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“He is fine,” Clara assured her. “Though he did try to stab the marquis when you did not show up at the inn. It was not very covertly done.”

“Bloody footmen caught us halfway there,” Sybil said, scowling. “The marquis stationed them on both roads leading away from the Hall. I think he suspected me long before I realized it, which is galling to admit, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Martin really tried to stab someone?” Heloise asked.

“Twice,” Clara said. “Luckily, he is not very good at murder.”

“Who else did he attack?” Sybil asked.

“Bram.”

“Captain Thorn?” Sybil’s eyes widened. “And he lived to tell the tale?”

“He did.”

“Wait, Bram is really here with you?”

Clara nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be along any moment now.”

“I’m not criticizing your plan, Clara,” Sybil said, “but waiting for rescue is not…comfortable. Believe me, I know. And how do you know he will find us?”

“I let myself be taken on purpose,” Clara explained, before telling them about the wager. “And then I left a trail for him to follow. He would never have agreed otherwise, and we were running out of time.”

Heloise stared at her. “You risked yourself for me? You truly won my inheritance back?” A shadow passed over her face. “It’s not legal, though, is it? Not really?”

“We have a very clever and very feral lawyer,” Clara told her. “And I am not entirely unarmed, by the way.”

She pulled a dagger, three uncomfortable hatpins, and a packet of herbs from inside her stays. Her poison ring was now empty.

“And now you have Devil on your side,” she added. “There’s no one more fearsome in England. And he always enforces his wagers. Always.”

“Brilliant, Clara,” Sybil said. “Devil is better than Parliament and the House of Lords in these cases,” she explained to the others. “And the entire army.”

Clara glanced at the locked door. “And you’ve never met Captain Thorn.”

*

Captain Thorn was currently occupied with regaining his consciousness at the bottom of the stairs.

He woke with more blood on him than he remembered bleeding when he fell. Struck from behind. Cowardly blighter. There would be a reckoning.

He sat up, groaning as pain throbbed through his skull. His hand came away wet with blood, but it was already thickening. Head wounds looked like slaughter even when they weren’t. His bones protested every movement.

He was too damned old to get thrown down the stairs.

But he was not about to let it stop him. There was a piece of red silk in his fist, wet with his blood. Clara.

His first step was more of a stagger. He cursed, low and filthy, and cautiously moved forward, hunting for more clues, watching for ambushes.

He found another red ribbon.

The house behind him fair thrummed with sound and light, hundreds of candles burning as hundreds of people caroused. It was just past three in the morning, but you’d never know it. He wouldn’t be the only one with a sore head tomorrow, and not just because he planned to bash a few in.

He’d been in the middle of the sea when his baby sister needed him and was unable to get to her. He’d been right bloody there when Clara needed him. Like hell would anything stop him from getting to her. Not now, not ever.

The stone path took him around the side of the grotto. He’d searched the house and the caves to no avail. It took him some time to find the ribbon stuck in the lilac thicket, just by the hidden door. Time he did not have.

He had to use even more precious seconds moving carefully, both because his vision went double and because he did not want to give any guard posted below too much forewarning. He was enraged enough to take on all comers, but even he might have trouble dodging a musket ball in a corridor, righteous fury or not.