“You are not well enough to travel today,” Julia said. “Besides, it is Sunday.”

“And you are, of course, welcome to stay here as long as you like,” Charlotte said.

Julia glanced sideways at our friend. “That is not what Porty said last night.”

Charlotte lifted her chin. “True enough. He wants you both out of the hall. He and the Ellis-Brants have gone to the hunting lodge and he has told me you are to be gone when he returns. As if I would drive you out!”

“You are a stalwart friend, Charlotte,” I said, managing to smile through the pain in my jaw. “But I think we have intruded upon your kindness for too long. We must go back to London. I believe I want my own home, my own things around me. Is that silly?”

“It is not,” Julia said. She took my hand. “Are you strong enough to tell us what happened in the forest?”

I took another long draft of barley water—savoring its soft, slippery sweetness—then reported the events at the clearing. I skipped a little over the circle of men and Mulholland’s attack upon me; it would distress Julia and Charlotte, and I certainly did not wish to relive it. At some point I would have to think on it, perhaps even talk of it after enough time had passed, but not now. Otherwise, I reported it all, or as much as I could recall.

“That is quite some ordeal, my dear,” Charlotte said softly, her head tilted to one side. I think she knew I was holding something back.

“Mulholland is really dead?” Julia asked. “I think you tried to tell me in the phaeton, but you were not quite making sense.”

“Yes, very dead.” I pushed away the image of his glazed eyes. And that last rictus smile.

“Who shot him?” Charlotte asked.

“I do not know. I was facing the other way.”

“Well, it does not matter,” Julia said briskly. She released my hand. “He is dead and now the matter is closed.”

Julia was not usually so callous. And oddly, she would not meet my eye. It took me a few seconds to understand why: she did not wish to know in case it was Mr. Kent. The sixth commandment was “Thou shalt not kill”—heaven cried out for vengeance upon those who killed with intent, and all who helped them—and Julia lived by the commandments. I hoped Mr. Kent had not killed Mulholland, for my sister’s sake. On the other hand, if it was Evan who had fired the fatal shot, that did not distress me at all.

“But the matter is not closed, is it?” Charlotte said. “Whoever is behind Mulholland is not dead.”

“True,” I said. “But we have a name. Charles Whitmore.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I do not understand why Charles Whitmore would want Lord Evan dead. There is no connection. None at all.”