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“Ma’am,” Gray asked. “Did you hear gunfire?”

“Oh yes, sir.” Mrs. Peachy tilted her head as if to catch the aftermath of the sound. “I expect it’s poachers. With Sir Humphrey in London, young master Henry, ’e ’as trouble with ’em, you know.”

Gray looked at Winter. Winter looked back. “Right behind you, sir.”

*

In the lodge parlor, the single burst of gunshot sounded distant but distinct. Hector, dozing by the fire, leapt for the door and began to bark. Cordelia’s glance flew to her sisters’ startled ones. Roz and Miranda froze. Cordelia stood. “Where is Henry?”

The door opened, and Henry stuck his head into the parlor. “Good, you’re all here.” He rubbed the dog’s head.

“We are not all here.” Cordelia strode toward the door. “Where’s Viola?”

Roz shrugged.

“She told me she had a headache and was off to bed,” said Miranda.

Cordelia squeezed past Henry and the dog and took the stairs. “Henry,” she called down to him. “Whose gun was that?”

“The old sailor’s blunderbuss, the one I use to scare off poachers. A trip wire sets it off.”

Miranda gasped.

“Did you warn them at the castle?” Cordelia asked.

“His lordship wouldn’t go out in the dark, would he?” Henry followed Cordelia up the stairs. Hector bounded after them.

Cordelia reached the door to her sisters’ shared room and threw it open. “Viola?” she called. No answer came from the lump under the coverlet. Cordelia pulled back the covers, discovering a row of pillows. Behind her, Miranda gave a choked cry.

Cordelia turned to her brother. “Take me to the gun, Henry.”

Henry blocked the door. “But Cordelia, think. It might not be Viola who set off the trip wire. It might be poachers. They’ll be armed.”

“Or it might be our sister, lying wounded in the woods. Take me there. Now.”

“It could be Lord Graymont,” Miranda offered.

Cordelia turned to her. “Yes, thank you for that helpful thought, Miranda. If Henry has bagged the viscount, the magistrate could charge our brother with causing serious bodily injury or death. Henry, move.”

Henry turned and clambered down the stairs, the dog in his wake. Cordelia followed. They gathered cloaks and lanterns, and Henry retrieved his prized pistol from the gun cupboard. At the door Cordelia told the dog to find Viola, and Hector bounded off down the puddled drive toward the castle.

Cordelia and Henry splashed after, lanterns swinging with their movement. Where the drive met the gate in the castle’s old curtain wall, the dog plunged into the woods, following the northern wall below the castle’s Italian garden. A line of blackthorn bushes grew along the wall, and ghostly white ash trees rose above them.

“Henry,” Cordelia asked, “Does Viola know where the gun is?”

“No, but she should be unharmed. The gun is positioned in an old oak. The blast is meant to go over the heads of any poachers.”

“Then, let us hope that everything worked as you intended.”

In the wood ahead of them, Hector barked, and a faint voice sounded in the dark.

“Viola,” Cordelia called.

“Cordelia?” the faint voice cried. “I’m here.”

Cordelia and Henry rushed forward, lanterns aloft. In the mingled rays before them, Hector crouched below a leafless fallen ash. Its bare branches formed an arch over the dark, wet ground. Its dirt-caked roots clawed at the blackthorn hedge along the wall. Lying tangled in the curve of its upper branches was Viola, her hair streaming around her stricken face, her forehead scratched. Cordelia’s temptation to scold, to demand of Viola what she was thinking, was instantly replaced by the need to comfort.

“What hurts?” asked Cordelia, hanging her lantern from one of the tree’s bare limbs.