“Kidnapping. And I’ll report you for damaging my hired carriage. Just what do you mean by cutting the traces? And if you say you were merely obeying Mr. Burton-Smythe’s orders, I shall not be responsible for my actions. Now, out of my way,” she said again. Only this time, she raised St. Clare’s flintlock.

It didn’t provoke quite the response she’d anticipated.

The two servants laughed uproariously. Even Lionel Beresford tittered with amusement. As if she were a simpleton who didn’t know one end of a weapon from the other.

“You be careful with that, little lady,” the valet said. “You might harm yourself.”

Maggie leveled the flintlock. “Let him out, or I shall shoot that dratted pistol straight out of your hand.”

“Have a care, ma’am.” Mr. Beresford moved as if to take the weapon from her. “If you do yourself an injury, how will we—”

Maggie pulled the trigger.

A pistol shot broke through the noise of the crowd—exploding in the night like a firework.

The sound wrenched St. Clare back to his senses. Tearing his attention from Fred, he looked for Maggie at the edge of the crowd. She’d been there but a minute ago, begging him to stop fighting. But now she was gone.

She was gone.

Shoving Fred away from him, St. Clare shouldered his way through the onlookers. Someone was screaming. A sound to make his blood curdle. But it wasn’t a woman, thank God. It was a man. Lionel’s valet, in fact.

He was doubled over next to the door of Fred’s elegant carriage, clutching himself. A pistol lay on the ground at his feet. Fred’s coachman lunged for it, but Maggie kicked it away before he could reach it.

She was facing them alone, still holding St. Clare’s flintlock.

“Me hand!” the valet wailed. “She’s blown off me hand!”

“Nonsense,” Maggie said. “My aim was perfect.”

St. Clare was at her side in an instant, still breathing heavily from his fight with Fred. “Are you all right?”

She looked up at him. Her brows knit as she scanned his face, a frown forming on her lips. “Are you?”

He ran a hand over his hair. He knew he must look a fright. There was blood all over him, drying on his face and fists, and staining the linen of his torn shirt. Only a fraction of that blood was his own. “I’m fine,” he said. “In spite of appearances.”

“Good.” She pushed past the still-screaming valet and opened the carriage door. Enzo was inside, his hands bound together. He gave them a look of profound relief.

“What in blazes?” St. Clare stepped forward to untie him.

“They snatched him,” Maggie said. “And they’ve cut the traces of our carriage.”