“Do you have a copy of the chattels list?”
“Connor emailed it, but I haven’t looked at it. And now there’s no wi-fi.” He entered the old safe code—his grandmother’s birthday—via the dial. The safe unlatched with a click and he opened it. He drew out the sole gun—an old double-barreled shotgun—and examined it. “This probably hasn’t been fired since fox hunting with dogs was banned two decades ago.It’s old but it should fire. Bit of dust, but no rust. If our objective was to buy time…”
Amelia picked up a frame from the desk—the photo that the influencer had zoomed in on. “Your paperweight is in this photo. Hey,” she said, peering closer, “the hat that woman is wearing—you tried it on last night in one of the attics! A black toque—a silk base with netting and swirled raffia panels and?—”
“Black feathers,” he finished. “That thing was itchy! We can remember that, but we can’t remember the faces of the bloody killers?”
“Sex!” she said suddenly, and then flinched at how loudly she’d spoken. “Sex,” she repeated in a whisper, in case he hadn’t heard it the first time around, which he absolutely had.
“What?”
“We should have sex. That could trigger more memories.”
“Blimey,” he said, opening the gun. The chambers were empty, but there were eight shells in the safe, which all looked okay. It was only slightly better than nothing. “That is the most blatant come-on I’ve ever heard.” But just the prospect of it ignited a reaction right up and down his body. That brandy had to still be in his system. Maybe once they were safe, once they knew Duncan was okay and this was all some bad trip, they could…
“Not right this minute,” she said hurriedly. “I mean, that would just be… Just saying… In theory… I just feel like the brandy is still… It’s like being possessed.”
It really was. Tom planted the gun on the desk and crossed the room, pulling Amelia to him and kissing her before logic and good sense could talk him out of it. She melted into him, slipping her hands under his coat and T-shirt and driving them up his spine. He walked her backwards until she was pressed against the wall, then hoisted her so she could wrap her legs around him.
Abruptly, he pulled away, staring at her.
“You’re right, you’re right,” she said. “We must stop letting a long-dead salamander make our decisions for?—”
“Shh,” he said, quietly lowering her. “It’s not that. I heard something.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Not sure. Something out of place.” A door opened and closed, and not by the wind—one of the doors to the floor of the ballroom. “We need to get out of here.” He grabbed the gun. “Stay close behind me.”
The second he nudged the door, a gunshot cracked, close by. Very close. He kicked the door shut, just as another blast came. A bullet splintered the middle panel of the door. He pushed Amelia away. “Get under the desk!” He put his weight behind a cabinet beside the door and shoved it. It didn’t budge. Probably hadn’t moved in decades. He shoved again. Footsteps were crossing the ballroom. Still the cabinet wouldn’t move. He swore and tried again. After a second, it gave, with a loud scrape—Amelia was pushing too. Together they managed to slide it across the door.
“Thanks,” he said.
He was a right muppet for letting his guard down, and to kiss her! Some Regency hero he was.
“Could we climb out the window?” she said.
“We’re two floors up and it’s smooth stone all the way down to a gravel path.”
“So we sit tight and hope that help arrives?”
Another gunshot boomed, and the door shredded some more. Tom pulled Amelia to a crouch behind the desk. The door and the cabinet would be a pile of kindling in minutes, and their attacker had a real weapon, not a museum piece. Tom backtracked to the sash window and heaved it up.
“I see what you mean,” Amelia said, at his shoulder. “There are no footholds in that at all.”
A volley of shots tore up the door, sending splinters flying. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
Chapter 14
Amelia
Amelia looked down. It might be only a second-floor window, but these were high floors. If they fell, they wouldn’t be brushing themselves off and walking away. “You just said it’s impossible!”
“Impossible toclimbdown, sure. But we could use these.” He released a curtain from a tieback and gave it a tug.
“We’re going to abseil with three-hundred-year-old curtains?”
“You think they’ll hold up? This lining looks like plain old cotton. It should be reasonably strong.” He grabbed a handful of the fabric and went to rip it from the curtain.
