I inch towards the wounded creature, murmuring under my breath as I go, trying to soothe it. But the crow is panicked. It caws murder and tries to take flight again, only I’m faster and manage to throw the coat over its head. Before it can fight free, I bundle it into my arms, where the bird struggles momentarily, and then falls still. It’s paralysed with terror, and I can feel its little heart thrumming away fast as a hummingbird’s wing.

I turn to Liam, smiling in triumph at my rescue.

‘Now what?’ he asks.

My smile fades. I hadn’t thought that far. It’s not like there’s a vet or a wildlife centre nearby to take it to for treatment. ‘We can at least feed it,’ I reply, thinking on my feet. ‘Give it some water and some food. The poor thing might have been trapped in here for days without any.’

‘It’s got a broken wing, Laura,’ Liam says. ‘We’d be better off leaving it or killing it. Putting it out of its misery.’

My mouth falls open. ‘What? No! We can’t leave it. Or kill it. I can fix it. I’ll see if I can splinter the wing.’

Liam raises his eyebrows at me, but he knows I’m a lost cause when it comes to animals. ‘Come on then,’ he says with a sigh, turning around and heading back out of the room. I follow him, cradling the bird in my arms.

In the great hall he stops and stares at the first floor and the staircase up to it, looking rueful.

‘We should get back to the cottage,’ I say, hoping that he isn’t going to attempt a second climb.

I can see him weighing his choices, but finally he sighs again and faces me. ‘Fine,’ he accedes. ‘Let’s go.’

We walk down the servants’ stairs into the kitchen. Liam pauses, pulling out his phone to light our way through the dark space and into the cellar.

‘I wonder if there’s another stairwell,’ he says as we walk through the kitchen. ‘The servants’ stairs maybe. Old places like this always had secret stairs to keep the riffraff out of sight of the posh people.’

He’s right. There probably is another stairwell. Perhaps if we kept following the interior hidden passages, we might find it, but I really don’t want to explore any further.

‘I need to get this crow home,’ I argue. ‘We haven’t even had breakfast yet,’ I add, appealing to Liam’s prodigious appetite.

He relents, as I’d hoped, and leads the way through the cellar.

‘Next time I’ll bring a real torch,’ he comments as we reach the door.

‘Next time?’ I ask with dread. ‘We’re coming back?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. I’m coming back.’

Chapter Thirteen