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Not to mention smuggling a letter and another mysterious key.

Bram and Clara did not speak the entire journey down the stairs, through the conservatory and the garden and all the way back to the dower house. The footman abandoned them somewhere on the second landing, but Clara swore she could feel him watching them through the window.

The dower house was empty, save for a new tray of fresh rolls and strawberry jam from Mrs. Meadows and an assortment of mint teas from the garden. Clara broke the wax seal off the letter before she had gotten more than two steps inside.

Dear Cousin,

If you are reading this, it does not bode well for me. But felicitations on finding this letter at all. I left as many clues as I could, but necessity called for me to leave many more that led nowhere. I have tried to run away with Heloise, as you must have gathered for yourself, but I fear the marquis is on our trail. I do not know if we will make it. He is even worse than we feared. Heloise is not the first to be stolen by him and kept locked away, all for the sake of keeping her considerable inheritance and dowry under his purview. I pray you ask about a Miss Blanche Yarwood, daughter of a wool merchant from Cardiff, and Lady Rosalinde Fairfax from Ireland. I have proof that not only did the marquis abduct them and steal their fortunes, but he is also behind the demise of their previous guardians to that end. I am afraid I have hidden the evidence elsewhere and cannot tell you where, though I have every confidence you will find it in time. I cannot risk it, lest he finds this first. It is our only leverage at present. He searches for us even now.

Be safe and be very, very careful. Yours, S.T.

“Worse and worse.” Clara set the letter down. “Abduction, theft, murder. How are we going to find Sybil if we can’t even find the evidence that she has hidden away?”

“We’ll manage.”

“Why would he even do all of this? He has all of those estates and houses. He has more money than Prinny himself.”

“But like Prinny, he might be in debt up to his eyeballs,” Bram pointed out. “It’s not uncommon.”

“Perhaps that’s why he’s hosting the Devil’s Night?”

“Perhaps.”

“Poor Sybil. She is relying on us, and all we have is a key that leads to a grotto anyone can get into this week, and a key that opens a box to another key that opens we don’t know what.”

“She has leverage,” Bram reminded her when her shoulders dropped. “She will be fine.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough,” he replied grimly.

Chapter Nineteen

Clara spent the rest of the afternoon in the grand library, pretending to read wholesome tracts on morals and decorum. In fact, she was combing through the shelves looking for any more letters from Blanche, any mention of Rosalinde. Anything that might give her a better idea of the marquis and Eastbourne Hall.

What she really needed was better technical drawings. Something by an artist with a keen eye for detail. Mentions of a dungeon. Or a locked tower.

She searched for sketches from the first marquis who built the house in the late sixteenth century, taking note of areas that might be forgotten or abandoned, such as old turrets, the ruins of the family chapel, any place where Sybil might have hidden evidence.

Or, conversely, where the marquis might have hidden Sybil.

And why the secret passageway led to what appeared to be a parlor from some time ago.

Too many questions.

So few answers.

By the time the sun set, the last thing Clara wanted was to endure another night of dancing and cards and flirting. She desperately wanted to stay in her room and memorize more rules of the card games she had never played before for the Devil’s Night, just in case.

But even a spinster had to make an appearance.

The drawing rooms thrummed with a different kind of energy. Sharp, watchful. Dangerous.

Clara soon found out that while she was in the library, the Devil himself had arrived.

He sat in a burgundy leather chair with gilded lion’s-paw feet. Two men stood at his side, large, hawk-eyed. Body men. They did not even try to pretend otherwise. There was no disguising them as footmen, or friends. And Clara knew without being told that they were more effective then the marquis’s footmen.

The party had been all songbirds and swans, and now the eagles and the hawks were flying low. The Devil was just as handsome as she might have expected, with dark hair, dark eyes, a sinful curve to his lips. A cold knowing in his eye, as if nothing escaped his attention. As if he searched for something. And did not find it.