Page 42 of The Countess Caper

They passed the panel in the wall that hid a secret compartment, the creaking floorboard that led to another priest’s hole. The step under which Bryony liked to hide. The house echoed with silence.

And then Parsley gave a fussy cry.

“Who’s that, then?” Lord Beville demanded.

“My cousin and her baby,” Tessa said as soothingly as she could. But her voice was hard and sharp, despite her best intentions. “But you aren’t looking for a babe in arms, are you?”

“We’re not,” his bruiser said, hulking behind them. “Just for a lady in trouble.”

“I’m a lady in trouble,” Tessa pointed out drily. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Marigold filled the doorway to her chamber, wielding a heavy iron candelabrum flaking with rust. Gone was the sweet vicar’s daughter with no knowledge of the world or her own body. “Get the hell away from my baby. I know six ways to make you bleed out.”

“This place is bedlam,” Lord Beville muttered, but beyond a glance behind Marigold to look into the room, he did not press forward.

“Lady’s not here, guv,” the other man said, looking awkward. “It was just village gossip.”

Lord Beville swore and forced Tessa back down the stairs. If he had let her go right then and there, she was fairly certain she would have shoved him over the banister.

“Beg pardon, your ladyship,” the other man added.

“Oh, shut it, Cole,” Lord Beville snapped.

Cole bent to help his partner, who had managed to sit up but was holding his head and groaning. There was blood in his hair.

Lord Beville twisted Tessa’s head back to a painful angle. “You’d best not be lying to me.”

“You saw for yourself.”

He shoved her hard enough that she hit the stone urn on the front stoop, barely catching herself before a proper fall. Lord Beville and his men were already striding away toward their waiting carriage. Tessa watched them go through narrowed eyes.

Lord Beville was going to meet a highwaywoman very soon.

And she was going to be very displeased indeed.

She waited until they had turned off the drive and onto the road before turning back to the house, hand pressed to her throat. Her fingers came away bloody, but not worryingly so. She waited another half an hour before sending the signal that all was clear.

“I want that man’s kidneys,” Rue announced.

“Agreed,” Tessa said. She pressed a little harder on her cut. “This stings like the devil. Lord bloody Beville is going to meet justice on a dark road sometime very soon.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Beville? Oh, he might have killed you,” Holly said, stricken, as she entered through one of the back garden doors. There were leaves in her hair. Daphne had a supportive arm around her waist.

“Where were you, then?” Rue asked.

“I was already outside, so I went up a tree.”

A remarkable feat for a woman nearly as round with her baby as she was tall.

“I was not so fortunate,” Daphne muttered. “I ended up in the old dovecote.”

They winced in commiseration.

“I shall be in the pond if you need me,” she added, pulling something best left unexamined from the neckline of her dress. “Just as soon as may be.”

“First, I’m going to need more information,” Tessa said, calmly but firmly. Holly and Daphne exchanged a glance. Holly’s shoulders slumped.