I slammed the morning newspaper down upon the dining room table with a huff, making sure the front page laid firmly against the wood where I could not see it. Seething, I set aside my cup of tea and leaned back in my seat, glancing out of my window where I could see the stable hands caring for the horses.

A week. It had been a full week since Charlotte Porter barged into my home and accused me of hiring her future brother-in-law simply out of spite, out of some perceived need for revenge. She had come believing the worst, already assuming that my intentions were to harm her, to harm her family. I had reminded her that she had given me a chance but had she? Had she, truly, when one of my first moves toward creating a legitimate business in this city had her running directly to my door, hurling accusations and insinuations in my face?

I told myself I was angry with her because anger was an easier feeling to face than the truth of it. The truth that I hadn't expected to feel what I felt when I saw her again. The truth that I had fallen for her even harder than I ever dared to admit to myself and that seeing her again only made it abundantly clear how very hard it was going to be for me to get over her. If I even could. With that solid, dull ache in my chest growing wilder and larger with every passing day, it was becoming easy to believe that I would be in love with Charlotte Porter for the rest of my life. That I would watch her marry Alexander Langley, watch her have his children, create a family of her own, thrive and live happily while my own heart broke in more places than I even knew to exist.

I told myself that it was enough that she was happy. That I cared about her enough to feel glad for that, at least. But I was a selfish man. I always had been. And it was an agonizing torture to know that her happiness had nothing to do with me, was greater without me.

I reached for the newspaper again and flipped it back over, staring down at the headline with a frown on my lips.

Langley and Porter do it again!

Another case solved. Another success. Another celebration.

I wasn't surprised. I knew how capable Charlotte was at accomplishing anything she put her mind to. I'd never met anyone so passionate, so persuasive, so intelligent. No other woman had ever compared or likely ever would again. How was I to move on? How was I to find someone new, someone just as wonderful, when I am plagued every other week by her name in the newspaper alongside his, declaring their wonder to the world?

"There you are, boss," someone spoke, interrupting my thoughts, and I flipped the newspaper back over quickly before looking up to find that Samuel had entered the dining room. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Here I am," I said, spreading my hands wide and forcing a smile for his benefit. "What can I do for you, Sam?"

In only a week, Samuel and I had adopted a more casual manner around one another. I was to blame for it. After a few hours of hearing him call me Mr. Keene, I couldn't take it anymore so I requested that he called me Camden and I would call him Sam. But his propriety wouldn't allow him to address me by name as I was his superior so he had been calling me boss ever since. Something he picked up from my men, undoubtedly. I didn't mind. He could call me whatever he wanted so long as it wasn't Mr. Keene.

"I never got to tell you before because we were... interrupted," he started, his cheeks tinging pink at having to bring up an unpleasant memory. "But my, er, um, Liza is a very talented seamstress and she knows some others in the trade as well. I could arrange a meeting with them, gauge their interest in creating some designs for this venture."

"Good," I said with a nod, sitting up straight, properly, while engaging in business. "Arrange the meeting and go yourself."

"Myself?" he croaked, eyes wide at the proposition.

"I have debtors to take care of. Other investors. Show me what you can do and sell this silk. Then we can discuss your future here."

"You want me to sell the silk?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No. I just- do you want me to–"

"Full creative control, Sam," I told him, rising from my seat and heading for the door. Bonnie rushed to gather my coat and hat for me as I walked. "If we're going to work together, I need to trust you. I'm giving you an opportunity to earn that trust. Don't let me down."

And besides, he wasn't a child anymore. He wasn't beholden to his parents' ideals, to the way they ran their business. He needed to forge a path of his own, to find out who he could be and what he could achieve if given the freedom to try. I knew it was a risk. But no one had ever taken a risk on me. Samuel deserved for someone to take a risk on him.

I hesitated at the door even so, taking my time placing my hat on my head before turning toward him again.

"What did she tell you about me?" I asked, my voice lower, more cautious.

Samuel's mouth snapped shut but then opened again a moment later.

"She said that the two of you had a history but that it didn't concern me," he said. "She told me to, er, come directly to her if you ever tried to take advantage of me or press me to do anything I wasn't comfortable with."

He was blushing furiously now. I only sighed, the tick in my jaw the only indication of my irritation.

"You should listen to her," I told him, my chest constricting with the words. "She's a better judge of character than you think."

Then I left him standing in the foyer of my home and strode out into the bright morning sun.

Jack and Philip were at my side the moment I emerged from my home. They stood by the waiting carriage, nodding toward me in greeting. I tipped my hat to them and then turned left and kept walking straight down the street.

"No carriage today, sir?" Philip asked as he and Jack followed after me.

"Not collecting today, gents," I informed them. "I've got another task in mind. This one involves paying Chief Detective Ryland a visit. If you would rather find somewhere else to be while I speak with the police, I'll understand entirely."

They exchanged a look and then stopped walking. I continued along my path, passing house after house on my journey toward the police station. By the time I reached the bottom of the steps ascending to the station itself, I was nearly sweating through my shirt from the uncommon heat of the day.

Chief Detective Ryland wasn't in but that suited my purposes even better. I thanked the clerk and then asked if he might help me pull some records I was in need of. When he happily acquiesced, I informed him that I was in need of any publicly available notes on the Keene family investigation, specifically on Cecily Keene. He nodded and then led me through the halls of the police station to the records room in the back. He searched for a moment for the correct box before pulling it from the shelf and setting it on the table in the center of the room.

"Keene family," he said, nodding toward the box.

I thanked him again and he left me alone with the records that had been made public ever since my family had been convicted of their crimes. I stared at the box for a moment, unable to move. My father had spent his whole life building his infamous business. He'd spent decades collecting contacts, cultivating relationships, moving money around to hide his true expenditures and they had reduced it all to one single, solitary box in a lonely storage room at the heart of the London police station. I took a breath and reached for the lid.

It was like sorting through my own life. Every name mentioned, every instance recorded, I remembered. Some, I had even been present for. But my name was not on a single account. Not one. Even though some of these records came from my father's wealthier clients, men who had turned against him in the end, and I knew there was no way they would have left me out of the story, no way they would have defended my honor. Which meant that Charlotte must have had Ryland strike it from the record. She had pled with the Chief Detective to sift through every account, every notation, and strike my name from each and every one. And he had done it.

It was mind boggling, the influence this woman had over the men in her life. But I couldn't find it in me to be surprised. Wouldn't I have done the same for her? Or more? Knowing how fervently she fought for my declaration of innocence, how stringently she tried to keep my name out of the papers, to save my reputation, to save my name, warmed my heart when I wished it to stay frozen inside my chest. I couldn't think of her. I couldn't start to forgive her because then I would start wanting her again. And it was never wise to let yourself want what you couldn't have.

I flipped through the dozens and dozens of pages dedicated to my father's actions and set them aside. When I saw my sister's name on a folder, I reached for it.

The first page inside was a note from Charlotte herself. Ignoring the tightening sensation in my chest, I began to read.

When I made the decision to approach the Keene family in an attempt to infiltrate them, I initially set my sights on Cecily. She seemed like the easiest target. First, she was a woman and a lonely one at that. For all her wealth, I never saw her out with a single friend. I decided I could be that friend. Second, because I truly wanted to believe that she was some poor innocent woman born into this family, mixed into all of this without wanting to be.

But as time went on, I saw Cecily for who she truly was. Manipulative and cruel, she delighted in the pain her family wrought on those less fortunate than her. She has a deeply rooted disdain for the lower classes and a selfishness that cannot be overwhelmed by anything resembling compassion. In fact, she has displayed no empathy at all in my brief encounter with her.

I wanted to save Cecily. I wanted to prove to myself that she was worth saving. But instead, I've found someone else in this family who is. And Cecily, though I don't believe she was ever truly given the chance to become anything else, must pay for her indifference if nothing else.

I took a deep breath, setting the note aside and thumbing through the rest of the file. Police reports, incidents recounted by friends and acquaintances, even one mention of her assaulting a seamstress for getting her measurements wrong. As I read the ugly truth of my sister's life, I couldn't deny it. Not a single bit of it. And I kept looked back at Charlotte's note and thinking about what I told Samuel just this morning before I left to come here.

You should listen to her. She's a better judge of character than you think.

She was.

I was blind where my family was concerned. Charlotte had wanted to save Cecily. I've wanted to save my sister my whole life. But I failed. Time and time again, I failed her, my brothers, and myself. Could Cecily change if given the opportunity? Perhaps. Would she even try to? I doubted it. Somehow, I knew she wouldn't. Maybe it was because I knew who she was better than anyone else. Maybe it was because I had already seen who she'd become long before the Chief Detective slapped those handcuffs on her wrist. Maybe it was because she was, even now, begging me to lie to free her, asking me to commit yet another crime on her behalf rather than learning from her experiences.

I stared down at that note and realized that Charlotte was right. And I was too. I couldn't free Cecily. Not when I knew what a danger to society she could be. Not when she hadn't learned a single thing from her arrest. Not when she hadn't changed at all.

I sighed and tossed everything back into the box. I didn't want to see anymore, didn't want to read another record of my family's wrongs. So I packed it all back up and placed it back on the shelf where the clerk had pulled it from. But I wasn't done. I went back to the clerk and waited for him to finish with the woman in front of me before stepping up to his desk.

"May I help you with something else, Mr. Keene?" he asked with a smile.

"I wondered if I could see any reports filed by Miss Charlotte Porter," I said.

The clerk cocked his head to the side, brow furrowed.

"Mr. Langley and Miss Porter's investigations are housed in a file in the Chief Detective's office. I'm afraid they aren't available for public–"

"Not the reports of cases they solved," I clarified. "Reports where Miss Porter was the victim."

The clerk frowned, considering. I waited patiently. My father couldn't remember what he had done to the woman. She, herself, wasn't going to tell me and I surely wasn't going to ask. So this was my chance to find out just how badly my father had ruined the life of the woman I loved. After a moment, the clerk reached down, opening a desk drawer, and removed a single, half-finished police report. He handed it to me.

"I was going to add this to your family's box but the investigation was closed by the time I made the connection," he told me. "Her sister came to get me the night it happened. She came back to fill out a report but left in the middle of it. I still remember how scared she looked."

Jaw ticking, I took the report from him and stared down at it. As I read the only sentences he had managed to record before she fled, my fists clenched upon the page until my knuckles were right and my rage swallowed me whole.