“Don’t hurt her!”
Ned glanced back. The captain stood with slumped shoulders, marmalade in his hair and butter freckling his face, looking like a defeated, regretful, slightly ridiculous father—don’t hurt my precious, troubled girl. But the set of his jaw spoke more honestly—because I want that right for myself.
Ned did not answer, mistrusting his voice. Instead, he simply nodded and hurried away.
Morvath’s roar followed him out.
Cecilia was fast for a woman in a long dress and petticoats. She made it down a flight of stairs, along two corridors, past an astonished henchman whose thereafter unconscious body Ned had to leap over as he ran, and partway down the portrait gallery before he finally caught up with her. “Look, a bookshelf!” he shouted, and as she glanced up she stumbled. Her foot caught in the hem of her dress and she fell.
Ned hurried over, ready to restrain her should she try to jump up and attack him. But she seemed defeated at last; she swayed as she sat up. Ned lowered himself to his haunches beside her.
“Go away,” she muttered.
“I’m afraid I cannot oblige,” he replied. “Captain Morvath wantsyou back in the breakfast room. For God’s sake, girl, didn’t your aunt teach you that it’s bad manners to throw food at the table, especially when it hits the most dangerous man in all of England?”
“It’s only bad manners if you miss.”
He laughed, despite himself.
She glanced sidelong through the fall of her hair. “Did the steak knife get him?”
“No, but he’ll be sneezing marmalade for a week.”
She nearly smiled, but then all expression vanished from her face. “Someone’s coming.”
Ned heard the footsteps and hurriedly rose, pulling Cecilia up with him. When she struggled, he held her tighter. “Be smart,” he whispered. “Do what I tell you.”
“Knave!” she retorted.
“Sure, but—”
At that moment the guard with the rifle appeared in the gallery. Seeing them, he raised his gun.
“Caught her,” Ned called out, grinning, as he began to shove Cecilia back along the gallery. “And I didn’t even have to use the knife in my coat pocket.”
“I’m surprised you resisted,” the guard said.
Ned’s smile dipped into a mockery of sorrow. “Why does no one trust me? You’d almost think I went around stabbing people as soon as they got close to me.”
“What, you mean like an assassin?”
“I would never stab a lady. At least, not in the house of her very dangerous father. I do stab men, of course, probably in the arm or maybe the throat if I’m being serious, and only when I can’t shoot them because the noise would cause a problem. I’d have to use a fair bit of force, though, to make sure I disarmed them before they could react.”
“God you talk a lot of nonsense,” the guard said. “I myself don’t mind stabbing ladies, if you know what I mean.” He slid a lewd gaze over Cecilia’s body.
“By all means, have at it,” Ned said, and pushed Cecilia at him.
The guard yelled, then gurgled, and then his gun clattered to the floor. He stared idiotically at the knife Cecilia had thrust right through his arm. She twisted it, and as he collapsed with a cry, Ned met his forehead with a knee. Bone cracked against bone, and the guard slumped unconscious to the floor.
“Nicely done,” Ned told Cecilia as he bent to retrieve his knife. Blood poured from the wound, and he grimaced, wiping the blade on the guard’s coat. “I think we make a good team, don’t you? I appreciate that you trusted me.”
He turned to smile at her—
And sighed as he watched her run away down the gallery.
17
a hearty discussion—death at a séance—two alexanders—into the dark—ned silences cecilia—ned is assaulted—a traitor discovered—pox and other infestations—the dead mother’s secret garden
