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The house directly across the narrow street had a ground-floor window with the lamp turned high. Behind the glass, a broad-shouldered man sat along the far wall, arms folded across his chest, his face toward the interior of the room. On the floorboards in front of him, a child worked on something elaborate: a cloth rabbit, a wooden horse, and a row of tin soldiers arranged with focused seriousness.

The girl’s hair had come half out of its ribbon. Her yellow dress had a grass stain at the left knee.

Juliet’s mouth opened. “Eloise,” she gasped.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Ah, ah,” Penhurst’s hand came up before any other sound could leave her mouth. “Be quiet.”

His arm came across her from behind, swift and without any wasted motion, pulling her back from the glass. He was stronger than his easy manner had suggested. He held her against him and put his mouth close to her ear; his voice stayed quiet.

“The man in that room watches this window.” He did not raise his voice. He simply stated it. “At the first noise, the first sign of any trouble from this side of the street, he takes the child out through the back of the house. Before you can draw a breath.” He waited three full seconds. “I need you to understand that clearly.”

Juliet stood in the grip of his arm with her eyes on the window opposite and her hands at her sides, and she did not make a sound. On the other side of the glass, Eloise had turned the tin soldiers into a different formation and studied the result, her chin resting on her hand.

Penhurst released her. He stepped back.

“If you agree to stay,” he said, moving to the center of the room, his voice returned to its previous register, “the child goes home tonight. A hackney, with Ravenlocke’s address given to the driver. She will be on his doorstep within the hour, entirely unharmed.” He spread one hand. “Or she remains where she is. In comfort. For now.”

“No,” Juliet said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I will not agree to anything you are proposing.” She faced him. Her voice was her own. She made sure of it. “You should know that plainly.”

He studied her. He raised his glass and drank from it, slowly. “Then she stays.”

Juliet looked back through the glass. Eloise had abandoned the soldiers and was now speaking to the cloth rabbit at considerable length, punctuating her speech with small and decisive gestures.

“I want to watch from this window.” She kept her voice low and clear. “I want to watch her placed in a hackney. I want to watch the carriage leave this street, with my own eyes. Then you will have your answer.”

He looked at her for a long stretch.

“Done,” he said, and crossed to the bell pull.

When the knock came at the door, Penhurst opened it into the hall. He said two things only: “Ravenlocke House. Tell the driver.”

The man’s footsteps moved away down the corridor.

They waited. She stood at the left edge of the window and watched Eloise, and counted heartbeats, because they were the only reliable measure she had left. He stood near the mantelpiece, said nothing, poured another measure of brandy, and drank it. Eloise finished her consultation with the rabbit, stood it upright against the wooden horse’s flank, and gave it one small, authoritative nod.

At the fourth minute, the door of the house across the street opened.

The broad-shouldered man came through it first. Eloise came through behind him, the rabbit tucked firmly under one arm, and tipped her chin up at the rain like a child inspecting the weather. She walked down the front steps on her own two steady legs.

She did not look frightened. She did not look lost. She looked like herself—compact, purposeful, and examining everything she passed with the unhurried attention of someone with opinions about everything.

A hackney stood at the curb. The man spoke to the driver. The driver nodded. Eloise climbed in by herself. The door closed.

The horse pulled forward, and Juliet pressed her hand flat against the window frame. The carriage traveled the length of the narrow street, slowed at the corner, turned, and was gone.

She lowered her hand from the frame.

Behind her, she heard Penhurst cross to the door. The sound of the key going into the lock was small and dry and no louder than any other small sound in the room; no louder than the fire at her back, no louder than the rain against the sill outside.

A perfectly ordinary sound. The sound of a mechanism doing exactly what it was made to do.

She turned.