When Ned caught her again, halfway along the portrait gallery, she spun about, raising her free hand to hit him. But he snatched her wrist and pulled her against him in a tight embrace.

“It’s all right,” he said. His voice was rough yet consoling.

Cecilia leaned against him. “I’m not returning to that room.”

“I know.”

He laid his chin on the top of her head, and she tucked her foot around his left ankle. “I’m serious, Ned,” she said, and twisted her foot. He stumbled, his grip easing; she kneed him in the stomach and stepped free.

“I appreciate your feelings,” he gasped, snatching the back of her skirt so she couldn’t run again. She fell forward, the sudden unexpected movement causing her skirt to rip from his fingers. Tucking her head beneath her, she rolled over her shoulders on the ground, jumped to her feet again, and was turning back to him with a tiny knife in her hand before he could blink.

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “I watched him kill my mother.”

She lunged with the knife and he sidestepped, grasping her arm and yanking her around. “And I watched him kill mine,” he said as the knife dropped to the ground. He kicked it away and in that tiny moment of distraction she ducked under his arm, twisting it and ramming her fist into his side.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

His breath burst. He pulled from her grip so hard she staggered, and catching her around the waist, he flipped her onto her back. “Thank you,” he said, straddling her hips.

“Were you very young?” Without waiting for a response, she grasped his thighs as leverage and slipped through his legs. Retrieving her knife, she scrambled up and, before he could fully turn around, leaped on his back.

“Thirteen,” he said, his voice constricted by her arm around his throat.

“I’ll kill him for both of us.” She wrapped her legs around his hips so she had more force for strangling him. He ran backward, slamming her against the wall. She groaned.

“That would involve returning to the breakfast room,” he said as her grip loosened and she slid to her feet. He turned, snatching her wrists, pinning them to the wall on either side of her head. The knife protruded helplessly from her fist. “And it would involve becoming just what he planned for you all along—a heartless replica of himself. He’d win, even as you stabbed him. No, I’ll kill him, and save you from being despoiled.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” she said, and brought her knee up sharply.

He blocked it with his thigh. Pressing against her, he wedged her tightly between himself and the wall. They stared at each other with bright eyes, their breath mingling, burning. He could feel her heart pound. She could feel something that was not his heart budging against her. The awareness of it clashed in their gaze.

“Your mother,” she said. “How did it happen?”