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“Someone needs to break his bloody jaw,” he muttered.

Inside the hidden chamber was a table with a ledger and a stack of papers, a chair, several boxes, and a trunk. They finally understood why the key worked in the door leading outside to the hall but it still would not open. It was barricaded from the inside.

“Toss another one.”

By the third candy, nothing else came flying at them from the walls. No bolts or arrows or rusty medieval swords.

“Are there more traps, do you think?” Clara asked. The candlelight was not quite bright enough to reach the corners. Who knew what lurked in those shadows?

“I’d bet on it,” Bram said.

“I think I’m wagered out for the night,” she returned.

“I need something else to toss, preferably round. I want to test the floor.”

“I’m all out of cannonballs. I might be able to jump onto the table from here?”

“Like hell. Find me something, pirate.”

She searched the ground behind them, but there were no convenient stones or rubble. Nothing on her person. Nothing else in Bram’s pockets. She studied the floor. “We only need a bit more light,” Clara said.

“How do you reckon?”

“I highly doubt the marquis dusts the place himself, and he definitely doesn’t have the housemaids in to do it,” she said. “We should be able to see the stones that haven’t been disturbed by footprints and avoid those, just in case.”

“Clever lass,” Bram said.

“A spinster must learn to keep house and supervise the staff,” she said with a pretend sniff. “Page twenty-seven of The Manners and Morals of A Virtuous Woman.”

“I will never mock her again.”

“You should—she’s deadly dull.”

Bram found an oil lamp just inside the door. “Here we are.” He lit the wick, and the warm glow suffused the room. It had been a parlor once, still decorated for someone to sit in a soft chair with their favorite book. There was a faded mural on the ceiling full of angels and violent clouds. The floor would have been polished parquet once upon a time, but it was now very helpfully dusty. It was simple enough to follow the footsteps to the desk.

Clara trailed after Bram, peering carefully at every floorboard. “Do you really think there are traps?”

“False floorboards falling away into a pit, stakes, any number of ways to maim a person.”

“I’ll have to use that in one of my books.”

“What was that?” he asked, turning around to make sure she was safely stepping exactly where he had stepped.

“Nothing,” she said hastily. “Let’s see what he’s hiding in this letter box here.”

This box held more than correspondence from frantic friends and families.

There were also lists of women who stood to inherit should a single parent or guardian meet their early demise.

At the marquis’s hand.

Their fortunes were listed in great detail, the names of relatives, any secrets they might have. Magistrates in the area who might be bought off. As well as a collection of women’s jewelry, which no doubt had gone missing the moment they arrived at the Hall: necklaces, ear bobs, tiaras.

Heloise, Blanche, Rosalinde. And five other names Clara did not recognize. Those ladies could be anywhere. If they were even still alive.

And there was another ledger documenting the staggering amount of debt the marquis owed in lost wagers.

“Right. Let’s send this bastard to hell.” Bram hefted up the heavy box. “After you.”