“You must tell me where you procured your dress. I’ve not seen such a style in decades.”
Cecilia brushed a hand down the white muslin skirts. “It was my mother’s. I did not take you for having an interest in fashion. You’re always so discreet with what you wear.”
“Discretion is the better part of valor, asmyfamily have always exemplified.”
“What admirable self-awareness, to call your wardrobe choices pusillanimous.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Frederick mouth that word, trying to guess what it meant. Jane was more clever. Her mouth snapped back into a hard white pinch. “At least they’re my choices, and not forced on me by my overbearing aunt as if I am a child.”
Cecilia smiled languidly, having worked Jane into this mostsatisfactory degree of aggravation; she swept a disinterested glance down the young woman’s form, then turned away. Jane scowled, for there was no comeback to silence, and recollected too late that Cecilia had, after all, been educated by Miss Darlington. No one bested that grand lady in the deadly martial art of polite conversation.
Cecilia glanced around the room. To her relief, Morvath was nowhere to be seen. Ned leaned back against the wall beside the food-laden sideboard, attending to his cuticles with a dagger. His black frock coat was embroidered with silver and gold, he had a ruby in his ear alongside the loop earring, and the buckles of his tall black boots were so polished, lantern light flashed and flared against them. The extravagance should have made him look like a dandy, but somehow it only honed the sense of danger about him, like a flower luring victims into its poisonous core. He appeared to have been highly entertained by the ladies’ parley, and as he caught Cecilia’s eye he raised his eyebrows in a manner that made her want to grab the nearest butter knife and stab him.
Nearby, Frederick cowered over a plate of kippers and jam toast. Cecilia tried not to stare at the smear of butter in his mustache. And at the end of the table the senior Miss Fairweather was holding a fork defensively, her gaze flickering from Cecilia to the open door and back again as if begging for rescue. Poor lady, forced into Morvath’s clutches by her traitorous granddaughter! Cecilia took a seat beside her.
“Madam,” she said, laying a hand next to Miss Fairweather’s on the white-clothed table. “Are you well? Have you seen my aunt? Is she alive?”
Miss Fairweather seemed taken aback. Obviously she was unused to kindness. How cruelly Jane must treat her! Cecilia offered a gentle, encouraging smile.
“I am doing as well as I can,” Miss Fairweather replied, her voicetrembling. Jane gasped a contemptuous laugh, but Cecilia pointedly ignored her.
“These are difficult times,” she told Miss Fairweather, and even went so far as to pat the woman’s hand. The lady stiffened, then gave a great shuddering sigh. “But my aunt?” Cecilia persisted.
“Your aunt is fine,” Ned said from across the room.
She threw him a scowl. He smiled wryly in reply.
“She was in good health when I last saw her,” Miss Fairweather said. “Have you come to reunite with your father, my dear?”
“Miss Bassingthwaite was kidnapped, Grandmama,” Jane said, her tone suggesting that being kidnapped showed a failure of character on Cecilia’s part. “She did not wish to be here at all.”
“Oh dear,” Miss Fairweather murmured. “That is difficult indeed.”
“But we are blessed with her company,” Frederick said, his buttered mustache quivering above the words. “With all her loveliness she shines a gentle, beatific light into the dismal—”
“I was disappointed to be betrayed by someone I thought I could trust,” Cecilia said, absolutely not dignifying Ned with a glance. “But there is a certain convenience to being here. All the better to rescue you and the rest of the Society.”
Miss Fairweather perked up at this. “True, true. But how will you do so, my dear? Do you have a plan? Tell me all the particulars.”
“Well, I thought—” Cecilia began, but was interrupted by Jane taking a sudden coughing fit. Cecilia looked at her with a fierce blankness, then turned back to Miss Fairweather. “I thought—” she repeated, raising her voice, and was interrupted again by Ned’s dagger slamming into the wall beside her head.
Frederick squeaked. Jane choked on her coughing.
“Oops,” Ned said with false innocence. “Sorry, my hand slipped.”
Cecilia smiled apologetically at Miss Fairweather. Then she stood,smoothing her skirts, and turned to pull the dagger from the wall so she might return it, point first, to Captain Lightbourne.
She could not budge it at all.
She stared across the room at him, wide-eyed with disbelief. He stared back inscrutably. As tension flared between them, Frederick squeaked again. Jane covered her mouth with a napkin. Miss Fairweather looked from one to the other as if trying to decide which of them was best for her to settle her gaze upon.
And then someone laughed.
Cecilia turned to see a handsome silver-haired man thrust himself into the room. She dropped abruptly back into her chair.
“Cecilia!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms and smile wide as he stepped forward to greet her. “My lovely daughter! My, how you’ve grown.”
Cecilia swallowed a scream. She rose again from the chair—
