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All things that might be quite enjoyable were she not now crouched in the bushes, wondering what was happening to Bram. She frowned at a bee bumbling toward a patch of dandelions. Bram surely should have popped back around to find her by now. What was he doing? Why had he been so adamant that she sneak out the back? The marquis was hardly likely to be taking a stroll through the village looking for victims.

Bram was setting himself up as the bait. And she had let him.

Idiot.

She straightened, emerging from the foliage. One of the geese caught sight of her and squawked. “Hush,” she muttered, even though geese were not known for their willingness to be hushed.

She stepped out onto the muddy lane, a branch of blooming lilac in her hand. It wasn’t much of a sword. It would have to do. She crept past another cottage before coming to a grassy lane running toward the street. She kept her back to the building, feeling very daring. This was something Peony might do. Or Emmeline.

Someone who was not acerbic and rule bound. Someone Bram could count on.

Someone trailing geese.

One of them pecked the weeds very near her foot. Too near. She stifled a squeak, waving her sword of purple blossoms, but kept her gaze on the street, on the shadow cast by the church, a cat licking his paw on a front step.

On Bram grappling with a man.

She suddenly had no idea what Peony or Emmeline might do in this situation. But she had a stick and some geese who would not be hushed. Who were known to be territorial. Their reputation was even fiercer than Priya’s.

Excellent.

Because she did not care for the way the stranger was trying to stab Bram in the chest.

Bollocks to that.

Bram was holding his own, no question. He was steady and deft on his feet, in the way only a man used to being at sea could be. There one moment, adjusting the next. Only he was not factoring wind speed or rough waves, but the attack of a man who might not be as wide as him, but was just as tall. Meaning his reach was equal. A lucky hit was entirely possible.

Not on Clara’s watch.

Bram avoided a slash at his midsection from a long knife whose blade did not look the least bit hygienic.

Clara had a disapproving glare and three geese in her arsenal.

Geese.

“I will bring you grapes. Or caterpillars.” What did geese eat? “You are very brave soldiers. Onward! Save the day!”

She waved her branch at them, feeling both ridiculous and a little guilty.

“Beg your pardon,” she said when one of them made a very affronted noise. “But this is your village—are you going to let that man there make a bigger fuss than you? The other geese will mock you.”

She herded them forward, stamping her feet until they exploded in a furious flurry of feathers and beaks and screams better suited to a gothic novel. Right into street, startling the cat, who yowled. And knocking over a clay pot, smashing it into bits.

A woman came to the door, wiping her hands. “Alice, mind your bloody geese!”

“Your cat is the one who broke my pot!”

Someone else added their opinion from a second-floor window. It was not favorable.

And, all in all, far too much attention for a surprise assassination outside the vicarage.

Take that, villain.

The man cut his losses, turning on his heel and sprinting away.

“Keep running!” Clara shouted after him. She threw her branch of lilac flowers for good measure. She’d had no idea how vengeful she truly was.

Bram swore and then turned to stare at her. But she was not done with her vengeance. She darted after the villain, making it two steps before a solid arm clamped around her stomach and lifted her off her feet. “Are you daft, woman?” Bram snarled in her ear.