The hubbub in the music salon had certainly been heard from without and Flora had decided to use the fortuitous diversion to explore the house for the gems. She had been about to climb in through an open library window when her limbs were inappropriately grasped and she was hauled back to the ground.

"What the devil do you think you are doing?" hissed the darkened figure.

Not recognizing the figure, Flora had been about to strike her hardest when she realized she knew the voice. "Jacob?" she whispered in surprise.

Feeling a faint flush creep over his face as the lovely young thing in his arm uttered his given name, Jacob Holt took a moment before replying. In the interim, his lovely captive freed herself from his embrace.

"What are you doing here?" Holt repeated, after he had recovered his somewhat scattered wits.

"Trying to get the gems back! And rescue Anne!" Flora muttered resolutely.

"Anne? You mean Miss Tilbury? She's here? Good God! It's a regular convention!" Jacob shook his head in astonishment.

"What do you mean?" Flora asked quizzically.

Jacob flinched a bit, but then answered honestly, "Your Lord Daventry is here, as well as my cousin and a maid I thought I recognized."

Flora's eyes sparkled. "David's here?! Oh! He must have come to steal back the gems as well!"

Jacob's mouth twisted as he said sardonically, "I'm sure."

Flora began tugging on his arm, "Come on! We must find a way to smuggle a note to David and Anne and see if we can split up the searching.

Jacob hemmed a bit, "Well, first we have to find a way to get in. And I think perhaps it's best if we only alerted my cousin." As Flora startled to bristle at the implied rebuke of her hero, her companion forestalled her, "It might not be safe for Daventry to know we're here."

Flora accepted the excuse, somewhat, and easily overlooked the possible danger to Anne.

Suddenly, the library window opened further and a female form leaned out. "Are you goin' to come in? Or just keep on givin' her some rubber glove?"

The two erstwhile thieves flushed and clambered in as Dickens unceremoniously hauled them through the window.

Raffles had nothing on these three.

Falcon stretched his arm out, plucked up the tankard and threw it against the wall with considerable elan. "Drink is for the defeated! Drink is for the cowardly! Drink is for the dunces!" His poetic stance struck James as faintly reminiscent of another Jamie, but he refrained from commentary in the midst of Falcon's moment. Theo looked blearily up at the two, blinked, registered the comment and stood quickly but unsteadily to his feet. "Are you, sir, calling me a coward? A dunce? Or a defeated? Um?" He puncutated his question with a thrusting finger.

Falcon snorted. "Come on, M'sieu Theo. Your sister has more spirit then you! She's gone off to rescue Miss Tilbury!"

Theo looked around the deserted tavern. "Miz Tilb'ry's missing?" His eyes widened. "Good Lord! We must rescue her!"

"That's the intention," James replied adroitly and waved the way toward the door.

The shadowy gathering of people broke apart and drifted separately to disparate exits. The General remained behind. He played with the ornately carved hilt of his cane while he mused over his plan. It could work. It might succeed, but unlike his underlings who either believed in the cause, craved power or had personal grudges to square, he himself had orchestrated this entire affair out of simple ennui. He was bored. He had wanted to see if he could, to prove to his father that he had the brains and the patience to manipulate such a great plan. He hadn't thought those were his strengths. In fact, prior to this he had always thought violence was his best asset. He placed a hand against his side, feeling pain from an injury that was years old.

He had begun testing his strengths on a small scale. Infiltrating the home of a fellow gentleman in the guise of a man of affairs. He had also chosen the household of a man who cried friends with an old enemy of his. He had courted the danger, revelled in the fact that at any moment that enemy could appear, recognize and denounce him. That day had never come. So he had begun to recruit pawns, one of the first being Cecily Tilbury. She had been invaluable not only in his bed, but also in her ability to recruit others: notably her uncle and that callow young fellow Lord Daventry. Yes, the General had honed his talents for manipulation well. He had refined them, become more subtle than his earlier heavy-handed and personal attempts at vengeance. No longer. He no longer cared about Farrar or even his father. Now it was about seeing how far he could take it.

He purposefully never thought about the consequences to himself.

"For heaven's sake, Anne" Cecily hissed as Lord Daventry turned away from her a moment. "Don't just stand there like a henwit - remove these - theseª÷|" her irate words ended in another shriek of rage as Balder made a renewed attempt to reach the unhappy Boadicea.

The tall, well-featured footman seemed suddenly to overcome his previous incompetence and with little more than a flick of his hand, summoned the enormous dog to his side, where Balder sat obediently, his great tongue hanging out of his mouth in a silly grin of dog-satisfaction. With their nemesis now under control, the two black cats slunk toward Anne until she could scoop them up into her arms.

As she turned to leave the music room, Anne heard Cecily gaily urging her guests to have another cup of punch and to forgive the dreadful interruption. Her light, tinkling laugh rose above the clamor of other voices, and then the library door shut behind them.

"Mr. Mathieson," Anne began, but he forestalled her. "Not a word until this hell-hound is out of doors," he said angrily, "I did not enlist to be a blasted zookeeper."

The cats wriggled impatiently and Anne clutched them more securely to her bosom. "There is a breakfast room just here with doors that open onto the loggia...|" she led the way confidently through the dark room and in a moment had pushed open the heavy French doors. The sweetly scented May evening beckoned, and the cats clawed their way free of Anne's embrace and sprang into the darkness of the gardens.

Mathieson reached up and tore the powdered wig from his head, tossing it carelessly into the nearest decorative Grecian urn. "Damned thing's full of lice," he growled, thrusting his fingers through his own glossy, dark hair.

Anne bristled, "Surely, Mr. Mathieson... your language..."

"What!" He whirled around to face her again. "Is my language not to your liking, Miss Tillbury? Not gentlemanly enough for you? Pray - tell me with what words might I satisfactorily express to you how disgusted I am with this whole havey-cavey business."

"No one asked you..."

"Oh, indeed - no one asked me to come. I was to allow a green girl, with no more sense than God gave a gnat, to winkle her way alone into this nest of vipers."

"I am not yours to protect." Anne turned away from him and began pacing along the loggia wall.

"God be praised for that!" Mathieson said rudely. "I would never have left the side of the woman who IS mine to protect, were it not for that weak-brained cavalier of yours..."

"M-mine?"

"The soon-not-to-be-the-Marquis is one of a very few men I name as friends, and for him - not for you! - but for him, I would dare more even than this. He and Falcon should by now be in Tillbury Minor..."

Anne stopped. "James?" she whispered. "James is coming here? Coming for me?" In spite of the danger, in spite of the hopelessness of any future for them, a warm rush of delight spread through her. "James is coming for me?"

"Blessed St. Thomas!" Mathieson gave a most Gallic shrug and said, "The man should be resting - that great hole in him hasn't even begun to heal - but he would not be denied. Neither Falcon nor..."

They had rounded the corner of the loggia, outside the part of the great house Anne knew to be the library. "Look," she said, grasping Mathieson's arm to stop him, and pointing to where Balder stood on his hind legs, scratching and whining at the open library window.

"Miss Tillbury, was anyone else foolish enough to come with you?"

"Well - there is Dickens - she refused to be left behind - and I know that Flora is here, too... but..."

Mathieson swore softly and drew a pistol from one of the capacious pockets of his livery. "Stay you there," he whispered, "Do not, on any account, follow me. I shall signal when I know 'tis safe."

With one smooth, lithe movement he swung himself up over the low windowsill and disappeared. There was a moment of silence and Anne could hear her own heart pounding in the terrible quiet. Then she heard what sounded almost like a sob, "Merciful God..."

Ignoring all her careful instructions, Anne reached up and began hauling herself up over the windowsill. Her full skirts pulled heavily at her legs, and the bottom of her stays bit painfully into her waist. She considered for a moment stripping down to her shift, but then decided Mr. Mathieson had quite enough to bear as it was. She gave another struggling heave, wriggling her bottom in a most unladylike manner, and at last succeeded in tumbling into the library.

The room was unrecognizable as the once serene haven of learning and research Anne remembered. Now it was a shambles of scattered papers, discarded books and overturned furniture and limp, unresponsive bodies. Poor Dickens was slumped down against one wall, Flora lay beside Sir Paul's great teakwood desk, and next to her was a man Anne didn't recognize, a man wearing the uniform of an army captain. The officer had one arm stretched over Flora, as if he had been trying in his last breaths to protect her, and beside him Mathieson knelt, grim-faced and anguished.

Anne stood frozen with horror for just an instant and then ran herself to Flora, laying one hand against the younger girl's throat and nearly weeping with relief when she felt a slow, but steady pulse. "Are they all..."

"All alive," Mathieson whispered. "Ma foi - what is my cousin Jacob doing here? This is a coil, indeed." He stood up and riffled quickly through some of the tumbled papers on this desk. "How could they all have been drugged so quickly? None of them would have been so foolish..."

He stopped then and turned to Anne. "Miss Tillbury," he said icily, "Did I or did I not tell you clearly not to follow me?"

"You were very clear, Mr. Mathieson - but when I heard..." Her words trailed off as she noticed a dark stain starting to spread across his fingertips where they had brushed the papers. "Mr. Mathieson," she whispered, terrified. "Only look..."

Mathieson glanced down at his hands and then quickly looked at the three silent figures around him. On each of their hands, too, the same ominous dark stain could be seen.

"I - am - a - dunderhead..." he murmured, the pistol slipping from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

"Well said, Mr. Mathieson," Cecily's cool voice spoke from the library door. "You have made a very great blunder indeed."

Mathieson made one desperate attempt to fight off the drug's torpor, lunging toward Cecily and Sir Paul as if he would protect Anne after all, but Cecily's poison was more powerful even then his iron will and he fell into a senseless heap at Cecily's feet.

The young woman extended one daintily slippered foot and pushed him disdainfully away from her. "What a nuisance," she drawled, bending to pick up the pistol. "Now we'll have four to dispose of instead of just three."

Fear wrapped its icy tendrils around Anne's heart, so that she could barely speak. "Cecily... sure... surely you are not going to..."

"Not going to kill them?" Cecily handled the pistol with ease, checking to see that it was primed and then turning to level it directly at her cousin. "Well, dear Anne, that depends entirely upon you."

Cecily looked at her father. "Papa, you go reassure our company. I'll be there shortly, as soon as I've ensured Anne's...cooperation." She kept the gun steadily aimed at Anne while her father left the room."

"You wouldn't dare fire that now," Anne said as calmly as she could. "Everyone of your guests would come running."

You are always so practical, cousin dear." Cecily walked over to the mahogany desk, picking her way delicately through the prone bodies of Matheison, Dickens, Flora and the military man on the floor. She reached up to the ornamental rack hanging on the wall behind and brought down a beautiful antique Indian Mahrattan Firangi sword. Likely one of Uncle Paul's overseas mementos, thought Anne, but she had no doubt that in this household, it's edge was kept razor sharp. Cecily carefully hefted it by the ornate iron hand guard. She then placed the gun in a drawer of the desk.

"Please don't think about trying to outrun me," she said, walking around to where the unconscious group lay, the firangi balanced casually in her hand. "I might have to take out my displeasure on those you leave behind."

Anne tried not to shudder.

"I don't know what you want from me Cecily."

"Don't pretend to be naive with me, cousin dearest. That Marquis or horse farmer or whatever he is. James. He's coming here looking for you isn't he? Well, we want him to find you. We need him. For a short while, anyway." Cecily smiled unpleasantly. "He won't come here for me!"

"Oh dear, I forgot, you're the eternal innocent, aren't you? You haven't changed a bit since we were children. I suppose you deny that you have any special interest with James Havershaw. Or that he would ride across England to come to your rescue?"

Despite herself, Anne felt again the surge of happiness at the suggestion that James cared so much for her.

"What? Don't you want to help papa and me find your sweetheart? Oh look, you're blushing as red as he does. As that whole family does...or did." Cecily sneered, her foot nudging Flora's prone form. The dainty jewelled clasp on her evening slipper caught in the unconscious girl's sarsonet shawl. Cecily struggled without bending down for a few moments, trying to free herself but had no success. Keeping the large sword before her she ordered Anne to get that awful stuff off her lovely new shoe.

Anne could scarcely credit it. Trust Flora to wear such an impractical yet elegant garment. The fine lace had firmly snagged Cecily's fashionable high-heeled slipper. Her cousin imperiously held out her caught foot. Kneeling down, Anne could feel the deadly firangi not far from the back of her neck. But lying close to Flora, his arm draped over the girl's slender form, was the military man. And in his sword belt was one of the finest colichemardes that Anne had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

Perhaps she could buy some time by pretending to cooperate with Uncle Paul and Cecily. There was even a chance that James could successfully come to her rescue if she waited. As she fiddled with the lace and clasp, Anne carefully considered her choices and decided.

With a swift twist she heaved Cecily's foot upwards with all her might. Cecily crashed backwards, the hoops in her elegant gown billowing over her head. Anne pulled out the colichemarde and leapt up. Cecily, still clutching the deadly firangi, scrambled to her feet, kicking herself free of the sarsonet tangle. She began to advance toward Anne.

Anne backed away, putting the desk between herself and her cousin. The gun! Anne yanked open the drawer and grabbed the gun in triumph.

But Cecily did not look frightened.

"I'm afraid the gun presents the same dilemma for you as it did for me," she purred. "If you fire, then the household will come running. Including my father and my father's many very loyal servants."

Anne considered the situation. True, Uncle Paul and his minions would immediately appear. But so would the guests, surely? Would none of them be sympathetic to her? Even after they saw the group on the floor? But then again, she would be standing with a smoking pistol over the body of her cousin. That was not likely to put her in anyone's favour. No, firing the gun would not be to her advantage. But neither could she let Cecily have it.

On the desk, matching the arrangement in the music room, there was a silver bowl of red roses. Anne plunged the gun into the centre of it. With the powder wet, neither one of them could fire a shot.

"You little idiot!" snarled Cecily and she lunged at Anne. "You should have killed me when you had the chance!"

Cecily aimed the firangi in a fierce tierce thrust at Anne's chest. But Anne saw it coming and parried successfully. She returned the thrust in sexte, but she did not have her cousin's power, and Cecily effortlessly pushed the colichemarde aside with her own sword and laughed.

"You haven't got a chance, cousin. Hector Kadenworthy wasn't good for much, but he was one of the best swordsmen in England. And he taught me everything he knew." With that Cecily thrust en carte. Anne parried swiftly but before she could return, the firangi came at her again in a tierce thrust, and she was obliged to parry immediately to keep her cousin at bay. The sound of their striking blades rang out around the room.

Anne had no idea who this Kadenworthy fellow was, but Cecily was indeed a magnificent swordswoman. She made the unwieldy Indian firangi seem like a streak of lightning. Anne was continuously on the defensive, warding off her cousin's attack, evading the sharp edge at the last minute as Cecily pressed her around the perimeter of the room. But Anne was determined and she plumbed reserves of skill and strength she didn't realize she had as she continued to parry her cousin's lunges, occasionally chancing a return herself although she was wary about leaving Cecily too wide an opening in which to drive home her blade.

"More than I expected from you, cousin." Cecily grudgingly admitted as Anne successfully countered a particularly close in sexte thrust.

"A good governess needs to be well rounded.." Anne answered, slightly out of breath.

As the passed near the brocade sofa, Anne's counter disengage resulted in the colichemarde ripping through one of the silk roses on the hem of Cecily's gown. Cecily shrieked in rage and rushed her thrust in carte. But she was wild and Anne was not only able to parry, her glizade nearly knocked the sword from her opponent's hand. Cecily instantly recovered, lunging in prime. Anne parried again, this time chancing a thrust in prime herself. Cecily returned a flurry of lunges, her fury impeding her accuracy to the extent that Anne was able to deflect them all, the sound of the clanging blades interspersed with the increasingly laboured breathing of each woman. The last flourish of thrusts ended with each one on opposite sides of the sofa. Anne watched her cousin cautiously as she wiped her wet sword hand on her dress. She felt lucky she was still unscathed.

Their evening gowns were a problem not only because of the width of the stiff hoops, but because their considerable weight added to their exertions. Both women were now gasping for breath. Anne could see the perspiration beading Cecily's brow. She smiled. If Cecily could see herself, she would be very unhappy. Her face was damp and her cheeks were bright red. Her gown was not only torn, it was becoming soaked with perspiration as well. And the once elegant coiffure was in complete disarray, the glossy black curls now a wet clump across her brow. Of course Anne realized that she herself must look much the same, but still, it was extremely enjoyable to observe the elegant Cecily in such a bedraggled state.

"Wipe that smirk off your face!" Cecily snarled. "I was only thinking that it might be considerably easier were we to remove our overskirts and our slippers." Anne said sensibly.

"What do you take me for? Only an idiot would stop in the middle of a sword fight to adjust some clothing!"

"I believe that men in duels do it all the time."

"Just as I said." Cecily rounded the sofa and lunged at Anne.

Cecily was without a doubt the better swordswoman, but the Indian firangi was not a duelling weapon. It's greater weight and awkward length seemed to even the odds between them as Anne plied the excellent colichemarde to the best of her skill. Once again the two women circuited the room, Cecily pursuing, Anne on the defensive, but managing against all expectations to hold her cousin at bay.

Anne's legs began to feel like jelly and her lungs ached.. But Cecily did not look much better and when Anne manoeuvred herself behind the desk, her cousin did not follow, but stood across, sword in one hand, the other steadying herself on the back of one of the armchairs. They could not continue to fight at this pace for much longer. Anne attempted to reason with her cousin.

"Cecily, why are you doing this? What more could you possibly want? You're beautiful and rich, You have handsome and devoted suitors. You have everything you always said you wanted when we were children. Why insist on this foolishness?"

In between gasps, Cecily answered her. "I'm sick to death of papa's petty schemes. I want a taste of some real power for myself, not for him for or some clod of a husband he'd have for me." She stood up, flexed her sword arm and continued, jeering. "You're the fool, cousin. Look at the pathetic failure of all your childhood ambitions. Where's your loving family, your devoted husband? The best you can do are two flea-bitten cats and other people's dogs."

"Well at least I've come by them honestly." Anne panted.

"That does it, cousin. I wasn't going to kill you before, but now, I must." Cecily immediately attacked with a thrust en carte that Anne was barely able to parry in time.

Cecily began her attack with strength, but now neither one could maintain a vigorous pace The pauses between each charge grew longer but despite her failing strength, Cecily would not give up the fight. Struggling to catch her breath, Anne concentrated on defending herself, but in the back of her mind something that her cousin had just said was nagging at her. She managed to put the sofa between herself and Cicely and she fought to stay on her feet.

Other people's dogs. Balder! Theo's dog! Balder was here. So Theo must be at Tilbury Manor as well. But where? Thankfully, he wasn't one of the unconscious ones on the floor. Could he be lurking around the premises, waiting for his chance to help? Without stopping to think, Anne said his name out loud.

Cecily gave a breathless chuckle. Anne looked up and her heart sank when she saw the gloating expression on her cousin's face.

"Yes, dear little Theo. I'm afraid that I have him as well. I'm saving him as a particular treat for myself. It's turning out to have been such a trying day."

Anne gasped.

Cecily, still panting on the other side of the sofa, managed a sinister laugh.. "Oh I assure you that he won't mind a bit. Not until the end that is."

"Cecily Tilbury, that is the outside of enough! You never would do such an awful thing so you can stop this nonsense this instant!" Anne's voice carried her best governessy tone.

"I will not stop it, you sanctimonious prude! And I would so! Furthermore, it's none of your business what I do with the wretched clod, so do not use that managing tone with me. We're not children anymore! Theo claims that he's no longer interested in me. We'll just see how true that is."

"Oh for goodness sake, he's only a boy."

Cecily seemed not to have heard her cousin. She looked off into the distance, glowering. "How dare he tell me that he's grown tired of me!" she fumed. "Who does he think he is? The great Marquis of Seaforth? Ha! He's an oaf! An ungrateful, unappreciative infantile imbecile!" Suddenly she turned to Anne, a peculiar look in her face. "You know, cousin dear, there is a service I could perform for you. I could make your precious James a marquis. By allowing him to live for a moment longer after I kill Theo." She laughed, but without amusement.

"Cecily, you know perfectly well that you have never killed anyone in your whole life."

Cecily glared at Anne from across the sofa, the firangi glittering dangerously in her hand. "You don't know anything at all, you self-righteous little pest." she hissed.

"I know that you are a very wicked woman, Cecily. But are you really as evil as you want everyone to believe you are? Someday you may end up being very sorry that you've behaved in such an appalling manner."

"I will make Theo pay for his treatment of me! And I am so a dedicated villainess!" Cecily raged.

Anne wondered that perhaps the day was already dawning when Cecily would regret the nefarious path she had chosen. She spoke quietly but firmly.

"Well, I'm giving you the chance to prove that you're as wicked as you say you are. Although I think I already know the answer. You could have poisoned these people to death instead of just rendering them unconscious. And you obviously learned to fence from a master while I barely know what I'm doing, yet we've spent the last half hour rounding the room. I think you could have killed me at any point, either with the gun or with that exotic relic. But instead we stand here debating the merits of young Theo Havershaw. Not that they aren't considerable," she added, "but enough is enough. You are not your father, Cecily Tilbury."

Anne lay down the colichemarde and stood straight with her hands on her hips, facing her cousin. Raising the deadly point of the firangi, Cecily advanced steadily toward her.