“What are you doing here, madame?” His voice fell somewhere in the dull region between accusation and injury. I determined that such dullness would not quench the liveliness of my response.

“What are you doing here, sir? Or, more to the point, what are you doing in these?” I flung the jumble of letters at his feet, the accusation in the gesture belying the quietness of my tone. 

If this startled him, he did not betray it. “Neither of you needed to be privy to that information.” The dull chill that settled over his tone was far worse than before. It had an edge that struck me as contemptuous. “And whatever I might have known or done in the past, it does not excuse your behavior in the present—the deceit you have willfully practiced before the whole nation, not the least of whom being the Lord Regent, and the way you have turned this sham to cloud the very eyes of justice.”

“I rather wonder if the eyes of justice would hold rather less concern for you, if clouding them did not mean clouding yours.”

“I have distanced myself from this situation. I am fully prepared to do my duty.”

“Duty! Will duty contradict these? Ink and paper!” I cried, flinging my hand towards the pile of letters. “Sheets and sheets of them—and the thicker the stack the thinner the distance, don't you think, Inspector Falcon?”

“I suppose you have read them, in keeping with your infamous masquerade.”

“Of course I haven’t read them! I came here to give you the benefit of the doubt—I came here because he said I might, and he’s the only reason I’ve done any of this at all—and he seemed to know you. But I suppose such things will be flung back in my face; the eyes of justice, after all, have been clouded—but not by me—oh, no, not by me!”

“You can only accuse me of so much as you have caused.”

“I can only accuse you of being less of a brother than I supposed, and more an irksome acquaintance; and even for that I can blame you very little. The true traitors were my feelings, my misperceptions of what I thought to be your undeniable affection for my father and myself, as a gentleman and a friend.”

That must have wounded him, but his face told me nothing. He drew up his chest in a manner very like one of my uncles. “Your honor being called into question as it is—”

“A true brother would die for his sister’s honor before he believed it disgraced, if he spoke truly when he claimed to believe it worth anything in the first place.”

“Then I am sorry I cannot live up to your expectations,” he said, planting that idiotic hat firmly on his head and getting up as if to leave. “Your character has not lived up to my expectations, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t think too much of your disappointments just now.”

His voice held that infernal quality of carelessness that he seemed able to summon with the snap of his fingers. Such aloofness I found impossible in moments like these, and I sprang to my feet and dealt him a mortal blow—not with my fists, though I might have, if my fists were capable of such things! “Your mother knew.”

He reeled visibly at that. His mouth opened and snapped shut three or four times. Finding him at such a satisfyingly complete loss for words, I continued.

“She approved the plan. It stands to reason.” I flapped a weary hand. “I cannot do anything without some Falcon’s approval. But perhaps your mother’s honor is not good enough for you either—perhaps we have not enough honor, or sense, or integrity, or fashion between the two of us to merit your affection.” The sheen of carelessness was broken now, a streak of red darkening without heed to symmetry across one side of his face. Whether it came from anger or grief, I could not tell, but neither could I stop. “You are the wise inspector, after all. You are the one of such high ideals and noble presentiments. Perhaps you love your mother for the sake of shared blood; lacking any such claim, I suppose I am doomed perpetually to inspire disgust.”

“Ingrid!” Falcon sprang at me. I thought for a moment that he might strike me after all—perhaps justifiably so—but he only flailed his hands about the region of my shoulders, as if to shake me without physically doing so. “Ingrid, Ingrid—don’t you see? I don’t care what mother thinks; you’re on the wrong side of this, and I’ve got to turn you in. You fool! You and mother both! Why can’t women be sensible? Why must they always be creating an everlasting conundrum between duty and affection?”

“The conundrum was always there,” I shrugged my shoulders well beyond his flailing hands. “You created it when you gave me that stupid job, and I when I let you. The investigative department never approved secretaries—and that’s what I was. Of course you were honorable about it, but the rules are meant to apply to everyone, regardless of motives. So we’d always have been here, with our best of motives and worst means of following them, and one of us pinned to the proverbial wall. Only I think you always expected to be the one pinned, and that’s why you’re angry, isn’t it? It’s me instead of you. I’ve a feeling you wouldn’t be screaming at me about honor if it were otherwise, and I appreciate that—I do, truly—but we can’t change things now. So—so—” I choked, and a few tears splashed down my face before I realized they had gathered in my eyes. “So before you shake your fist and bellow about the clouded eyes of justice at me again, remember: we started the pattern long ago—and it was your idea. Don’t pretend I’m doing something original. That’s unjust and untrue. Take your share of the blame and the consequences as a man, at least, if you will not as a gentleman.”