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“Take it off,” Pembroke insisted.

“I’ll carve out your eyeballs! I’ll slice off your tongue and—”

“That’s enough, you little devil.” One of his legs hooked around hers, and he tipped her off balance, bringing them both to the floor in a controlled movement. He ended up crouching over her, one knee on the ground, keeping her clawed hand pinned.

“Please don’t hurt her,” Reina said anxiously.

Pembroke’s head jerked up as he saw her approach. “I’m not,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m—shut up, Belinda. Miss Martin—respectfully, ma’am—go to bed and get some bloody rest. I’ll handle this situation.”

But Reina saw something terrible in Belinda’s expression, flat and defeated, like a trapped animal. She couldn’t leave her like that.

“Pembroke—if we could try to solve this with words instead of brute force—I think—it’s important to understand why Belinda wanted the glove in the first place.”

“I don’t give a damn why she wanted it,” Pembroke said.

Reina met his hard stare without blinking. “What’s to stop her from making another glove after you take this one away?”

“Fear of the consequences?” came the caustic suggestion.

“I think the fear of not having the glove is worse than fear of the consequences,” she said.

Somewhere in the middle of their shared gaze, Reina saw something ease—just slightly, like the drift of an unlatched garden gate. She realized he was stepping back from whatever he’d decided long enough to consider what she was saying.

It seemed almost miraculous. She’d spent her entire life struggling to be heard by men who either believed they knew better or simply had no interest in a woman’s opinion. Usually the stronger the personality, the less willing they were to listen.

“I know your faith in the power of logic, ma’am,” Pembroke said slowly. “But you can’t reason someone out of a situation, when reason wasn’t how they got there in the first place.”

Which revealed such an acute understanding of Belinda, and her, that it left Reina astonished.

Very well, she thought, lowering to the ground, if we can’t find our way out through logic, we’ll try something else. Although she had intended to sit on her heels, exhaustion made her clumsy, and she toppled onto her rump with a little “Oof.” Her skirts briefly ballooned and collapsed around her.

“Belinda,” she asked, “may we talk? Please?”

The girl remained silent, her stony face averted.

Pembroke spoke to the others on the mezzanine. “Go down to breakfast. Take the dog with you. Norman, start working on Miss Martin’s article.”

The group dispersed reluctantly, leaving only Reina, Pembroke, and Belinda.

Reina looked over the girl, who was still immobilized in Pembroke’s grip. “Pembroke,” she began, “I wish—”

“Not while the glove is still on.”

Reina could tell from his expression there would be no yielding on that point. “Belinda,” she said, “if you set the glove on the carpet, I won’t let anyone take it. I promise. You and I will sit together, right here . . . and Pembroke too, and . . . and the three of us will decide what to do.”

Belinda gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

“My dear girl,” Reina said softly, “there’s so much about you, and your life, that I don’t know. But I was once a girl no one listened to. I know what it’s like to feel unimportant. And you’ll hear no argument from me about how unfair the world is, and how many people seem to hate girls. Because they do. They hate us whether we’re smart or foolish, pretty or plain, strong or weak. They want us to know our place, and whatever their idea of our place is, it’s never a good one. All that is my way of saying I could make some good guesses about why you made that glove, and what it means to you. But I’d rather listen to you. I do wish you’d tell me.”

Belinda seemed trapped inside her silence.

Reina drummed her fingers against the shape of her knee. She glanced at Belinda’s skinny wrist, manacled by Pembroke’s brown hand. The clawed glove looked threatening and creaturely, like something from a nightmare. Taking an interest in its construction, Reina leaned over to have a better look. Horseshoe nails had been pushed through each fingertip from the inside and anchored with some kind of glue.

“Not too close,” she heard Pembroke say quietly.

Belinda let out an explosive breath. “I’m not going to hurt ’er,” she exclaimed in a mixture of disgust and rage that reminded Reina exactly how it had felt to be fifteen years old.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Reina soothed. “Although one can understand Mr. Pembroke’s concern—those claws do look rather sharp. What are they made of?” When Belinda didn’t reply, Reina mused aloud, “They appear to be picture-hanging nails . . . ?”