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And so, the marquis had hired chaperone after chaperone to keep the girl sequestered. If she did not marry, he would not have to give up her land.

The marquis did not like to give up anything.

Heloise’s godmother, a very kind woman with no connections up to the task whatsoever, had sent word to Priya when her visits were routinely postponed. Priya had dispatched Sybil to investigate. She was a scrapper, having survived both the rookeries of Seven Dials and the glittering ballrooms of Grosvenor Square. The marquis would be no match for her.

Or so they had thought.

“What do you mean she is missing?” Matilda demanded, setting her glass down with a sharp rattle. She glanced at Clara as though she expected to be reprimanded for her manners. As if such a thing mattered at the moment. To anyone.

Clara kept her expression stoic, polite. It was practically a supernatural power of hers by now.

“She has missed her last two check-ins,” Priya replied. “I sent a letter to the housekeeper, but Miss Taunton has not been seen for at least a week. And then I got this.” She lifted up a drawing of a black dove with a thistle.

A warning.

Emmeline sucked in a breath. It was one of their codes, used when something had gone wrong or, if with a thistle, when they had to go on the run. “So she is in hiding, then, not missing exactly. Or at least she had warning enough to send us that. That’s better, isn’t it?

“Marginally,” Priya allowed. “Lady Heloise is also missing.”

Clara winced. Going on the run with the ward of a marquis would take some careful planning. And luck. He had men and money at his disposal, not to mention the law. Sybil had an unholy love of chaos.

The way that Pierce took Priya’s hand, reassuring and encouraging, was not comforting to the rest of them. Priya did not need reassuring. She was like a general, sipping tea and growing orchids while villains fell at her feet, skewered before they even knew there was a battle.

“Eastbourne is having one of his infamous house parties.”

Clara had heard of them, if only in shocked murmurs. Masks, secret identities, sexual restraints flung to the wayside. Everything Clara was expected to disdain.

Everything she could not help but be ravenously curious about.

Brothels and sex clubs were not unheard of—in fact, there were entire streets in London dedicated to them. But such a gathering in an ancestral seat, filled with aristocracy mingling with the demimonde—shocking.

“That’s why Sybil went when she did,” Priya continued. “It was the perfect time to investigate him. The house will be full, and he’s bound to be distracted.”

“Not to mention soused.”

“And he does not want the girl married and out of his control. Some of his chaperones have had more in common with jailers, according to her godmother.”

“That connard,” Matilda added in French, followed by Latin. “Sterculinum publicum!”

“Dearest,” Emmeline said. “Did you just call him a public toilet?”

“Too right I did.”

“That is why I love you.”

“That and the way I can—”

“Ahem.” Emmeline cut her off with a cough.

“There are rumors about him,” Pierce added in his Irish lilt. “None of them good. It does not bode well for Lady Heloise to be trapped in that house, even without the party.”

“Well, he’s not cleverer than Sybil Taunton,” Matilda declared with the ringing of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. “I can promise you that.”

“Not to suggest that we are not also cunning as foxes,” Emmeline put in.

“Cunning as a fox with two heads,” Matilda insisted.

“But even we cannot force him to just let her go.”