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“Him?” Bram snorted, mildly insulted. “Barely nicked one of my buttons. And I think that was an accident.”

“He cut a hole in your peacoat!” She seized his arm, glaring at the offending slash through the navy wool. “Did he cut you? Are you wounded?”

“Clara,” he said calmly, almost fondly. “I’m fine. Not even a scratch.”

“Oh.” And here she was clutching at him like a ninny. She dropped his arm as if it were on fire. Truthfully, she didn’t so much as drop it as toss it away. What happened to her much-lauded decorum when she was around this man? Honestly, it was embarrassing. “You’re very nonchalant for someone who was so fretful over a little splinter.”

“I wasn’t fretful,” he grumbled.

She couldn’t help but tease him a little. “Cross?” she suggested. “Peevish? Distraught?”

He glanced down at her. “I don’t remember you talking to anyone else like this.”

“I don’t,” she said. And wasn’t that delightful?

“I had it on good authority that you were a reserved, proper lady of impeccable bearing.”

“I do sound about as exciting a tepid water, don’t I?” she asked drily. “Perhaps you are a bad influence on me.”

She hadn’t meant to make that sound suggestive, nor to immediately imagine all the ways in which he might indeed prove himself a bad influence. Against a wall. In a carriage. From above. From behind.

She had to clear her throat to get her breath back. A modicum of propriety. It helped that she had practice in that respect.

It did not help that he looked intrigued. Not shocked. Not disdainful or derisive.

Intrigued.

She felt it in the back of her knees, in her thighs, which went warm and soft. She was more than intrigued.

“I admit he got in a punch,” he said as they crossed through a field of purple crocuses leading to the side gardens. Swallows dipped and dove overhead. He rubbed his jaw.

She turned to him, wide eyed. “He did?”

“I’d tell you he punches like my grandmother, but Nan has a wicked left hook even now.”

She smiled, itching to ask him questions about said grandmother. She didn’t dare, in case he asked questions back. She had too many secrets. And he already seemed to see her more than anyone ever had in her entire life. Better not to say anything at all.

She took the key from her pocket as they crossed the fields, the sun warm on her shoulders. “This could open anything,” she said, disgruntled. “Anywhere.”

“Best guess still has it opening something in Eastbourne Hall.”

“Which narrows it down to over a hundred rooms.”

“Exactly. Nothing to it.”

He stopped to help her climb the step stile between two fenced fields. The grass was thick with marsh marigolds and coltsfoot, liberally sprinkled with dandelions. “If he is hiding something behind a locked door, why would he risk having such a grand affair as this? With guests overrunning his estate?” Clara mused.

“Misdirection? Not to mention that the arrogance of the aristocracy is unparalleled,” Bram said drily. “And most toffs who consider themselves fashionable or powerful want a turn hosting a Devil’s Night. Lord knows Devil does not let anyone onto his estate, if they could even find it. He’s not about to host it.”

“Why do you think he does it?”

“Power. Revenge. Love. One or all three. I don’t like that it’s another factor in this whole mess with Sybil.”

“Maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

“The Devil’s Night always has the advantage,” he said. “Remember that.”

“But it’s what we’re both here for.” To find their friend. They both worked for the Spinster Society. It was silly of her to have hoped, even for a moment, that there was another reason. She really must rein in her imagination. She was not a character in one of her own stories, much as she might like to be sometimes. She was simply Lady Clara.