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He knew those eyes. They were set in a thinner, older, wearier face, but there was no mistaking the line of the brow or the stubborn point of the chin.

“Rose?” he blurted.

She stared at him, shocked.

“Rose?” he repeated in disbelief. “You are…Leonora’s mother,” he said. “Rose Ashcroft. How…”

The woman stared. Then, slowly, she took her hand from her mouth. “You are the Duke of Glenhaven,” she said. “The one who is supposed to be engaged to my daughter.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked with furrowed eyebrows. “Where is Leonora? Who is Lord Brighton? If you are here, you know something.”

Rose gripped the edge of her cloak. “I came over this morning to look at the house, as I have every morning for weeks, from a distance. I saw Leonora ride out alone and I wondered where she was going. So I hired a gig and followed as close as I dared, but I lost her in the hollow. By the time I came up there was only the horse.” Her mouth shook. “I saw a closed carriage turn in at these gates. I stood in the road. I saw him come out onto the steps to receive it. Your Grace, I would know that walk in the dark. It is Matthew. It is Matthew Bannerman, and he has my daughter.”

Anthony felt the last of his doubt go out of him like a held breath.

“Then I was right.”

“Right?”

“Never mind. What does he want with Leonora? Do you know that much?”

“It is a rather long story,” she said, panting. “But he has her, and I am going to get her out of there no matter what.”

“Madam, listen to me. The constables are on their way. They will be here within the hour.”

“An hour?” Rose Ashcroft shook her head. “I have been afraid of that man for years. I will not stand under a tree for an hour. I mean to go in there and take the first heavy thing I find and bring it down on his head. I will kill him if I have to. But I am utterly tired of this life that I am living. I must do something.”

“If you go in there and he hears you, he will hold her in front of him like a shield.” He took her by both shoulders, gently. “Let me go first. Stay here, and when the men come, show them the gate. I give you my word that I will bring her out.”

She searched his face for a long moment. Whatever she found there made her lower her chin.

“If you do not,” she said, “I will do it myself.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

He left her under the tree and went the last hundred yards on his own.

There was a door in the kitchen garden, standing a hand’s breadth open, as if someone had left it in a hurry. Beyond it was a cold stone passage, and from a half-open door along it came the voices of two men over a game of cards. One of them was complaining about a thumb. Anthony flattened himself to the wall, passed the door without breathing, and found a narrow stair behind a baize curtain.

He climbed it with his hand on the plaster. At the top was a panel standing ajar, and through the gap he saw the back of a wardrobe, a green coverlet, and the pale square of a window. Then he heard a voice….

“Scotland by Friday,” George said comfortably. “I have it all in hand. There is a respectable blacksmith at Gretna, and a post chaise waiting at the crossroads. You will not need to say a word.”

“You have lost your mind.”

“Have I?” He sounded almost amused. “I have waited half my life, my dear. I should say I have shown remarkable patience. Rose would not have me. Her family did not like me, and her husband, God rest him, was a fool with a great deal of land and no sense, so I made certain he lost it.”

The pin slipped. She caught it before it fell. “You killed him?”

“I did no such thing.” He frowned into the cup in his hand. “I did not plan that part. I only meant to ruin him. But on the night, I came upon him in the snow, quite drunk with the two other viscounts, and I stood over him for some time. I might have fetched help. It was merely a question of whether I wished him alive, and I found, standing there, that I did not.”

For a moment she could not see. The room went white at the edges. All those years of wondering what had happened to her father, of imagining a stumble in the dark, and here he sat, drinking tea.

“You are a monster,” she said.

“I am a patient man who was thwarted.” He set the cup down gently. “Rose never knew what was good for her. She chose a drunkard over me. Then she ran, and she died. I have mourned her for years. I will not mourn you, no. I will have what she owed me. A man must be repaid.”

Behind his shoulder, on the far side of the room, the back of the wardrobe moved.