Page 43 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

“I think leaving is sensible,” she said, willing her voice to remain firm. “There are far too many people in here now for my comfort.”

“Oh, come, Ginevra,” Leland chided, “I thought you were made of sterner stuff. This is merely a lark—”

The leader at the podium yanked down the Damocles Club banner. “Death to Damocles!”

“Death to Damocles! Death to Damocles!”

“Get off—let me through.” Donald shoved aside a masked man to enter their circle, a thick lock of flaxen hair flopping over one eye. He grimaced at Leland. “I don’t know what’s going on, Professor, but the club won’t stand for it. What would you like us to do? Toss them out ourselves or call the police?”

Leland clapped Donald’s arm. “No need to fret, I’m sure they’ll calm down and leave—”

A window broke, and a woman screamed. The whole crowd started charging for the door, and someone shoved Gin in the back, toppling her to the floor. She threw her arms over her head to protect herself from the onslaught of swinging arms and bags, then a sharp heel twisted in the back of her calf, and she lurched forward, gasping and cursing. She had to get up. She had to get up before she was trampled—

The scarf around her neck yanked tight, jerking her whole body like she was a doll. Someone tugged on the scarf as though to wrench it off, and she scrabbled in vain to loosen the knot. The silk burned against her skin, twisting tighter.

Ginevra choked on the last gulp of air in her lungs.

Chapter Fourteen

Sidney Braithwaite had survived gunfire, land mines, bombed buildings, and infected wounds. But a woman’s handbag, swinging in the outbreak of chaos inside Malwyn Hall, thumped him so hard in the gut he doubled over with stars burning in his eyes. Someone shoved him backward, and he fell against the wall, clutching his ribs. He struggled to right himself and stay out of the stampede’s way. He’d lost sight of Ginevra when the banner came down, but surely she had the sense to leave …

No, she probably considered this a perfect time to observe their suspects’ psychological state under pressure—which it was, but not when their own lives might be endangered. Sidney gritted his teeth and swung up onto the nearest pillar’s plinth.

The crowd swarmed toward the exit like ants from an overturned hill, screams echoing off the high ceiling. The intruders had set to work methodically dismantling all remnants of the party, and there was a large stack of chairs and Leland’s books growing in the center of the room. But a particular pair of figures arrested Sidney’s attention: A masked man was trying to pull a chair leg free from the neck scarf of a woman who’d fallen to the floor, turning and yanking as though heedless to her panic. She scrabbled against the floor and clawed at the fabric, but the scarf only seemed to twist tighter.

The woman’s auburn hair made Sidney’s stomach plummet.

He leaped off the pillar and darted through the stragglers, tossing the masked stranger aside by the shoulders. “Shove off!”

The stranger backed away. Ginevra nearly collapsed, but Sidney slipped an arm under her shoulders and heaved her to sit upright. She fell limp against his collarbone, her face an angry shade of reddish purple. But she was breathing.

“Bishop!” he shouted in her ear. “Ginevra!” There was a terrific smash of broken glass as a chair sailed through a window, and a cheer rolled around the room. “Can you hear me?”

Gin’s head lolled to the side and her eyelids fluttered. “You look like a storm cloud.” Her voice rasped like those of the oldest miners in Sidney’s childhood village, but a surge of breath shuddered through her, and the fog in her eyes faded away. “You’re still here.”

“Of course I’m still here. I knew you wouldn’t have the sense to leave.” Her expression sharpened at the gibe, and a slow tide of relief rolled through him. “Can you walk?”

Ginevra peeled herself away from his chest and grimaced. “I think so.”

Across the room, someone shouted, Found the matches! and there was an answering cheer. “The idiots are going to burn the bloody place down,” Sidney muttered. “I hope someone called the police.”

“We should stop them.” Gin started to pull away, but Sidney tightened his arm around her shoulders.

“No, we’re leaving,” he said firmly. “Interfering in this is definitely not part of our job.”

Gin pinched her lips with prim displeasure but didn’t protest as he heaved her to stand. She waved him off, insisting she was fine, and began hobbling toward the exit. Only her sharp wince drew Sidney’s attention to an angry, purpling wound on her calf dripping blood into her pumps. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll deal with it later,” she said, her teeth gritted. “It’s not so bad.”

It was bad enough Sidney feared a prolonged delay escaping the madness inside Malwyn Hall. When another raucous cheer swelled around them, he exhaled and lifted Gin from the floor, sweeping her legs up in his other arm.

“Excuse me,” she exclaimed. “I was moving quite briskly.”

Sidney dodged a procession dragging the Damocles Club banner toward the pile of wreckage. “You were moving slower than my ninety-year-old gran.”

She glowered at this but stopped poking his shoulder as though he were a bus depositing passengers. Quickly, Sidney strode to the entrance and turned around, pushing open the front door with his backside. Malwyn Hall’s thick oak doors fell shut behind them, quelling the sound of chaos inside, and only his footsteps echoed across the courtyard.

Gin, however, immediately wriggled to get down. “Thank you, but I am capable of walking.”