Catherine’s curls quivered as she contemplated the inefficiency of the opposite sex. “I was appalled when I arrived this morning to find that he had been here two weeks and done nothing! Nothing! I had given him very specific instructions.”

Arabella didn’t like to think what those instructions might have been. She suspected Catherine’s methods of information extraction ran to the rack-and-thumbscrews variety.

“I can’t fault him for the delicacy of his nature,” Catherine went on, with a pro forma simper. As far as Arabella could tell, Darius Danforth was about as delicate as a goat, but Catherine apparently knew a different, more sensitive man. “His scruples become him, but it just wouldn’t do and I told him so.”

Arabella knew she should have reported Catherine’s midnight escapades to Miss Climpson while she still had the chance. This was what she got for being tolerant and understanding.

“So he got up his game of blind man’s buff,” Arabella said grimly.

“My game of blind man’s buff, you mean.” Catherine wasn’t willing to be cheated out of her credit, even at the expense of her husband. “Those idiot friends of his will do anything if you tell them it’s for a wager. By the end, each of them thought it was his own idea. They all find you an utter antidote, you know.”

“Lovely,” said Arabella.

“After all that, Darius made a botch of it, poor lamb. So here I am.” Catherine smiled brightly at Arabella and brought her pistol back up. “Give me the list. Now.”

In a novel, the proper sort of heroine would refuse to hand over the list, guarding it to the death.

Arabella didn’t want to die.

What good could she do to anyone dead? Other than alert the others to the treason with the sound of the shot that killed her, but, frankly, the walls of Girdings were too thick for that sort of thing. It might, in fact, be wiser to let Catherine have the blasted thing — as least, for the moment. Stranded in Girdings House, Catherine wouldn’t be able to get terribly far. While she was savoring her triumph, Arabella could muster the troops and catch her with list in hand.

“All right,” Arabella said slowly. “It was yours, after all. I only came upon it by accident. I never meant to interfere with your plans.”

It was what Catherine wanted to hear. She laughed happily. “Can you believe Darius even suggested paying you for it? I told him not to be absurd.”

Arabella reached behind her for the crumpled piece of paper. “Why do you want it so very badly? I don’t see you as a French spy.”

Catherine sniffed derisively. “As if I would be in it for that! Darius knows someone who knows someone who’s willing to pay good money for the thing. We’ll be set for life.”

“If you aren’t hanged for treason.” Seeing Catherine’s brows draw together, Arabella said hastily, “You can still put it back, you know. You can hide it among your father’s things. He’ll think he misplaced it. No one will be the wiser.”

“And live in some little hovel until my parents forgive me? No.” So much for their hard-won rapport. Catherine’s lips curved in a distinctly feline smile. Arabella could all but see her licking the cream off her whiskers. With impeccable logic, Catherine said, “They can’t hang me for treason if no one knows about it.”

Catherine was going to kill her. Arabella knew it as surely as she knew her own name. It wouldn’t have mattered if she handed over the list or not. Catherine had been planning to kill her either way. If there were no witnesses, those nasty events had never happened.

She wasn’t mad. It would be easier if she were. One could reason with a madman, suss out his distorted logic and play on it. But Catherine wasn’t mad. She was just very, very determined and entirely selfish.

What was the life of a lowly schoolmistress so long as she got her Darius and the money too?

Not to mention all of those other lives, the Royalist agents stationed between Paris and Boulogne, the English agents who relied upon them, the locals who supported them, all the hundreds of individuals whose lives would be forfeit when that list reached Bonaparte’s hands.

Arabella could see the carnage stretching out from Norfolk to Paris, life after life, all at the hands of the self-satisfied sixteen-year-old standing in front of her, gold bracelets gleaming on her wrists, all frills and ruffles and deadly self-indulgence.

Jane was right, teaching was a far more hazardous profession than Arabella had ever envisioned.

“How do you explain about the money, then?” Arabella asked desperately.

Catherine widened her eyes guilelessly. “Didn’t you hear? The money was a gift to Darius from a very elderly relative.” Dropping the pose, she added frankly, “She’s senile, you know. She’ll never know the difference. She may even think she did give it to us.”

Arabella retreated as Catherine advanced. “But someone else does know. That friend of Lieutenant Danforth’s, the one who arranged the deal.”

Catherine dismissed that with a casual wave of her pistol. “He wouldn’t dare tell. He’s in it too. You, on the other hand, are not.”

“Have you ever thought that he might be a counteragent? Perhaps he’s really working for the government and only pretending to sell secrets to the French.”

“He’s not,” said Catherine with terrifying certainty. “You forget. My father is in the government.”

“The government might pay you for it!” Arabella’s back was against the window. She could feel the latch digging into her spine. “You can tell them you found it. There might be a finder’s fee. You would be a heroine. His Majesty would invite you to tea.”

“Open the window,” said Catherine.

“Pardon?”

“Open the window.” Catherine pointed with her pistol. “You are going to have a nice little fall.”

Little wasn’t the adjective Arabella would have chosen. Her room was three stories up. They were very tall stories. The kitchen garden lay below, but, at this height, Arabella doubted that the winter-gray stalks of thyme and sage were going to do much to break her fall.

Arabella frowned at her former pupil. “These aren’t the sort of windows one just falls out of. You won’t be able to pass it off as an accident.”

Catherine looked smug. “I don’t need to. Everyone knows that you’ve been flinging yourself at Sally Fitzhugh’s brother. When he turned you down — who’s to say what you might do?”

Arabella eyed her askance. “Killing oneself for unrequited love? Does anyone really do that these days?”

Catherine jabbed the gun in her direction. “As of now, you do. Just think, you can start a whole new fashion.” She adopted an expression of mock remorse. “Such a shame that Mr. Fitzhugh didn’t return your affections.”

“ ’Fraid there’s a problem with that plan,” came a voice from the doorway.

Chapter 28

 “You see,” said Turnip Fitzhugh, “I do. Return her affections, that is. So your little scheme ain’t going to work.”

Turnip looked entirely at home, lounging in the doorway, his shoulders propped against the frame. Arabella didn’t know whether to be elated or horrified.

Catherine swung wildly around, backing up to keep both of them in her sights, her pistol wavering from one to the other.

“Her? You love her?”

“Don’t see what’s so odd about it.” Turnip deliberately moved towards the bed, away from Arabella, forcing Catherine to widen her range.

Following his lead, Arabella inched in the other direction, towards the fireplace. There was a poker in the rack beside the fireplace, a poker and a shovel, either of which could be used to whack the pistol from Catherine’s hand.

Catherine’s face was a study in bewilderment and rage.

“But she’s a schoolmistress.”

“Mistress of my heart, and all that,” said Turnip cheerfully, his eyes on the pistol. “Well-schooled in affection. Tutored in — ”

Catherine put a period to the catalogue by stamping her foot. “Fine!” she declared, flinging up her hands. Arabella instinctively ducked. “You can just die together, then.”

Choosing her target, she spun to face Arabella, her finger tightening on the trigger. Arabella flung herself to the ground. In the confused moment of falling, she saw Turnip’s arm draw back, and something round and pale fly with astonishing speed across the room, straight at Catherine. A piece of mistletoe fluttered like a lost feather to the floor.

The pudding hit Catherine smack in the side of the head, sending her reeling sideways. As her fingers relaxed, the pistol fell from her limp hand, clattering to the floor.

Catherine went down like a stone.

Flat out on the floor, Arabella could only stare. The pudding, slightly dented on one side, lay next to Catherine’s fallen form. What was the cook putting into her puddings? Rocks? Arabella swallowed hard, realizing that a rocklike pudding and the force of Turnip’s throwing arm were the only things that had stood between her and a bullet in the gut.

A pair of slightly muddy boots appeared in front of Arabella’s line of vision. Turnip’s usually immaculate attire was rather the worse for wear. His boots were stained with garden mulch, his hair wrinkled, and his cravat askew.

He had never looked better.

He held out a hand to her. “All right, there?” he said.

Arabella took the offered hand, and felt his fingers close around hers, strong and safe. He smelled of pudding and spilled cider.

“All right,” she said, pulling heavily on his hand as she rose to her feet. She looked up at him, at his dear, familiar, earnest face. “That was an excellent toss.”