“Dear God! And what do you think I’ve been wanting?” She thought of Toby, wondering if he was alive, or whether he was bleeding to death in the smoke-stenched yard. “You did this to me! You wanted the money!”

“I want peace.”

“Now you want peace! Because you’re frightened! You should have thought of that before. Damn you, Samuel Scammell. Damn you and your weakness!”

He looked at her, seeing her beauty outlined in the window, and he shook his head. There was no fight in him, there was nothing left. He had been dragged into turbulent water and he wanted nothing now but to save himself from drowning. Even his lust for Campion was far off, forgotten. He put his head in his hands as if to obliterate her voice.

She did not give him peace. “You want none of this? Is that what you want?” She saw him nod, almost imperceptibly. “Then get us out of here. You’ve got a sword, haven’t you? A pistol? Then fight, Samuel Scammell. Fight, damn you! I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about the seal, but I do care about my life. You help me, for a change. Is that sword just decoration?”

He shook his head and she turned, exasperated, and saw the armed men in the garden who stared up at the window. She turned away from them.

The door opened.

Ebenezer came in, shut the door behind him, then leaned against its painted panels. He looked from Scammell to Campion, then back to Scammell. “I thought I would find you in your marriage bed! I brought you a candle.”

In his left hand he held a tray on which Campion could see paper and a lit candle. He carried it carefully to a small table and set it down. Scammell had not looked up.

Ebenezer smiled at him. “Brother-in-law. What is it?”

Scammell’s voice was muffled by his hands. “We must do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.”

“Oh! Indeed and indeed!” Ebenezer mocked him, then kicked Scammell’s shin with his lame foot. “Are you married to this woman?”

Scammell looked up. He turned to Campion and shook his head. “No.”

“Then in the eyes of the Lord, brother, you are not the rightful owner of the seal. I am.” Ebenezer came toward Campion, his eyes bright. “Do you have the seal, sister?”

“Ebenezer?” She tried to put a sister’s love into her voice.

“I have no sister. I have no family. Don’t think that you can wheedle me, Dorcas, I asked if you had the seal.” He had stopped a pace away from her. Scammell, behind him, seemed oblivious, sunk in his misery. Ebenezer smiled at her. His hair was sleek and black, as shiny as his lacquered breastplate. He lifted his right hand slowly, his eyes glittering, and Campion shrank back.

His hand moved fast, gripping the high neck of her gray dress. He pulled hard, easily overcoming her resistance, and she felt the hook at the back of the dress break. He stared at her neck. “You’re not wearing it, sister. Where is it?”