Tristram cried out as Darcy rammed his face into the gravel with a good deal of satisfaction. “But killing? Why was he trying to kill you?”

“To get my part of an inheritance. He killed de Mauxville for the same reason,” I managed to say, although my throat was still burning.

“I thought something strange was going on. Ever since you fell off that boat,” Darcy said.

“Let me up. You’re hurting me,” Tristram whined. “I never meant to harm her. She’s exaggerating. It was only fun.”

“I saw the whole thing and it wasn’t fun,” Darcy said. He looked up as there were footsteps on the gravel behind us.

“What’s going on here?” Lord Mountjoy demanded.

“Call the police,” Darcy shouted to him. “I caught this fellow trying to kill Georgie.”

“Tristram?” Whiffy exclaimed. “What the devil . . .”

“Get him off me, Whiffy. He’s got it all wrong,” Tristram yelled. “It was just a game. I didn’t mean anything.”

“Some game,” I said. “You’d have let my brother hang for you.”

“No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t kill de Mauxville. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yes, you did, and I can prove it,” I said.

Tristram started to blubber as he was dragged to his feet.

Darcy put an arm around me as they led Tristram away. “Are you all right?”

“Much better now. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

“It looked as if you were doing rather well without me,” he said. “I quite enjoyed watching.”

“You mean you were standing there watching and didn’t try to help?” I demanded indignantly.

“I had to make sure I could testify he was really trying to kill you,” he said. “Quite a good little fighter, I have to say.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t look at me like that. I’d have intervened earlier if I’d seen you sneak out of the room. Belinda was doing a harem dance and I got distracted for a second. No, wait, Georgie. Come back here. . . .” He ran after me as I shook myself free and stalked away.

I strode out into the darkness until I stood at the balustrade overlooking the lake.

“Georgie!” Darcy said again.

“It’s nothing to me what you and Belinda do,” I said.

“Strangely enough I’ve done nothing more with Belinda than sit next to her at a roulette wheel. Not my type. Too easy. I like a challenge in life, personally.” He slipped his arm around my shoulders.

“Darcy, if you’d come earlier you would have heard me apologizing. I thought you were dressed as the executioner, you see. I feel awful about the horrible things I said to you.”

“I suppose it was a natural supposition.”

I was very conscious of his arm, warm around my shoulder. “Why did you follow me into that house?”