Through herwindow. At night.
She hurried to the broken window, where a cool breeze billowed her curtains, but although the candles were lit, there was nothing and no one to be seen. Footsteps sounded outside her room, no doubt alerted by her scream, and Sybil wrenched the note free from the brick. This time, the sentence written across was brief and to the point.
You will pay for this.
Her heart crashed into her feet, and she barely had the presence of mind to stuff the note down her bodice before the door opened and a maid entered, followed by both her mother and Thomas.
“What happened?” Thomas demanded, puffing slightly. He had climbed two sets of stairs to reach her room this quickly. “Are you hurt?”
Her mother looked from the window to the brick in Sybil’s hand, and her eyes narrowed. Sybil inclined her head in a slight confirmation, but to Thomas, merely said, “Someone must have thrown this brick through my window. There’s glass everywhere. I—”
“Did you see who? Who threw it?”
“I looked out of the window, but…” Sybil huffed a breath, “I saw no one.”
“There is glass everywhere. Come, Sybil.” Her mother held out a hand. “We must get you to a new room. This one must be cleaned. See to it, Daisy.”
“Yes, My Lady.” The maid bobbed a curtsy, and Sybil allowed herself to be led from the room, relinquishing her hold on the brick to Thomas as she followed her mother to one of the guest chambers.
There, Scarlet whirled and held out a hand. “I presume there was a note.”
Sybil fished the scratchy material from her bodice and handed it across to her mother, who read it with her brows pinned together. Scarlet paced back and forth, chewing on her lip with an expression of deep concern.
“You must not tell Thomas of this,” she said, examining the paper again, although there was little enough to examine.
“Mama, whoever it was, they threw a brick through the window.” By this time, Sybil had recovered enough of her faculties for the terrifying reality of the situation to sink in. Someone had thrown abrickthrough her window.Herwindow. They had somehow discovered which window was hers and through some herculean effort, thrown the brick through. If they were capable of this, what else were they capable of?
“Yes,” her mother said, stopping in her pacing to look Sybil full in the face. “And you may be sure Thomas will take a dim view of it if he knew.”
“If he knew, surely he couldhelp.”
“He would not stand for allowing you to continue your engagement with the Duke if he thought it would be putting the family in danger, and we have worked too hard for that.”
Sybil privately didn’t think Thomas, who daily seemed to be convincing himself that he and he alone was responsible for this fortunate turn of events, would allow the engagement to end. But her mother was pacing again, tapping the paper against her hand.
“This has to stop,” she muttered.
“Mama, we need to do something. Tell someone. We could send for the Runners. We could—” Sybil broke off, because outside of novels, she had little idea what anyone could do about this. They had no proof, they had nothing except a brick and a series of notes.
“You do nothing,” her mother said sharply. “I will make inquiries.”
“And then what? Someone sent a brick through my window, Mama. This is not merely the case of some jealous young lady wanting my failure.”
“I said I would handle it!” Silenced, Sybil stared at her mother. The only sound that filled the air was their mingled breath, chests heaving.
Her mother claimed to be able to handle it, but the amount of handling over the past few days must have been low, because the threat was only rising, and Sybil didn’t know what to do.
But George—he would know what to do. He would come along being handsome and capable and powerful and he would somehow identify the handwriting and blackmail its owner into leaving them alone and—yes, sheabsolutelyread too many novels.
As soon as she was alone in her room, she scribbled off a note to send George and instructed her maid to send it with the morning post immediately. Hopefully, that would send George on his way to her sooner rather than later.
Although she did her best, she got little sleep that night.
ChapterTwenty
George looked at the note in his hand. His butler had brought it to him first thing, claiming it was urgent, and from the agitated way Sybil had written, crossing out words and with shaking letters, he could well believe it was.
“Send a note to Lady Windermere,” he said. “Tell her to meet me at Lady Sybil’s house in an hour.”
