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“Miss Staveley, will you come with me?”

“I beg your pardon,” she said. Her aim was to find Viola. She could see Mir and Winter, and Roz and James Fitzherbert in the midst of the dancers, but not Viola. Across the courtyard, Lady Frome looked up from a note in her hand, bowed to Lady Sydling, and took her husband’s arm, pulling him with her toward the northwest tower. The urgent pantomime of it set off alarm bells in Cordelia’s head. Viola was in trouble.

“It’s urgent,” Finch said. “Your sister—”

“Viola?” Cordelia was confused. Finch knew something about Viola.

He nodded. “She has left the ball and gone—”

“Gone where?” A terrible suspicion dawned in her. She looked for Graymont. He, too, was absent from the scene.

“You must know better than I …”

“I do. There’s a dungeon, you see,” she said, uneasiness spurring her into motion. They crossed the courtyard in a few rapid strides, and Cordelia took a lantern from a footman overseeing the champagne at the entrance to the northwest tower. At the top of its winding stair voices floated up to them. Finch stopped her. “Let me catch up to them. I may be able to avert a scandal. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Cordelia nodded. Finch squeezed past her and disappeared into the dark. She hurried after, berating herself for not watching Viola more carefully. Viola had wanted to lock Graymont in the dungeon from the day he’d arrived. But whatever she’d got up to, it would just be one of her schemes. She had no regard for propriety, but there would be no real harm in it. No scandal. Lady Frome was a friend. She had daughters of her own. Graymont would be annoyed, but he was a sensible man. No one would want the thing known.

She swung around at the bottom of the stairs when footsteps and voices sounded above her. She stumbled, banging her knee hard, and picked herself up. Ahead, where the long dim passage narrowed, she could see three persons converging on the turning to the dungeon door. There was no sign of Viola.

Finch pounded on the door and called to whoever was inside. Cordelia hobbled forward on her throbbing knee. She couldn’t hear a response.

Sir Roger held a lantern aloft, illuminating the old door with its iron bands.

“Lady Frome?” Cordelia called. She hung her lantern on a wall bracket.

Her ladyship turned a stricken face to Cordelia. “I’m so sorry, dear. I wasn’t attending, and now your sister has been lured into disgrace by Lord Graymont.”

“Nonsense,” Cordelia said. She was sure that if anyone had done any luring, it was Viola, but why her sister was inside the dungeon she didn’t know. She gave Lady Frome’s hand a quick squeeze.

“Gray,” Finch called.

“Here,” came Graymont’s voice.

“I can’t see a way to break the door open.” Finch turned to Cordelia.

“Viola,” Cordelia called. “Where is the key?”

A sob came from behind the door. “Oh, sister, thank you for coming to my rescue,” Viola said in the tiniest of voices. “I lost it in the dark when the ledgers fell. In the struggle.”

Finch shot Cordelia a grim glance. “Where can I get a stick or a taper?”

Cordelia pointed back down the passage. “The next room is open, and there will be something there that you can use.”

As Finch strode off, Cordelia realized that Graymont’s sister and brother had followed them. The narrow space felt crowded and airless. Heavy, competing scents choked her.

“What is going on?” demanded Lady Sydling. “Am I to understand that you’ve locked my brother in a dungeon in his own castle?” Her voice was strident with the outrage of someone used to being in charge.

“We don’t know yet, Lady Sydling. Once we unlock this door, we will have a better understanding.” As Cordelia’s mind raced to think of a reasonable explanation for Viola and Graymont being in the dungeon, she caught Lionel’s gaze in the shadows. His sister might be offended, but Lionel’s expression spoke of satisfaction and calculation.

“Who knew we would have a melodrama with our ball?” he drawled. “Or is it a farce?”

His sister turned on him with a glare as Finch came striding back with a handful of thin sticks. Cordelia recognized them as the stakes of some old willow basket. Sir Roger opened his lantern. Finch lit a pair of sticks from Sir Roger’s candle and knelt on the stones at the base of the door. The smell of burning straw filled the narrow space.

“Viola,” Cordelia instructed, “Finch will pass lighted tapers under the door. You must take care. Find the key and shove it back, please.”

Finch slipped first one and then the other taper under the door.

From behind the door came a rustle of skirts and then the scrape of metal against stone. The sound stopped, but nothing appeared on their side of the door. Finch glanced up at Cordelia.