“Of course.” Pleasance jogged down the hall.

“We may be a little late for supper,” Cecilia called after her. “I hope you will not be inconvenienced.”

“Not at all, miss,” Pleasance said, opening the door and glancing out. “Four feet,” she called, standing aside.

Cecilia kicked off her slippers, then sprinted the length of the hall and threw herself out the door into the cool dusk air.

Flipping in midair, she landed neatly on the grass. Without a pause she ran along the breadth of the house in her stockinged feet and, rounding the corner, came upon a convenient hedge that provided further shelter. Miss Darlington must have been watching through one of their several rear- and side-view mirrors, for as Cecilia disappeared behind the hedge, the house swerved in the opposite direction, drawing fire away from her position. Cecilia could see a young woman standing behind a tree with a Winchester rifle in her hands. She crept toward her.

It was not easy to be surreptitious when wearing all white, but the shooter was focused on her target, and Cecilia managed to get behind her without being seen. As Miss Darlington swooped the house to avoid another broken window, Cecilia set the muzzle of her gun to the girl’s neck.

“Lower your weapon, if you would be so kind,” she said. “I’d be most dismayed at having to kill you.”

The girl dropped the rifle and spread her hands into view.

“Thank you. Step forward, please.”

“You—”

“I beg your pardon, but I must ask you to remain quiet for now. My aunt will wish to hear anything you have to say.”

“But who—”

“I am Miss Cecilia Bassingthwaite. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Another word and I shall have to kill you.”

“You won’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know of Cecilia Bassingthwaite. Despite your blighted parentage, you have a reputation for gentle, ladylike refinement. You won’t kill me.”

Cecilia considered this. She did not mind so much her parents being cast as blighted, since it could hardly be disputed; gentle, however, sounded like an insult. “Perhaps not kill you,” she agreed. “But I will happily render you unconscious and then sell you back to your family for an exorbitant ransom.”

“Fair enough,” the girl conceded, and they walked together in silence toward the front door of Darlington House.

As they approached, the house came to rest on the grass, and a moment later Pleasance opened the door.

“Good evening, miss,” she said with a curtsy, as if Cecilia had returned from an afternoon stroll with a lady of the haut ton.

Cecilia prodded the girl with her rifle. “Do go in. Wipe your feet on the mat.”

“But—”

“I would rather you just did as I asked.”

The girl sighed, and Cecilia got the sense she was rolling her eyes with exasperation. She appeared to be two or three years younger than Cecilia herself, and her hair was worn down. An extravagant black bow secured it in a ponytail and rather got in the way of Cecilia’s gun. But the girl was also wearing trousers and a man’s shirt, by which Cecilia understood her to be either a pirate or a farmer’s plucky young daughter fed up with houses landing on her father’s strawberry fields.