“My men and I will leave you now, sir,” Captain Overton was saying, with a curt bow to Mr. Delacourt. “I give you good night, ladies.”

When the front door had closed behind him, Rosie bounded up from her chair. “I must go up and tell Jack they have gone.”

“Not so fast, Rosie,” Martha warned. “Let us be quite certain they are gone.”

Tom twitched the curtain aside and watched the soldiers depart. “To say there were dozens of soldiers was an exaggeration on Mrs. Glover’s part. There are mayhap fifteen of them altogether.”

“Enough to take Fraser and Jack by force if they had discovered them,” Martha said in an oddly hollow little voice. She tried to gather up the cards, but, finding that her trembling fingers were likely to betray her, she gave up the task.

“What’s this?” Tom said, from his watching position at the window. “Overton and his sergeant have paused partway down the drive. I can see their faces quite clearly, because the sergeant is holding a flaming torch aloft. Overton has waved the rest of the company to continue on ahead of them.”

“What are they doing, Tom?” Martha thought her own voice sounded distant, as though calling to him from a long way off.

“They are looking up at the attics.”

“No! Oh, dear God, no.” Rosie covered her face with her hands.

“They are coming back. Just Overton and the sergeant.”

The hammering of the front-door knocker sounded doubly loud this time. Martha cast a warning glance at Rosie while Tom went to answer the door. When he returned, he brought Captain Overton and his sergeant in his wake.

“Well, Captain?” Mr. Delacourt feigned a note of weariness.

“Your pardon, sir,” Captain Overton said, with a return of his former polite manner. “But Sergeant Daly has just pointed out something odd to me which leads me to the conclusion that we need to investigate the attics again.”

“And what is this ‘something odd’ to which you refer, my good man?” Mr. Delacourt addressed his question directly to the sergeant.

“There is an extra window, sir,” the young man replied promptly. “I counted the attic windows from the inside while I was up there and there were twelve. But from the outside, there are thirteen.”

“Odd indeed. But perhaps you miscounted?”

“It is easily solved, however, sir. Sergeant Daly and I will simply check the attics again,” Captain Overton said.

“This is nonsense.” Mr. Delacourt’s words of protest scarcely registered with the two soldiers, who were distracted by Rosie. Clearly distressed, she had risen from the table and moved swiftly toward the door. Martha hurried after her.

“Stay where you are, please, Miss Delacourt.”

“Captain Overton.” Mr. Delacourt drew the captain’s attention back to the table. “Kindly modify your tone when you address my daughter. You are not issuing orders to one of your men when you speak to her. You cannot be surprised at her anxiety after you have practically kept us prisoners in this room tonight. Now it appears you are proposing to repeat the performance. Well, I must inform you that I will be contacting the local magistrate on the morrow to complain about your conduct.”

The captain bowed. “Nevertheless, sir, we will search the attics again.”

“No, I cannot let you go up there.” All eyes turned to Rosie, who had paused by the door. Her voice was oddly calm, and she raised Tom’s old flintlock with hands that were perfectly steady.

“Rosie, no!” Martha tried to grasp her arm to restrain her, but it was too late. The gun went off with a deafening retort, and Rosie was thrown backward with the force of it. At the same time, Captain Overton clutched his chest then, with a look of dawning surprise, pitched face forward onto the floor.

Time seemed to stand still. Nobody moved, and it felt to Martha that, if they stayed that way, it might be as if nothing had happened. As if the captain were not lying on the floor with a slowly spreading crimson puddle beneath him. As if Rosie were not raising a shaking hand to her lips and turning stricken eyes to her cousin’s face.

The spell was broken as the gun clattered to the floor, and with a strangled sob, Rosie hurled herself into Martha’s arms.

“You’ve killed him.” Sergeant Daly turned to Rosie, his eyes widening in horror. “You’ve killed the captain. It was cold-blooded murder.”

“No.” Mr. Delacourt rose to his feet, moving to his daughter’s side. “Dear Lord, you cannot believe that was her intention.”

The sergeant thrust him aside and made a lunge toward Rosie. Beau, sensing that his mistress was in danger, roused himself from his position on the hearthrug and hurled himself at the sergeant, pinning him to the floor. As he struggled to shake off the dog, Tom hauled the sergeant to his feet by the front of his red coat. He crashed his fist into the young man’s face, knocking him unconscious, before dropping him back to the floor.

“Go and get Jack and Fraser,” he instructed Harry as he knelt beside Captain Overton, turning his lifeless form over onto its back. “Martha, help me here, please.”

Jack and Fraser burst into the room minutes later, alerted already to the situation by the sound of the shot and by a brief outline from Harry.

“It was an accident.” Rosie’s voice was little more than a whisper. Her face was as white as the lace at her throat. Jack drew her into the circle of his arms. “I meant to warn him, to give you time to get away. I never meant to kill him.”

“He is dead, nonetheless.” Tom stepped back from the body. He looked over at the sergeant. “And we have a witness. Sergeant Daly over there saw everything.”

“Then we must make sure our fine sergeant here doubts his own eyes.” Fraser’s voice was decisive. “First things first. Let us get him trussed up and out of here so that we can lay some plans. Tom, d’ye have some rope? Help me carry him, Jack. And while we’re about it, this room is no place for a corpse. Martha—” he paused, realising his error, “—I mean, Miss Wantage, will ye no take Miss Rosie into the breakfast room and see if there is a wee drop a brandy to warm her? And maybe take one yourself?” His smile was reassuring, and she let out a soft sigh. Fraser would make it right. Somehow she knew he would.

It seemed to take an age before the men joined them in the breakfast parlour. Rosie had passed through tears and shaking to a state of shocked numbness. She seemed comforted to have Jack near again, however, and he held her icy hands in his to warm them.

“The cellars around here have seen a wide variety of prisoners these last months.” Fraser rubbed the back of his head reminiscently.

“What is your plan?” Jack asked.

“This Sir Clive ye speak of, he saw me at the stables the other day. He heard me speak so he knows I’m a Scot. Mr. Delacourt and Harry must let it be known that I have been holding ye all hostage. Ye were all too afraid of me to do aught but follow what I told you to do. Of Jack there is to be no mention. It must be as if he was never here.”

“I will say nothing of the sort,” Mr. Delacourt objected. “I’ll not malign you in that way, Fraser. You have been a perfect gentleman in your dealings with us.”

“Whisht now, you must do as I say in this, sir. It matters nought what anyone thinks of me. It’s Rosie we’ve to think of. Ye’re to say I have been holding ye all against your will ever since the stramash at Swarkestone Bridge. Tonight, when the soldiers came, I donned the disguise of a woman. ’Twas while I was wearing that guise that I shot the captain. When I am gone, you must release him and tell him all of this. Tell him Tom clouted him before I could shoot him as well.”

Jack gave a snort of laughter. “You’d have the sergeant believe he mistook you for Rosie?”

“And have you a better plan to put before us, my fine lord? Especially since Mr. Delacourt here will confirm that Rosie and Martha have been away for the last two days visiting friends in the northeast. Ye must insist that Rosie was’nae here when the captain was shot.”