my lot in with him, and everything fell into place rather nicely. Even when the government found out that Thomas Harden had taken the documents from the factory and they began watching him, I was ideally placed to keep an eye on things and promote the German interests from the inside.”
“And Major Ramsey never suspected you.”
“No,” he scoffed. “I was his little cousin Oscar, practically beneath his notice. That part of what I told you was true. He was always striding about, issuing orders to the younger cousins ever since we were children. He’s the golden boy, the earl’s favorite. The way the family fawns over him! The accident—where I lost the sight in my eye—is just one example. My brother’s horse bolted when we were out riding. Gabriel and I took off after him, but my horse threw me, and I hit my head. Gabriel stopped the horse and saved the day. And so I was the one who lost sight in one eye, and he earned yet another feather in his cap. I’ve hated him ever since.”
He had had my sympathy once, but not now. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to antagonize him.
“Oscar, please…” I said calmly. “If you’ll just think this through…”
“I have,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ellie, but this is the way it has to be.”
I recognized the look on his face. It was the one my own cousins would have when they weren’t going to hear reason. It was the look of stubborn assurance in their own sense of rightness. I knew then that I wasn’t going to change his mind.
We looked at each other then, both of us knowing that our causes could not be reconciled. There was a German agent coming toward us at this very moment, and only one of us could succeed in our goal.
With a sudden movement, he pulled me into his arms, so my back was against his chest. Ironically, I thought of how Major Ramsey had done the same thing not long ago.
The knife gleamed as he brought it up.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He was going to slit my throat. Or try anyway. I wasn’t going to be cut up without a fight. My body tensed in readiness. Before I could act, however, there was the sound of a voice from behind us.
“Oscar!”
Oscar whirled, turning us both, and I looked up to see a figure at the top of the cliff. It was Major Ramsey.
I felt a flicker of hope, and then I felt the sting of the knife’s blade pressing into my throat.
“Let her go, Oscar,” the major called. His voice was raised to be heard above the wind and the sea, but it was perfectly calm.
Oscar’s game was up. He knew that as well as I did. There was no way he could get the papers to the Germans now, no way that he could escape arrest for what he’d done.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t still kill me out of spite.
“I think he’s sweet on you,” Oscar said in my ear. “It’s going to hurt him to watch you die. Such a waste of a pretty girl.”
It was the “pretty girl” bit that did it. My temper had been building up over the last few minutes as Oscar revealed his treachery, simmering like a volcano about to erupt, and that final crack was what pushed it over the edge. I felt the anger surge through me in a hot wave, and I let it have its way.
The movement was instinctual, coming back to me from years spent playing with the boys, learning to best them at their own games. Bracing my feet, I shifted the weight of my lower body backward while clutching Oscar’s arm and pulling him forward with all my strength. In one smooth motion, I flipped him hard onto the sand.
Young, hotheaded Ellie would have given him a few blows while he was down for good measure, but I still had some common sense in me. I turned toward the cliff and started running in the major’s direction.
Oscar recovered more quickly than I expected, and, in a moment, he had sprung up, knife in hand.
A shot rang out, and I heard a thud as Oscar hit the ground behind me.
I walked unsteadily a few paces closer to cliff and then, my head spinning, collapsed to my knees in the sand.
* * *
“Miss McDonnell. Electra. Look at me, Electra.”
Major Ramsey was crouching beside me. I hadn’t seen him come down the cliff or approach