“Discard me,” he spat.

“Give you to a worthy couple who swore to love you with all they had.”

“All they had? Country peace, summers at the beach, rest on Sunday! What kind of life is that for a poet or pirate? I could have been captain of the infamous Darlington House!”

“Actually,” Petunia Dole put in, “Darlington House is entailed to the female, I believe? Unless you were a woman, it was never going to be yours.”

“Silence!” Morvath shouted. “You ruined my life—all of you! Depriving me of my birthright, stealing Cilla away from me, refusing me entry into your society.”

“Our ladies’ society?” Olivia asked.

“But I will triumph!” Morvath went on. “I have all your houses. And soon the throne of England will be mine. No more queens! All women will return to the hearth where they belong, and men will once again be the masters!”

“Do you think he’s revealed his plot enough?” Petunia asked, slapping her jagged half-bottle against her hand.

“Yes,” Miss Darlington said. “Patrick, I’m sorry if you were hurt by me adopting you out, but the world makes love impossible for women sometimes, leaving us with no choice but loss and grief.” She shrugged. “Or rampant piracy. But I don’t want to hurt you, lad. I love you, always have, despite everything. Can’t we sit down over tea and—”

“No!”

“Very well. Cecilia, Plan B.”

Cecilia’s pulse stammered. She knew it was her duty to follow a senior member’s directive but could not so easily leave her aunt, or for that matter the old dream of defeating her father. Stepping from Ned’s hold, she reached into a pocket of her dress, pulled out the deadly item therein, and smashed it to the ground between Morvath and the Wisteria Society.

Everyone leaped back.

“Nooo!” Morvath howled. He raised a furious gaze from the cracked, rumpled volume of Wuthering Heights to glare at Cecilia. “How dare you!”

“I have evolved beyond the point of wanting to read it,” Cecilia said.

“You—you are just like your mother—such a disappointment to me!”

“Thank God for that,” she replied.

Miss Darlington nodded briskly to her, and Cecilia almost smiled at such an effusive demonstration of approval.

“En garde!” Petunia shouted.

And Morvath shot her.

His pistol exploded in a cloud of hot gas and metal fragments. With a scream, he threw it from him and clutched his burned, bleeding hand against his chest.

“Did I mention,” Ned mentioned, “that I tampered with all your guns?”

“Traitor!” Morvath roared.

Ned shrugged. “It depends on who’s saying so.”

The air hissed as Morvath drew his sword. Behind him, guns clattered to the floor and the henchmen pulled out swords, knives, truncheons.

Petunia stepped back, hands on her hips. “Everybody sorted now? Shall we try again? En garde!”

“For England!”

“For Cilla!”

The sexes rushed forward to battle.

“Come on,” Ned murmured, pulling Cecilia away.

They shoved through the rush of hollering women and cursing men, ducking swords, cowering as a jar of cocktail onions exploded nearby. A man grabbed Cecilia’s hair and she kicked his shin, then kneed him in the unmentionables. As he collapsed howling to the ground, she gathered up her skirts, leaped his body, and twisted the arm of another man who was about to stab Essie in the back. Ned reached past her, snatched the knife from the man’s hand, and used it to stab a third in the thigh, while Cecilia forced the man to his knees. A swift application of Ned’s boot heel to his head rendered him unconscious. Thus they cleared passage for themselves through the melee, and within moments were around the corner and running hard along a corridor.