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“Who is he?”

"I’ve never met the fellow, but from what I’ve heard, he’s Reeve’s muscle. As big as a house, they say." He paused. "Reeve is likely here with him and a man called Spit. Tall, thin, walks with a lean. Irish. Talks soft. He's the dangerous one. He is the one who thinks."

"Imagine that. A Māori warrior in Kent. "

"Reeve ran cargo from the South Seas for years. The crews were mixed: English, Lascar, Polynesian. He was crew on a whaling ship. Stayed when the ship went home. Reeve kept the useful ones."

"Why have they not come to you yet?"

"They likely went to the tunnel first, saw the opening locked, and are now planning their next step. If they suspect I’ve betrayed them, they’d want to know if I have men with me. Reeve is a cautious man. I will leave the orchard entrance open when we’re ready."

"Have you cleared the passage?"

"I have."

She was quiet for a moment. Her fingers had tightened in her lap, but her voice stayed level. "What do we do?"

"Barricade. Every entry point. Doors, windows, anything at ground level. I've got planks in the stable, enough to board the kitchen door, the side entrance, and the ground-floor windows. We nail them across from the inside. Two planks per window, three on the doors."

"That will take hours."

"It will take the rest of today and most of tomorrow. I'll cut and carry. You hold the planks while I nail. Make sure you hide behind the planks when you do."

Chapter fifteen

Hiding

Audrey

He brought the planks in from the stable. Salvaged wood, most of it. None of it matched, but all of it would hold a nail

Kit stacked them in the passage and laid out the tools: hammer, nails, chalk, the hand saw. She changed her shoes and rolled her sleeves and tied her hair back with a strip of cloth.

When she came back, he was crouched on the floor, sorting nails by size. The hammer lay on the flagstones beside his right hand. She noted its position.

"Tell me what to do," she said.

The kitchen door first. He measured the width with his arms and crouched and sawed the plank to length and the sawdust kicked up between them in pale curls.

He lifted the first plank and held it across the door frame. "Press it flat. Both hands." He positioned the nail and swung the hammer and the impact shuddered through the plank and into her palms and up through her wrists.

He set the second plank lower. Then he stopped and looked at her.

"Top planks, you nail at the bottom. You don't need to reach. Bottom planks, you nail at the top. I'll take whatever's beyond you."

She took the hammer. It was heavier than she expected. She positioned the nail where he indicated and struck. The nail went sideways. She pulled it out, repositioned, struck again. It went in crooked, but it held.

He lifted the next plank.

They developed a rhythm without speaking. He'd lift, she'd nail at her level, he'd take the rest. Lift, nail, step back. The rhythm was steady and wordless, and she was grateful for the silence because words required decisions and decisions were impossible just then.

She was aware of him constantly. Aware of being sealed inside a house with an assassin. Every time he moved behind her, she felt the skin between her shoulder blades tighten. When he reached past her for the chalk, she tracked his arm for its trajectory.

The side entrance. The drawing room windows. With each plank nailed across a frame, the light in the room diminished. What had been thin grey daylight retreated to narrow slats between the boards. The air changed. Heavier. Closer. The sound of her own breathing came back to her from the boards.

He positioned the next plank against the drawing room window. She pressed her palms to the wood and felt the cold glass behind it, the last of the daylight pressing against her knuckles through the pane, and then the hammer fell and the plank was fixed and the light was gone and the room behind her was dark.

"Next," he said.