“I believe he’s working for someone else,” Cecilia said. “There’s another house beyond the woods—a large building—” She pointed, despite knowing that it was rude to do so. Everyone turned to stare as the great spiked shadow rose out of the distance, one light blazing from a high window. Miss Dole’s manor flew toward it.

“Northangerland Abbey!” Gertrude exclaimed.

“Captain Morvath!” Essie gasped.

A grim murmur went through the group. Several of the women glanced with narrowed eyes at Cecilia, but as she did not begin shrieking in fear at the sudden appearance of her evil father’s monstrous Gothic lair, they looked at one another instead. A wordless code traveled through their gazes.

“To your wheels, ladies!” Anne cried, lifting her sword high. “We must give chase!”

“Tally ho!” someone hollered.

“Hurrah!” someone else shouted—and then: “Oh, sorry, Petunia, it’s really not exciting at all.”

And the ladies ran for their battlehouses.

Cecilia turned to hurry home, but Miss Darlington caught her by the arm. “We cannot leave without our coats,” she said, and hauled Cecilia into the Rotunder foyer with a strength belied by her cane and her frequent claims of being too infirm to fetch anything for herself, even from a table within reach.

“Good man,” she said, snapping her fingers at the butler, who was directing staff to action stations. He bowed and went at once, with a butler’s instinctual understanding, to retrieve the ladies’ outdoorswear.

Mrs. Rotunder had already dashed up to her wheelroom, and servants began running about closing windows and dousing candles. Miss Darlington, still possessed of Cecilia’s arm, eyed her closely.

“You encountered this Lightbourne fellow, or merely saw him entering Pet’s house?” she asked in a stern tone.

“We had a brief conversation,” Cecilia confessed.

“A rather athletic one, from the looks of you,” Miss Darlington said, and Cecilia blushed.

“There was some exchange of stances.”

“I see.” The short phrase seemed to ring with bells—church bells, to be precise, and Cecilia held her breath. She was disinclined to marry her assassin, regardless of how charming his smile might be. But Miss Darlington’s eyes gleamed with unexpected humor. “Who won?”

“I would say that I did,” Cecilia replied, “but as he is currently getting away with Miss Dole’s house, I fear that would be an exaggeration.”

“Pish!” Miss Darlington said. “Pet should have locked her door better. Where is that man with my cloak? We shall have to jump for it if he does not—ah, finally,” she said as the butler arrived. “Hurry now, Cecilia, there is not a minute to lose.”

They took their clothing and exited the house. All around them, buildings were rising into the night. Even as Miss Darlington and Cecilia stood putting on cloak and coat (and scarves, beret, gloves), Mrs. Rotunder’s house groaned aloft. Miss Darlington lifted a disapproving gaze to the wheelroom window.

“It sounds like someone mispronounced the second rhyme,” she said. “Cecilia Patricia Bassingthwaite, your tonsils are quite exposed. Wrap your scarf again properly.”