had declined.
Looking at him now—that unguarded smile appearing and disappearing as he talked to whoever sat across from him—Richard revised his opinion of the old men's advice.
*But who is that?*
His instincts, which had served him reliably across years of considerably more complex situations than this one, were quite certain: whoever was sitting in that chair was the direct cause of the expression on Ryan's face. He began angling toward the window for a better view—
The sitting room door swung open.
A crowd of women came pouring out.