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Rosalinde nodded again, more confidently.

Bram blew out the candles before locking the guards inside the cave. There was a shout of alarm from within. He ignored it. “You’re going to have to hide while we corner the marquis.”

“What about the dower house?” Clara suggested. “Just for a little while. We need to make this public. He wants it hidden away, so we shine every light on it.”

Sybil smiled grimly. “Oh, do let me help.”

“We are all helping,” Rosalinde said forcefully, though she trembled.

“She’s right.” Blanche took her hand.

“Only we can keep him properly distracted,” Sybil agreed. “While you get the evidence, Clara. Do you have the key?”

“I have them all,” Clara replied.

“Good. You need to bring us the box that’s hidden in his private study. It’s letters mostly, and although it might not be enough, it’s a start.”

“You hid it in his own study?”

“I hid it in the very last place he would ever think to look. Under his own feet.”

“Mad. Brilliant, but also mad.”

“You’d be surprised how many times I have heard that said.”

“I don’t think I would, actually.”

“Are you two quite finished bantering?” Heloise asked. “I should like my pound of flesh now, if you please.”

*

A quarter of an hour later, Clara and Bram stood outside the main hall for just a moment, watching Sybil, Heloise, Blanche, and Rosalinde advance on the marquis from every corner of the glittering room, like a chorus of Furies.

Methodically, patiently. Lionesses in faded and worn dresses, pale from the lack of sunlight, thin from imprisonment. And all the more fierce for it.

They were the only ones not dressed in red, not dripping pearls and diamonds. The only ones garnering any attention at all and holding it, effortlessly.

Past the billiards room, the marquis’s study was not guarded. Bram frowned but did not say anything. There was still blood in his hair, on his temple. On his knuckles. Clara knew he was angry with her, but she also knew he would never let it interfere with his duties. Or with her safety.

While the door was unguarded, it was also locked.

Luckily, this time, Clara was sure she had the right key, as they did not have time to pick the lock. She pulled her necklace free, trying them all until one fit.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered as they slipped inside. “That was too easy. And there are too many fronts in his battle.”

“You said yourself his arrogance knows no limits.”

“But now he also knows you know enough about Heloise to use her in a wager.”

Fair point.

Too late now.

An oil lamp burned low inside the study, set on the edge of the window seat so the glass reflected it and nothing else. Clara hurried to the fireplace, the floor creaking under her feet as she pulled back the hand-knotted rug. Underneath, nothing to indicate there was anything suspicious. Clara looked up, searching for the tiny blue dove she now knew hovered overhead. Sybil would have left a sign. “To your left,” Bram said. “By the chandelier.”

She spotted it, followed the line of sight down to the correct floorboard, and pressed on the corner. A bit more force and it budged. A bit more and it flipped open like the lid of a particularly large box.

Underneath was a bundle of blue cloth, unmistakably cut from one of the marquis’s famous coats. Inside, folded letters. Evidence.