The horse drew closer. Nev ran to meet him.

Thirkell dismounted, gasping for breath. “Lady Bedlow-your wife-she’s run off somewhere. I can’t find her.”

Nev stared, unable to take it in. Penelope was missing; she was somewhere on these unfamiliar grounds, laced with traps to catch poachers. Where could she have gone? Why would she have gone?

Then there was a gunshot, somewhere to the east and close. Nev took off running, not waiting to see who followed him.

He crested a hill, and his blood froze; the crumpled figure of a woman lay on the path skirting the Greygloss woods. He could not quite be ashamed of his relief when he recognized Agnes Cusher’s faded gown and blonde hair. Someone raced past him, and he realized that he was followed-by the entire crowd. Thirkell caught up with him, panting.

“Aggie!” cried the man who had passed him. “Aggie!” He fell to his knees and turned her gently over, revealing a blood-soaked bodice that, thank God, still rose and fell. “She’s breathing,” Aaron said in relief as Nev reached them.

Agnes’s eyes drifted open. “He shot me…Bastard looked right at me and shot me.”

“Who?” Nev asked, crouching on her other side. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Sir Jasper. He made me bring her here. Don’t blame Josie, please-”

Nev knew he ought to speak gently to a woman in pain, but he found himself saying fiercely, “Who? Bring who here?”

“Lady Bedlow. She ran into the forest. He ran after her. Know it sounds crazy.”

Nev remembered that vicious gleam in Sir Jasper’s eyes when he looked at Penelope. It did not sound crazy at all. “Which way?”

“Toward Loweston.” Her hand fluttered. “Sorry-”

Nev didn’t wait to hear it. He stood. “I’m going after her.”

He tried to think how he would even begin to search for Penelope in Sir Jasper’s woods, filled with traps for poachers that only Sir Jasper knew-then his thoughts caught up with themselves. Traps for poachers. There were men here to whom Greygloss land was not as unfamiliar as it was to Nev. In his mind the most reckless compromise he had ever made sprang into life. He turned to the crowd. “Sir Jasper has my wife somewhere on these grounds. Some of you know Greygloss better than I do. Please, come with me and help me save her!”

“Why should we risk our necks for your wife?” someone shouted, and although he was shushed by several voices, the crowd still waited for Nev ’s answer.

Nev fought down his rage and his terror, fought down the urge to shout at them that Penelope was worth a hundred of them and he would make them help. That could not serve Penelope now. He didn’t think about what he was about to promise them. “Because if you do I will personally see those men freed from jail. Your families for mine. Do we have a bargain?”

“What about Aggie?” Aaron asked.

“Take her home. I’ll pay for the doctor. Who’s coming with me?”

Aaron reached for Agnes, but she flinched away. “Go with his lordship.”

“Aggie, you’re hurt, I can’t leave you!”

A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye. “All my fault. If I’d married you, Josie would never have had to take to poaching-”

“Aggie, please,” Aaron said, almost begging, “let me take you to a doctor!”

Nev ’s mind was filled with a hundred terrifying images of Penelope afraid, of Penelope in pain. The one thing he did not allow himself to think was that it might already be too late. “I don’t have time for this. I’m going.”

Aaron didn’t look up. “You won’t get far without help.”

“Someone else will take me to a doctor,” Agnes told him. “You have to save Lady Bedlow.”

Aaron bowed his head. Then he picked Agnes up as gently as if she were a porcelain vase neither of them could ever afford and carried her to one of the other men. “Take care of her.” Then he turned to the mob and roared, “Let’s get this bastard! Who’s with me?”

The mob roared back.

Nev ’s vision blurred. “Wonderful. Thirkell, go to the Loweston side and start a search there in case she got through.”

“Of course,” Thirkell said, dependable as always.

“Thirkell-” Nev put a hand on his arm. “If I don’t come back-tell Percy to take good care of Loweston. And wish him and Louisa joy for me.”

Thirkell didn’t protest or try to make a comforting speech. He just nodded and got back on his still-winded horse, spurring her on toward the Grange.

Nev turned and saw that Aaron was organizing a contingent of men, most of them armed. “Give me a gun,” he said.

“No,” Aaron said, and continued on.

“I wasn’t asking.”

Aaron looked at him and laughed. “These aren’t nice, reliable weapons like yours, my lord. These guns belong to these men, and they know just how far to the left they fire and how hard they jump. You’d have trouble hitting the broad side of a barn. Have you got a knife?”

Nev reached into his pocket. His fist closed around his pocketknife. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Penelope was lost, and close behind her she could hear Sir Jasper crashing through the woods. She was winded, and weak from having barely eaten in two days. Any second now Sir Jasper would emerge from a stand of trees and find her a pathetically easy target, and she had no idea which direction led toward Loweston and safety.

Perhaps running wasn’t the answer. She slipped behind a tree and prayed Sir Jasper would pass her by.

His footsteps came nearer and nearer. She held her breath and pressed herself against the tree until she could feel the knots digging into her back through her stays. She could hear him going past. Now if she could just inch her way round to the other side of the tree so he wouldn’t see her if he glanced behind him…

He was nearly past when a slight breeze set her skirts billowing. She snatched them back; Sir Jasper had stopped moving. She held herself poised for flight-

An arm snaked round the tree and grabbed hold of her, and she screamed so loudly she would have been embarrassed if she weren’t occupied in trying to get free. Thrashing wildly, she hurled herself backward so that his hand smashed into the rough bark of the tree. His grasp loosened, and she threw herself into headlong flight. He was close behind her-she could hear him. Afraid to look back, she put on a last burst of speed, and something came into abrupt focus ahead of her.

She skidded to a halt, her stomach an inch from a tripwire. She backed up a step, turned, and saw another to her right. The two wires came together at a tree a foot away, and at their junction a gun was mounted on a swivel. She turned. Sir Jasper stood about five feet away, watching her.

“If you come near me-” She coughed; her throat had gone dry. Swallowing, she tried again. “If you come near me, I’m sure I can contrive to get us both shot.”

“I’m afraid I shall have to risk it,” Sir Jasper said with the wry smile she had once, briefly, thought charming. “I seem to have used up my ammunition.”

“That wasn’t very well-planned.”

His mouth twisted irritably. “Perhaps not. But I shall enjoy strangling you.”

He advanced on her. Penelope was preparing to dodge when she heard a noise to her left. She cut her eyes that way, and the absurdly loud pounding of her heart seemed to double in volume.

It was Nev, edging toward them, about thirty feet away.

Any second now Sir Jasper would hear him too, and the element of surprise would be lost.

Without conscious thought, Penelope began to cry. It was surprisingly easy. Years of crying silently with her face pressed into her pillow seemed to melt away; she sobbed and heaved and made horrible gasping noises. “Please! Sir Jasper, please, I’ll do anything!”

Amazingly, he stopped. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it!” It took all her willpower not to look toward Nev. She couldn’t hear his footfalls over the noise of her own tears.

“You’ve got snot dripping down your chin,” Sir Jasper said. “You’re a disgusting little thing, aren’t you?”