TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

“I owe you,” Liam said. “Mac—”

Ah, yes. “Mac.” “As I owe you for Caroline’s life. Hard as it may be for you to accept, I didn’t go to the tongs hoping they would help me eliminate you, and then suddenly have a change of heart. A dramatic scenario, I grant you, but not accurate.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t deny that everything I did was to free Caroline from you—and save both of you from a disastrous alliance.”

“Noble of you, old friend,” Liam said bitterly.

“I also don’t deny a selfish motive.” He let silence fall until Liam was looking at him again. “I love Caroline. I want her happiness—and yours. I learned long ago that the end does sometimes justify the means.”

“That sounds more like the Peregrine Sinclair I know.”

“But how little we do know each other. How little we know ourselves.” He forced himself to focus on the issue at hand. “Let me dispense with the tong business first. It was when I learned of the carriage mishap that I realized there was more going on than our disagreement over Caroline—”

Liam sat up against the pillows. “How did you learn about it? Only Chen and Forster knew—”

“And both are loyal to you. But I do have experience in getting information, old man, as you discovered when you investigated my past.” He saluted Liam with two fingers to his temple. “You were good at unearthing matters I’d thought buried. But I was the best at what I did for the mother country.”

“You were a damned spy and hired—”

“We’re speaking of the present, not my past.” He leaned back in the chair again, ignoring the sting of memories he’d put behind him. “Following the incident at Cliff House, I came to Sacramento Street fully intending to have it out with you. But the accident persuaded me it would not be the right time—and also convinced me that someone meant you ill. When Forster saw me on your grounds he advised me to leave, since he’d overheard you threaten to kill me. I thought it best to lie low and see what I could learn about the true villains of the piece.”

“And made yourself the most conspicuous suspect.”

Perry shrugged. “It was a risk I had to take. I’d already lost your trust. And I was reasonably certain at that point that you would not ask Caroline to marry you until her birthday, because I knew you did not truly wish to marry her at all. I had nearly two weeks in which to investigate.”

Liam looked away. “Wiser than God himself, aren’t you?”

“No,” Perry said softly. “Not always wise. But I didn’t want to see you dead, Liam. I already knew about your work with the slave girls—yes, I made it my business to know all you did, for Caroline’s sake. It didn’t take me long to realize that the tongs and their outside supporters had decided to risk… dealing with you. They’d lost too much business and too much money on the girls you’d rescued. They arranged the accident as a warning. If you died in the process, all the better.”

“Your resignation from active service was a great loss to the queen.”

“Thank you. Once I knew the nature of the threat, I set about contacting the tong lords in question and offering my services to them. As your friend, I had access to you that they did not. I offered to get rid of you for a portion of their profits in the slave trade. They saw the benefit of having one outsider take care of another; less risk of police interference that way. The boss couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I told them they mustn’t take any more action until I was ready.”

“And they believed you.”

Perry grimaced. “Apparently not enough, since they planned to kill us both in the end. In any event, I knew you would almost certainly propose to Caroline the night of the ball, so I came disguised and spoke to Rose about how we might prevent it. I’d learned of your raid for the following night, so I warned the tongs and then set an anonymous message to Chen that the tongs knew of it. As I hoped, you moved the raid to that very evening—”

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