Deele caught sight of me through the window. He turned, peering intently across at me, the physical similarity to his brother uncanny: a younger version of Evan but without any strength or character carved by hardship in its lines. “Lady Augusta Colebrook? Is that you? I was told you were interfering in my affairs!”

So Mulholland had told him that Hester was with us but had not told him about Evan’s return. Unsettling, yet I did not have time to trace that dangerous map of motivation.

I opened the carriage door. “I am not interfering in your affairs, Lord Deele,” I said. “I am helping Lady Hester escape your brutality.”

“This is none of your business, Lady Augusta. You have no idea what my sister has done.”

“All she has done is love someone,” Evan said. He must have crossed the short distance between them, for now he stood at arm’s length—and a gun’s length—from his brother. Through the carriage, he met my eyes, a swift confirmation that I had all in hand. Then he saw his sister, unconscious in the corner. “Good God, Charles, what have you done to her now?”

“Just laudanum. I did not want her to attack me and my men again. She is violent, Evan.”

“Balderdash!” Evan said. “If she fought you, it is because she is fighting for her survival.”

“Is that what she told you? You should know she has been bewitched by a woman,” Deele said. “A woman. It is ungodly. A monstrous thing.” He shook his head. “I tell you, we Belfords are cursed, brother. First you, a convict, then our father’s debts, and now Hester.”

“Our father’s debts?” I heard the flex of disbelief in Evan’s voice. “He was never one for cards or the bones. What debts?”

“After you were transported—his beloved firstborn—all he did was gamble. Then he died, and I”—Deele thumped his chest—“I had to pay back all his IOUs. It nearly ruined me. I had to use everything in the estate and borrow too.”

“Everything?” Evan demanded. “Did you use Hester’s portion as well? Is that why you put her away?”

“That is not why I committed her. She is mad. Anyway, I am her guardian; I can use her and her portion any way I wish, and I used it to drag this family out of disgrace.”

“There is only one disgrace here, brother, and it is you,” Evan said coldly. “Look what you have done to our sister.” He motioned with the gun at the prone Hester. “She is not mad. And yet you abandoned her in a madhouse. When we found her, she was near dead!”

Deele lifted his Belford chin. “Better she is dead than without the grace of God or bringing more scandal upon our name.”

I sucked in a breath. Such a terrible thing to say—did he truly mean it?