“No, you can’t,” Ambrose snapped.
“Actually, Ellen has been giving us lessons upstairs in one of the larger rooms here. I can now take a man to the floor before he realizes what I’m about.”
“God save us all,” Ambrose muttered.
“Send word to 11 Crabbett Close that there is trouble at The Iris Club at once, Margaret,” Ellen ordered. “Then to Detective Grayson Fletcher at Scotland Yard. Tell him he is needed here immediately.”
“Of course,” she said, hurrying into the office.
“Ruby, you and Margaret watch the door until we return and ensure no one breaches it,” he said.
“Of course, my lord.”
“Right, then. Let’s go.”
They headed downstairs. When Ambrose reached the room, he and Violet removed the books, and soon they were inside.
“If I wasn’t so worried for Tilly, I’d be excited,” he heard Cissa whisper.
“You will do exactly what I tell you from this moment onward,” he said softly.
No one argued which was a miracle.
They walked down the hall and reached the stairs leading down. Ambrose stopped at the top.
“Down there is a room, and, likely, men inside. Dangerous men. Stay behind me, as I have a gun. Next is Mavis, then Tabitha, and Ellen. You three”—he pointed at his sisters—“come last.”
They clearly wanted to disagree but one look at his face stopped them.
Ambrose tiptoed down with the women at his back. Raising his pistol, he approached the room after noting the robes were now missing.
A voice raised in anger reached him as he drew closer.
“Tell me the names, or I will inflict more pain on you!”
He heard female laughter then. “I do not fear you.”
Tilly.He’d know her voice anywhere.
He heard the low moan of pain seconds later and charged into the room, pistol raised.
“Release her!”
Tilly’s arms were bound to a chair, and men in robes stood behind her. But it was the man above her that caught his attention. He held a knife, the tip bloodied, after he’d just plunged it into Tilly’s hand. Blood was flowing from the wound, and she was biting her lip, clearly in pain.
Rage flooded Ambrose. “Bastard!”
The women at his back had fanned out to his right. Mavis and Tabitha raised their pistols alongside him, Ellen and his sisters their fists.
“No!” Howard roared, dropping the knife and reaching for something inside his jacket.
Ambrose fired his pistol, and the man fell, slumping to the ground. The other men were immediately on them. He heard the thud of a fist hitting flesh, and before he could check on his sisters, one of the robed men flew across the room. Another followed seconds later.
There was then a loud war cry, and he turned in time to watch Violet leap feet first at another of the men. The fightwas over in seconds, with the four men all subdued by Ambrose and the women.
Two strides took him to Tilly, and he dropped down before her.
“It’s all right, I have you,” he said as she wept.
