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She opened the next drawer and a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. Stooping, she picked it up and unfolded it. Written on the paper was a line of numbers. She squinted at them hard, trying to make out their meaning.

41 43 34 17 20

It could be a code, but what it was for she had no earthly idea. Maybe Andrew and Miss Gibson could figure out—

Bong!

The grandfather clock belched out a bone-rattling gong, marking the half hour and nearly scaring her out of her skin.

Her hand pressed hard against her heart as though that would keep it from beating straight out of her chest. There wasn’t time to figure out what the numbers meant, and while she could hold a string of measurements in her head, that was only because they meant something. She had no hope of memorizing these.

Taking a calculated risk, Lavinia ran her hand underneath the drawer, dislodging four more pieces of paper wedged into the seams of the wood. Gathering them up with the first strip, she folded them twice and stuffed them into the top of her bodice. Then she shoved the drawer back in, retied the blueprints, checked that the desk looked as it had when she’d entered, and hurried out of the room.

The soft-shoed sprint back to her room must only have taken thirty seconds, but it felt like ages. Every tiny shuffle and every creak threatened to betray her. She felt sick and shaky all over.

Her door was in sight when she heard Wark’s voice on the stairs to the first floor. “What’s taking that doctor so long?”

Lavinia froze when the more muffled voice of his mother drifted down the corridor to her. “Dr. Gilfoyle will come.”

“Not soon enough,” he boomed, his steps coming closer. “We should’ve sent the carriage. Douglas could’ve gone and put the driving skills he’s always boasting of to use, since our current driver goes like a granny.”

She was still ten feet away from the door, and she had no idea how quickly Wark would get there but she couldn’t risk being seen going into her room. It would arouse too much suspicion. But there was another way.

Lavinia slumped against the wall of the corridor and touched her fingers to her temple right below the cut. She moaned low, just as Wark rounded the corner.

“Mrs. Parkem!” he shouted, sprinting the last few steps to her and grabbing her by the waist as she made as though to collapse on the floor. “You shouldn’t be up on your feet.”

“Where am I?” she half groaned.

“Don’t you remember?” he asked.

“What’s happened here?” Mrs. Wark had come into the corridor and was striding up with the pinched face of a woman who’d just sucked on a freshly cut lemon.

“I woke up in a strange room and didn’t know where I was,” said Lavinia, her voice a croak. “Why does my head hurt?”

“You fainted at the dinner table,” said Mrs. Wark matter-of-factly.

She looked up at Wark in horror. “Oh, how embarrassing. What you must think of me!”

“Only that I’m glad I’m the one who has the privilege of attending to you,” said Wark.

At least he was playing the gallant rather than going for the usual lecherous suggestions he made when he was standing in her shop.

“A doctor is coming,” said Mrs. Wark. “Until then, I suggest you lie down.”

Lavinia nodded and tried to straighten but sagged heavily against Wark for effect. The man shifted his arm so that it wrapped tighter around her, his fingers brushing the underside of her breast.

Later, when she was free of this awful house owned by this awful man, she was going to have to have another discussion with Andrew about his policy on pistols.

Andrew knew every square inch of the long strip of space that ran the length of his office directly in front of his desk, because he’d paced it at least a thousand times in the past three hours. It was well past two in the morning and there hadn’t been any sign of Lavinia. Gillie, who’d offered to wait up with him until she checked in as he’d instructed her to, was the picture of calm, cool, and collected—so much so that she was snoozing in a chair in the corner, wrapped up in a particularly loud magenta shawl.

He glared at the young woman, jealous of the fact that she could sleep at a time like this.

“I haven’t done anything wrong, so you can stop making sour faces at me,” Gillie mumbled, making him start.

He stooped down to check that her eyes were, as he’d thought, closed. “How do you know I’m staring at you?”

“Because I can feel the resentment radiating off you.”