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Chapter Twenty-Nine

There was nowhere to go.

The hall was filling with the marquis’s men. There was no time to crawl out of the window, no armoire to hide in.

But there was a secret passageway in the house.

It might end in a locked door, but Clara was now in possession of a great many keys.

Bram dragged a table in front of the door and lodged it under the handle. It would buy them a few minutes. Hopefully it would be enough.

“What are the odds that the marquis has a secret passageway that he can access from his personal study?”

“The odds? You’re the gambler, you tell me.”

“The odds are extremely good,” she replied. He was already searching the study, pulling on candleholders and feeling for odd spaces between bookshelves, books that did not quite fit. The wooden paneling extended along the back wall, heavy with scrollwork and carvings, confusing to the eye. Swans flew over leaping deer.

The handle rattled and there was cursing from the hall.

Clara pushed at each panel, guided mostly by instinct—and the fact that they had checked everything else, down to the painted globe on the mantel. Nothing else had worked. “Please,” she muttered. “Please, please.”

“There,” Bram said suddenly. He reached over her and used his considerable strength to push. A click, a puff of musty air. He shoved harder and the door opened. Clara stumbled into her darkness, Bram at her back. He hauled the paneled door shut behind them.

Darkness swallowed them.

“I’m not sure this is an improvement,” Clara said.

“I have a tinder box,” Bram said. She heard him open the little box, the strike of flint, and the hiss of the char cloth catching. A tiny flame sputtered. “There’s bound to be a candle or something nearby,” he said, lighting the sulfur-tipped matchstick. “The marquis would not stumble about in the dark.”

She felt around until she found a rush light. Bram had it burning before she could wipe the dirt from her gloves. “This time you go first,” he said, holding it high. “Just in case they find the same door behind us.”

The corridor was narrow, with hanging cobwebs that fluttered as they passed. She used to the scent of lime candies through the musty damp to steady her. Her heart raced, making her feel lightheaded. They were so close.

Voyeur holes spied into the drawing room where the revelers were draped over each other, smoking opium pipes as they watched dancing girls. The corridor branched off to the familiar hall they had first discovered, the locked door.

“If we can get through here, it’ll bring us out closer to where we need to come out,” Bram said.

Clara tried her new keys. The first did not work.

The second opened the lock, if with slight protest. “Finally,” she muttered.

Bram would not let her push the door open, expecting tricks and traps. He was a very suspicious man.

Also a very wise man.

The snick of the crossbow was the only warning before the bolt flew past his nose. Clara squeaked, grabbing the back of his coat. “Don’t move,” he warned.

Clara remained still except for her heart, which was galloping throughout her body.

“That paranoid bawbag. I hit the tripwire with my boot. Wonder what else he’s bloody hiding. Clara, I daren’t move. I don’t know what other traps he might have set. Take the tin of candies from my inside pocket,” he said calmly. “Carefully. Reach from behind.”

Clara pulled his coat back, sneaking her hand up and digging her fingers into the lining of the fabric. She found the tin.

“Good,” he said. “Now toss a candy forward, about head height.”

She did as he asked.

Another crossbow bolt was immediately triggered. Had Bram stepped forward even an inch, it would have gone through his neck. She shuddered.