“She could put a bullet through your eye at twenty times the distance,” Bill observed. “All-England Ladies’ Champion. I’d advise you to take her very seriously indeed.”

“Move,” Pat said with all the force at her disposal, and Jack let go of Fen’s shoulder and stepped back. “To the side.”

She meant to get him away so Fen could stand without blocking her sightline. That was all she was focused on: Fen, safe. She didn’t expect him to leap sideways, pushing Lady Anna in front of him, and disappear through the room’s side door.

“Damn it!” Jimmy took off after him at a run, Preston at his heels. Bill sprinted out through the door they’d entered by, presumably in case the man doubled back. Pat was glad to see London hadn’t entirely dulled his instincts.

She lowered her gun, exhaling. Fen rose, came over to her, waited like a sensible young lady for Pat to place the revolver on a table, and only then collapsed into her arms, her head against Pat’s bosom, gripping her waist with shaking hands.

“Fen,” Pat said. “Oh heavens, Fen. Are you all right?”

“Mph.” Fen took a moment of shaky breathing, then looked up with that determined tilt of the chin. “Yes, I am. He didn’t hurt me, not really, but it wasn’t at all enjoyable. Jimmy and I had realised it must have been him, and I think he must have heard us talking, because when Jimmy went to find Victoria he came down all smiling and told me to come for a chat, and then I saw he had the razor. He dragged me in here and more or less threw me on that chair and was very threatening—asking who had I been talking to, why I was asking questions and so on. He isn’t nearly as pleasant as he seemed.”

“No,” Pat said. “No, he isn’t, is he?”

Across the room Lady Anna was sobbing in Victoria’s arms. Pat cast her a questioning look and received a tip of the head that did for a shrug. They were family; Victoria could handle this. And the men could handle Jack, and she had Fen safe, and she had just held a murderer at gunpoint.

“Goodness,” she said. “Shall we order tea?”

***

THE POLICE ARRIVED two hours later, a sergeant and two wide-eyed constables, just as the sun came out.

Jimmy as family representative and Bill as intellectually competent adult took them off to explain the situation, which was, in effect, that they had a corpse upstairs and a murderer locked in the cellar. Lady Anna had been put to bed, white-faced and near-catatonic, where her mother sat with her; Preston and Victoria had disappeared once more. So Pat and Fen drank tea until they were awash and kicked their heels with varying degrees of ladylike restraint until the police departed with the battered-looking Jack, and Jimmy and Bill returned.