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Finch pulled the punch, so that it landed with only enough force to snap Gray back to attention, but Finch raised his arm, signaling that the bout was at an end. Sweat gleamed on their faces and torsos.

“Your mind is elsewhere,” Finch said, pulling off his sparring gloves.

“It is,” Gray admitted with a laugh. His lungs pumped air, and blood coursed through him. The exercise relieved some of the tension Gray felt from having Bernie and Lionel in the castle. He had hoped to clear his head in the ring, but his thoughts returned again and again to Cordelia Staveley’s situation. He assured Finch they’d have another round when Gray was less distracted. He removed his gloves, toweled off, and pulled on his shirt. It stuck to him at once.

Gray and Finch turned from the ring. As they passed through the Italian garden, now festooned with strings of lanterns for the ball, Finch said, “There’s another bit of news to report about the accidents Higson’s men have been having.”

“Tell me.”

“All of Higson’s men have a clear history of employment, except a fellow named Perkins. He worked on a building project for Knowles that failed.”

“You think Knowles is behind the accidents?” Gray halted. The pieces of the puzzle began to come together in his mind. Knowles was a man to insist on repaying any offense, however slight or unintended.

“There’s one more thing,” Finch said, “Did you know that Knowles courted Catherine Leigh before she married Staveley?”

Gray stood, rooted to the spot. He could see the chain of events clearly. That card game had offered Knowles an opportunity to humiliate Staveley, the man who’d won the heiress years before. But Gray had intervened … Gray, whose own father had exposed Knowles’s corruption in the housing scheme and cost Knowles thousands of pounds.

“And you waited to tell me this?” Gray asked Finch.

“You needed to spar,” Finch said. “I spoke to Winter when I arrived. He has two men from the magistrate on hand to deal with the fellow. And the magistrate is on his way to arrest him. Sir Roger Frome, right?”

Gray laughed. It was just like Finch to be prepared to act on his findings. “So, Sir Roger is on his way. Does Perkins know he’s under suspicion?”

As Gray spoke, a shout came from the courtyard. A woman’s voice cried, “There he is!”

“He does now,” Finch said.

Gray and Finch broke into a run and passed into the courtyard. Men had paused their work and turned their gazes up to search the scaffolding around the southeast tower. In the midst of the courtyard, next to Winter, stood Viola Staveley, pointing up at a man running lightly across a plank on the upper level. Finch froze, staring at the girl.

Two other men were already climbing. Gray dropped his gloves and towel and began to climb. In seconds Finch did the same. The fleeing man headed for the point where the curved tower wall met the crenelated top of the battlements. There a man could hoist himself through an opening onto the battlements and escape. As Sir Roger’s men took the slanted ramps that led to the outer edges of the structure, Gray went to the midpoint where the two halves of the scaffold joined and the struts made a sort of ladder. He scrambled straight up.

Above Gray, Perkins used the tower wall to brace himself as he climbed for the battlements. With one of Sir Roger’s men at either end of the top tier of the scaffold, there was no place for the fleeing fellow to go except up. Gray pushed himself faster. As Perkins took hold of the rim of the battlement, Gray lunged, grabbed the man’s ankles, and held on. Perkins kicked free, swinging a leg out, unbalancing Gray. He let go and grabbed an upright pole of the scaffold.

Perkins regained his foothold against the tower and pulled himself up to the battlement. Then Finch appeared above him. Perkins cast a desperate look over his shoulder at Gray. Finch grabbed the fellow’s wrists and hauled him up onto the battlement, as if he were pulling a large fish into a boat. The two men disappeared behind the crenellation. Gray began to climb again. Then Finch’s voice came. “I could use a little help.”

Gray reached the rim of the battlement and looked over. Finch had Perkins on the ground, his wrists bound with a sleeve torn from Finch’s shirt. Finch grinned at Gray. “Let’s find out what this fellow has to say.”

Gray signaled Sir Roger’s men, and the two of them mounted the battlement, hauled Perkins to his feet, and led him down the northeast tower to the courtyard. Higson met them and confirmed the details of Perkins’s hiring with Finch. Higson loudly expressed his outrage that a man in his employ would endanger a project and Higson’s reputation. Perkins appeared unrepentant and unafraid of the law.

“You can’t touch me. I ’ave friends on me side, I do,” said Perkins.

Sir Roger appeared and took the accused man into custody, promising to report to Gray after the ball. Gray turned back and nearly bumped into Viola Staveley, wide-eyed and curious. He was sure she had heard every detail of the conversation about Perkins, and he was equally sure that Cordelia would not want her sister witnessing an arrest. From across the courtyard, Lionel approached. Gray watched his brother with a wary eye, his instinct to mistrust Lionel’s intentions instantly alert.

“Miss Staveley,” Gray said. It was time to get Viola home.

The girl did not speak. She and Finch were engaged in another of their staring contests.

“You again, schoolgirl,” said Finch, taking a step toward her. “What are you doing here?”

Her gaze slid up Finch’s arm where he’d torn away the sleeve. She swallowed, but she did not back away. “Helping Mr. Winter,” she said. She turned on Gray. “My lord, you’ve given him too much to do. He had to manage ball preparations while keeping an eye on a man accused of sabotage, and answering your sister’s ceaseless demands, as well. I had to help.”

“What sort of help could you offer?” Finch asked. “By the way, you have strawberry tart on your frock.”

The girl glanced at a red streak on her primrose skirts and lifted her stubborn gaze to Finch, nearly a foot above her. “I’m sure I know more about ball preparations than any mere man. And I’m the one who spotted Perkins trying to make his escape.”

One of Finch’s brows rose. He stepped between the girl and Lionel. “Look around you, Miss Staveley. Your utter lack of sense and propriety is showing. You don’t belong here, the only woman where men are working.”

“Delamere is my home,” she said, drawing herself up. “It’s all of you who don’t belong. And you, you … You are the most detestably rude man I’ve ever met.” She spun and strode off.