“Although eat only half the bun, mind you,” Miss Darlington said as Cecilia took up Hiawatha and tried yet again to find her place among the reeds and water lilies. “We don’t want you falling ill with cholera.”

“That is a disease of contaminated water, Aunty.”

Miss Darlington sniffed, not liking to be corrected. “A baker uses water I’m sure to make his wares. One can never be too careful, dear.”

“Yes, Aunty. ‘The level moon stared at him, in his face stared pale and haggard, ’til—’”

Crash!

The two women looked over at the window as it shattered. A grenade tumbled onto the carpet.

Cecilia expelled a sigh of tedium. She snapped the book shut, wended her way through the furnishings, pulled back the drapes, and deposited the grenade through the broken windowpane onto the terrace, where it exploded in a flash of burning light, brick shards, and fluttering lavender buds.

“Ahem.”

Cecilia turned to see Pleasance standing in the drawing room doorway, plucking a glass splinter from one of the dark curls that habitually escaped her white lace cap.

“Excuse the interruption, misses, but I have news,” she declared in the portentous tones of a young woman who spent too much time reading lurid Gothic fiction and consorting with the figments of her melodramatic imagination. “Luncheon is served.”

Miss Darlington pushed herself up from the chair. “Please arrange for a glazier to come as soon as possible, Pleasance. We shall have to use the Lilac Drawing Room this afternoon, although I prefer to keep it for entertaining guests. The risk from that broken window is simply too great to bear. My own dear cousin nearly died of pneumonia under similar circumstances, as you know.”

Cecilia murmured an agreement, although she recalled that Cousin Alathea’s illness, contracted while attempting to fly a cottage in a hurricane, had little real consequence other than the loss of a chimney (and five crew members)—Alathea continuing on in robust health to maraud the coastline for several more years before losing a skirmish with Lord Vesbry’s pet alligator while holidaying in the South of France.

Miss Darlington tapped a path across the room with her mahogany cane, but Cecilia paused, twitching the drapes slightly so as to peer through jagged glass and smoke at the garden. The assassin was leaning back against the iron railings of the house across the street. He noticed Cecilia and touched one finger to his temple in salutation. Cecilia frowned.

“Don’t dawdle, girl,” Miss Darlington chastised. Cecilia lowered the curtain, adjusting it slightly so it hung straight, and then followed her aunt toward the dining room and their Thursday lamb roast.

2

the lady anticipates her caller—a disappointment—the plight of cecilia’s digits—another explosion (figurative)—whiskey at white’s—barbarous o’riley—the looming abbey—two captains confer—betrayal is exposed

Isabella Armitage was no bird-brained girl; and no police force had ensnared her, despite their efforts over the years. Lately, however, she had found herself tempted to do something that would almost certainly see her imprisoned, regardless of her wealth and degree.