His eyes flicked frantically around for escape.
“Drop the knife, put your hands up,” Will said. “Or don’t and I’ll gut you. As you like.”
The man retreated another step. It was the last one he took, because Maisie was behind him by then, with feet planted wide, a militant expression, and an elaborate gilt candlestick that she brought around in a two-handed swing reminiscent of WG Grace batting at Lord’s.
The heavy base connected squarely, sending the man’s head sideways in an arc that was perfectly designed to meet Will’s left hook coming the other way. Blood sprayed from his mouth, a tooth flew, he went down like the dead, and Will said, “Fuck!”
“Excuse me!” Maisie said. “There’s no—are you all right?”
“Broke my bloody knuckle,” Will said through his teeth.
“Oh, no. Are you sure?”
Regrettably, he was. He’d done it before, and the internal crunch and dull hot pain were all too familiar. “I didn’t realise how fast he was moving. You caught him a cracking one.”
Maisie looked at the candlestick she held. “Good manufacture, this. Solid. The factory stuff breaks when you look at it, not to mention when you hit people with it, I suppose, not that I usually—I’m going to sit down.” She did so, on a chair, heavily. “Oh God. Do you know who he is?”
“His name is Anton,” Kim said. “He’s Waring’s chauffeur. Are you all right, Maisie?”
“No, I am not. He drove us here. He was very polite. He opened the door and called me miss.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“He was going to,” she said thinly. “He told me so.”
“Maisie!” It was a shriek, as Phoebe ran in. “Darling, what happened? I heard a scream—the door—Is that Anton? Will?”
Will was standing over a prone man, holding a massive knife. It probably didn’t look marvellous. “I didn’t stab him,” he said, then realised he could have made that clearer. “That is—”
“We left Maisie with you,” Kim said. “Where did you go?”
Phoebe had flown over to embrace Maisie, but that made her look round. “Are you blaming me for this?”
“I want to know where you were,” Kim said.
“Johnnie wanted to talk to me. Why—”
“I asked Phoebe for a private conversation,” Cheveley said, stepping in, Lord Waring behind him. “We had things to discuss. Dear me. Oh, dear.”
“What has happened here?” Waring demanded, pushing past him. “What the devil? Anton?”
Maisie gave her eyes an angry wipe. “He attacked me. He came in—he locked the door and said— I hit out at him, and I screamed. And then Will came in and scared him, and I hit him with a candlestick.”
“Oh, well done, darling,” Phoebe said.
“Anton—attacked—you,” Waring repeated, enunciating each word.
Maisie turned on him ferociously. “Are you calling me a liar, Lord Waring?”
“In fact, I don’t think he is,” Kim said. “I think he’s probably surprised. You wouldn’t have expected your man to behave like that, would you, sir?”
“I would not,” Cheveley said. “And I don’t believe he did. I’m afraid this story doesn’t hold water.”
“Oh, it does, and enough for you to drown in,” Kim said. “What’s the plan, Johnnie? Get Anton to attack Maisie, force me and Will into direct conflict with Lord Waring? Another round of Last Man Standing, since the last one did for Mrs. Skyrme so nicely?”
Cheveley looked at him with disgust. “I don’t know what you’re babbling about, Secretan. This poor fellow has been brutally attacked on the flimsiest of excuses—”
“He attacked me!” Maisie said.
“Be quiet, Johnnie,” Phoebe snapped. “Go and ’phone for a doctor if you want to be useful.”
“My love—”
“And stop calling me that!”
Cheveley’s face went rigid, nose flaring. “You don’t see the situation, Phoebe. I do You’ve been dragged into a pretty murky business, and it’s time it was dealt with. I’m sorry you’ve trusted the wrong people, and I’m afraid you’ve been lied to a great deal, but it’s over now. I’ll see to it they won’t hurt you any more. Please, darling, go to bed and let me deal with it.”
There was a brief silence. Then Maisie said, “Excuse me?”
Phoebe’s face was a picture, and not one from Smart Set. She stood, tall and outraged. “Have you gone quite mad, Johnnie?”
“Gone? No,” Kim said. “But it would be an excellent idea for you and Maisie to go upstairs now, Fee.”
“So that you can talk without me?” she flashed.
“Go with Maisie,” Kim said, voice very gentle. “Please. She’s had a bad shock and you need to look after her.”
“I’m afraid that Miss Jones is not the innocent you pretend,” Cheveley said.
“Do you