Chapter Fifty-One
Time had passed with painful slowness when Perry was a secretary; now the days flew by almost too fast. He and Devereux rode out to Hampstead Heath and Finchley Common, Greenwich and Dartford, Richmond Park and beyond to Hampton Court. When they weren’t riding, they played chess, played cards, talked, laughed, everything easy and relaxed between them, the way it had been when they were boys.
The nights were for Lady Violet.
Perry had a new mask now, one that she’d sewn for him. They were a matched pair, the two of them, dressed from head to toe in black. Together, they explored the city. They looked down from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. They crossed the Thames on Westminster Bridge and came back again on London Bridge. They ran further than they had before, north
