“I go with my instincts,” Morgan had parried.

“Instinct is a fine thing,” Ross had said dryly, “but you must stay open to all possibilities. No one’s instincts are infallible.”

“Not even yours?” came the pointed question.

“Not even mine.”

Morgan was quickly maturing into a far more thoughtful and flexible man. As a magistrate, he was perhaps a bit more stern in his judgments than Ross, but he was careful to be excruciatingly fair. Someday when Ross retired, he would hand over the Bow Street office—and the leadership of the runners—to Morgan without a single regret. But that would be a long time from now. Ross was in no hurry to step down.

As the two men talked, there was a light knock at the door.

“Come in,” Ross said curtly.

Sophia entered the room with a jug of steaming coffee. Ross tried to quell an instant surge of pleasure at the sight of her. Her slender figure was clad in a gray dress with a long-sleeved pelisse buttoned neatly over the bodice. The dark blue color of the pelisse made her eyes glow like sapphires. Her shining golden hair was mostly concealed by her bonnet—he wanted to pull the offending thing off at once.

After he had kissed her the night before last, Ross and Sophia had tacitly agreed to avoid each other. For one thing, Ross had needed to keep his focus on the necessary work of questioning Gentry. For another, it was obvious that Sophia had been unnerved by the episode. She had not been able to meet his gaze ever since, and he had seen the way her hands trembled when she served him breakfast the following morning.

Yet she had not seemed to dislike kissing him. Rather the opposite, in fact. She had responded to him with a sweetness that had been most… pleasing. Arousing. Ross had been surprised at first by how tentative and unschooled she had seemed. Perhaps her lover had not liked kissing, or had not been proficient at it, for there was much that Sophia had not been taught. All the same, she was the most desirable woman he had ever known.

“Good morning,” Sophia said, her wary gaze going first to Morgan, then settling on Ross. She filled the empty mug on his desk. “I thought you might enjoy some freshly brewed coffee before I go out.”

“Where are you going?” Ross asked, disgruntled at the realization that it was her day off.

“I am going to market, as Eliza is not able. She tripped on the stairs this morning and injured her knee. I believe it will heal quickly, but in the meantime, she must not exert herself.”

“Who is going to market with you?”

“No one, sir.”

“Not Lucie?”

“She has gone to visit her family in the country,” Sophia reminded him. “She left yesterday morning.”

Ross was entirely familiar with the Covent Garden market and the assortment of pickpockets, thieves, loose-living theater folk, and randy bucks who mingled in the arcaded square. It was not safe for a woman like Sophia to go there alone, especially when she was still so new to the city. She could be approached, raped, or robbed so damned easily that it made his heart skip a beat to think of it.

“You are not going by yourself,” he informed Sophia curtly. “Every randy lout and rake in the vicinity will come to bother you.”

“Eliza often goes by herself, and never has any problem.”

“As I cannot reply without making an unflattering remark about Eliza, I will hold my silence on that point. However, you are not going to Covent Garden alone. You will take one of the runners with you.”

“They’re all gone,” Morgan interceded, glancing from Sophia to Ross with an alert look in his eyes.

“All of them?” Ross asked in flaring annoyance.

“Yes. You assigned Flagstad to the Bank of England—it’s time for quarterly dividends—and Ruthven is investigating a burglary, and Gee is—”

“What about Ernest?”

Morgan spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “Ernest is delivering the latest edition of the Hue and Cry to the printer.”

Ross returned his attention to Sophia. “You will wait until Ernest returns, and he will accompany you to market.”

“That won’t be until midmorning,” she said indignantly. “I can’t wait that long—all the best goods will be gone by then. In fact, the stalls are being picked over right now.”

“That is a pity,” Ross said without a shred of remorse. “Because you are not going alone. That is my final word on the subject.”

Sophia leaned over his desk. For the first time in two days, she met his gaze directly. Ross was conscious of a deep delight curling through him as he saw the sparks of challenge in her blue eyes. “Sir Ross, when we first met, I wondered if you had any flaws. Now I have discovered that you do.”

“Oh?” He arched one brow. “What are my flaws?”

“You are overbearing, and you are unreasonably stubborn.”

Morgan interrupted with a snicker. “It has taken you a full month of working here to reach that conclusion, Miss Sydney?”

“I am not overbearing,” Ross countered evenly. “I merely happen to know what is best for everyone.”

Sophia laughed and considered him thoughtfully in the silence that followed. Ross waited for her next move, fascinated by the little pucker that appeared between her fine brows. Then her forehead cleared as she appeared to reach a satisfying conclusion. “Very well, Sir Ross, I will not go to market alone. I will take the only available escort—which appears to be you. You may meet me at the front door in ten minutes.”

Robbed of any reply, Ross watched as Sophia left the office. He was being managed, he thought with a twinge of annoyance, and damned adroitly, too. On the other hand, it had been a long time since any woman had tried to manage him, much less had succeeded, and for some reason he was enjoying it immensely.

As the door closed smartly behind Sophia, Morgan turned to look at Ross. His shrewd eyes were filled with speculation.

“Why are you staring like that?” Ross muttered.

“I’ve never seen you bicker like that before.”

“I wasn’t bickering. I was having a discussion.”

“You were bickering,” Morgan insisted, “in a way that could be construed as flirtation.”

Ross scowled. “I was discussing an issue of safety, Morgan, which is vastly different from flirtation.”

Morgan smiled wryly. “Whatever you say, sir.”

Deliberately Ross lifted his mug of coffee and drained half of it in one swallow. Rising from his chair, he picked up his coat and put it on.

Morgan viewed him with surprise. “Where are you going, Cannon?”

Ross pushed a pile of documents across the desk to him. “To market, of course. Look over these warrants for me, will you?”

“But… but…” For the first time in Ross’s memory, Morgan seemed bereft of speech. “I have to prepare for court!”

“It won’t start for a quarter hour,” Ross pointed out. “For God’s sake, how much time do you need?” He suppressed a grin as he left the office, feeling strangely light-hearted.

Having accompanied Eliza to the Covent Garden market on a few occasions, Sophia was familiar with the famous square, two sides of which were lined with arcades called piazzas. The best flower, fruit, and vegetable stalls were located beneath these piazzas, where nobility, thieves, theater folk, writers, and strumpets mingled freely. All class distinctions seemed to vanish at Covent Garden, creating a jovial carnivallike atmosphere as business of various kinds was conducted.

Today a troupe of street entertainers wandered about the square—a pair of jugglers, a clown-faced tumbler, even a sword-swallower. Sophia watched aghast as the man slid a sword down his throat and extracted it skillfully. She flinched, expecting him to expire on the spot of internal wounds. Instead he grinned and bowed to her, deftly using his hat to catch the coin that Sir Ross tossed to him.

“How does he do it?” Sophia asked the Chief Magistrate.

He smiled into her wide eyes. “Most of the time they have previously swallowed a length of tubing that acts as a scabbard once the sword is inserted.”

“Ugh.” She shuddered and took his arm, tugging him toward the fruit stalls. “Let’s hurry—I will be surprised if any apples are left by now.”

As Sophia moved from one stall to another, Sir Ross accompanied her obligingly. He did not interfere with her transactions, only waited patiently as she bargained for the best prices and quality. He hefted the considerable weight of the market basket with ease, while she filled it with an ever-growing assortment of fruit and vegetables, a round of cheese, and a fine turbot wrapped in brown paper.

The moment the market crowd realized that the celebrated Chief Magistrate of Bow Street was present, chattering Cockney voices rose in a cheerful cacophony. The stall-holders and marketgoers held Sir Ross in high esteem, calling to him, reaching out to touch the sleeve of his coat. They all seemed to know him personally, or at least pretended to, and Sophia found many small gifts being pushed at her—an extra apple, a bundle of kippers, a sprig of sage.

“Sir Ross… ‘ere’s a relish fer ye!” was an oft-repeated phrase, and Sophia finally asked him what the cant words meant.

“A relish is a small gift, usually considered to be a luxury, as a return for a favor.”

“You have done favors for all of these people?” she asked.

“Many of them,” he admitted.

“Such as?”

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “A few of them have sons or nephews who have run afoul of the law—thievery, vandalism, and the like. The usual punishment for such offenses is to flog a boy, hang him, or send him to a prison where he will be even further corrupted. But I had the notion to send some of these boys to the navy or merchant service, to train as officers’ servants.”

“And thereby give them a chance at a new kind of life,” Sophia said. “What a splendid plan.”

“It has worked well so far,” he said offhandedly, and sought to change the subject. “Look at that table of smoked fish—do you know how to make kedgeree?”

“Certainly I do,” Sophia replied. “But you haven’t finished telling me about your good deeds.”

“I’ve done nothing all that praiseworthy. I’ve just used a bit of common sense. It is obvious that putting a mischief-making boy in prison with hardened criminals will result in his corruption. And that even if the law makes no distinction between the crimes of adults and juveniles, some consideration must be given to those of tender age.”

Sophia turned away, pretending to look over the row of stalls while blind rage consumed her. She felt almost sick with it, choking on suppressed fury and tears. So he had found a way to avoid sending young boys to prison—he no longer condemned them to the torture of the prison hulks. Too damned late, she thought with freshly spiking hatred. Had Sir Ross come to this realization earlier, her brother would still be alive. She wanted to scream and rail at him, at the unfairness of it. She wanted John back; she wanted to erase every excruciating moment on the prison ship that had led to his death. Instead he was gone. And she was alone. And Sir Ross was responsible.

Averting her anger-hardened face, Sophia went to a flower cart filled with a variety of blooms, including pink primroses, purple lilies, blue spired delphiniums, and fragile white camellias. She breathed in the perfumed air and forced herself to relax. Someday, she comforted herself silently, Sir Ross would have his comeuppance—and she would deliver it personally.

“Tell me,” she said, bending over the fragrant blossoms, “how did a man who was born into a distinguished family come to serve as a chief magistrate?”

Sir Ross’s gaze touched her profile as he replied. “My father insisted that I train for a profession, rather than lead a life of indolence. To please him, I studied the law. In the midst of my education, my father died in a hunting accident, and I left my studies to act as the head of the family. My interest in the law did not fade, however. It had become clear to me that there was much to be done in the areas of policing and judicial methods. Eventually I accepted an appointment at the Great Marlboro Street office, and soon thereafter I was asked to transfer to the Bow Street office and take over the leadership of the runners.”

The old woman who stood at the head of the flower cart regarded Sophia with a smile partitioning the leathery terrain of her face.

“Good morning, dearie.” She extended a little bunch of violets to Sophia and spoke to Sir Ross. “A pretty tart, she. Ye should make ‘er yer trouble ’n‘ strife.”

Sophia tucked the tiny bunch of violets in the side of her bonnet and fumbled at the little purse tied to her waist, intending to pay the wizened little woman.

Sir Ross stopped Sophia with a light touch on her arm and gave the flower seller some coins from his own pocket. “I want a perfect rose,” he told her. “Pink.”

“Aye, Sir Ross.” Grinning to reveal a row of broken brown teeth, the flower seller handed him a lovely, half-blooming pink rose, its petals still sparkling with morning dew.

Woodenly Sophia accepted the rose from Sir Ross and lifted it to her nose. The rich, powdery fragrance filled her nostrils. “It’s lovely,” she said stiffly. “Thank you.”

As they walked away from the flower cart, Sophia picked her way carefully across a patch of broken pavement. She felt Sir Ross’s steadying hand on her upper arm, and it took all her will to keep from shaking him off.

“Did that woman call me a tart?” she asked, wondering if she should have taken offense.

Sir Ross smiled slightly. “In street cant, that is considered a compliment. They attach no negative meaning to the word.”

“I see. There was something else she said… what does ‘trouble and strife’ mean?”

“It’s the Cockney term for ‘wife.’ ”

“Oh.” Uncomfortably she focused on the ground before them as they walked. “The Cockney way of speaking is quite fascinating, isn’t it?” she babbled, trying to fill the silence. “Almost like a foreign language, really. I must confess, I don’t understand half the things I hear at market.”

“That,” came his dry rejoinder, “is probably a good thing.”

When they returned to the kitchen of Bow Street No. 4, Eliza was waiting, a sheepish smile on her face. “Thank you, Miss Sophia. I am sorry that I couldn’t go to market.”

“That’s perfectly all right” Sophia said evenly. “You must take care of your knee so that it will heal properly.”