“She’s not here.” Perry glided into the empty space next to Charley.

He’d been quite alone at the center of this society rout, being avoided by the stuffier sort and the young virgins they guarded. Rakes and rogues—people in his league—hadn’t been on the guest list, apparently.

But Perry had received an invitation, and once they’d established that the Kingsleys—who hadn’t been at home to Perry that day—would attend, he’d determined to escort her.

Perry greeted a passing dowager, as Penderbrook stepped up to join them.

Charley nodded at the older woman and grinned when she cut him and moved on.

“Yet I saw him and his lady,” Charley said. The big fat devil and his wife had arrived in a new coach. He’d overheard two of the matrons buzzing about the coach’s mahogany trim and silk shades.

“Yes. The word is Miss Kingsley was not feeling well enough to attend. And I have not seen Carvelle.”

Carvelle was not in attendance, nor Miss Kingsley. The skin on his neck twitched, and he caught Penderbrook’s eye.

“Do you suppose...” Perry’s voice cracked. She took a deep breath.

She didn’t need to express the worry. It electrified the air around them. In fact, alarm bells were now clanging in his head.

“Shall we be off?” Penderbrook asked.

“Excellent idea. Will you escort Perry home?”

Perry’s lips firmed, and he sighed.

“Fine. But promise you’ll do as I say.”

As soon as the elderly maid had tucked her into her bed and clicked the lock on her door, Graciela rose, relit her candle, and dressed herself in her most practical gown. She rummaged in her trunk for the pair of pantalones that she had worn under her dresses during parts of her sea voyage, pulled them on, and then fastened her half boots. She found the pouch with her jewelry and coins and her mother’s slim volume of sonnets, stowed both deep in a pocket, and tied her hair back with a ribbon.

The lovely large Spanish prayer book her father had given her before his departure lay under her pillow. Her eyes clouded as she unfastened the hasp, remembering the words and instructions he’d bestowed with this gift.

She pressed her fists to her eyes and forced the tears back. There was no time for remembering.

The lovely sheathed dagger slipped easily from its hidden space in the spine. She kissed it and tucked it into the sash at her waist.

Then she pulled on her heaviest pelisse, and sorted through her box of hairpins for her picks.

This lock she had not mastered, simply because of interruptions. It could not be so hard. Juan had explained the mechanics mere days ago, after the first time she’d found the door locked, and he’d provided her with tools that he promised would work. With the Kingsleys gone, she would have plenty of time.

She went to the door, setting her ear against it. Some Kingsley forebear in the distant past—one more like her father, perhaps—had built this house solidly. The thick door was no exception. The house had been quiet for some time, the servants off to their final tasks or to bed. They were not entirely a bad sort, the Kingsley servants. The gray-haired maid helping her tonight was hard of hearing and should have been pensioned off long ago, but she had gasped at Graciela’s back, and whispered that Juan had been seen in the mews. If that was so, then he had got Reina and Francisca to safety.

That was something, anyway.

She knelt before the door and began to work. After several minutes, she heard a muffled step. An odor seeped under the door and she sprang to her feet, pocketed her picks, and ran for the darkest corner of the room, by her washstand, grabbing a heavy dark shawl from the bedcoverings as she passed, and shrouding herself.

Heart pounding, she held her breath and rested her hand on the hilt of the dagger. Dios. Even the man’s cologne smelled of rot.

She might hang. These ingleses stole all of a woman’s money upon marriage and were not any more sanguine about a woman defending herself than the rankest of dons, or pirates for that matter.

The door opened and closed, and he filled the room, tainting it.

Anger sparked through her. She did not care if they hanged her. She would have a trial first. She would stand at the King’s bench and tell of his lordship’s beatings. And then shame, shame on these cold people so lacking in honor.

A numbness started in her hands, and she squeezed it down, remembering her father’s lessons. Stab here, to kill a man, and here to disarm him, and here, so that he will never hurt another woman. For this man, it would be all three.

Had not her mother and Consuela shown her how a woman could do hard things?

Her candle rested on her dressing table near to the door. He held another in his hand and approached the bed. Diabolical he was, the candle showing the craters and planes of his face, his crooked nose. Her own nose rebelled at the smell of him, and she pressed her lips together, holding her breath.

She had not taken the time to arrange the bedding. Ah, but it would have been a short-lived feint anyway.

His lips, those thin twisted things, curled up revealing broken teeth, discolored, even in this light.

Her muscles tensed like the hard blade at her waist. Her vision tunneled, her gaze meeting his. The ugly slash widened.

Under her wrappings, she eased the dagger out.

“Not in your bed, Grace?” He moved closer, his gaze sweeping over her. “And dressed. Hmm.”

Get out of my bedchamber. She clamped her lips shut on the words. There was no Lady Kingsley behind him to manage his ire. To pump up his greater strength with anger would not be wise.

This time, she must let her blade speak her anger.

“It is very cold in this room,” she said.

The leer widened. “I have come to warm you.”

His foul breath swarmed around her and she bumped into the washstand, grabbing the pitcher with her free hand and steadying it.

It was a heavy, well-made, rustic thing, and there was still water within.

“I should prefer some coals in the grate.”

He chuckled. “No coals, my dear. Just my blackened, devious heart tonight.”

“I think not. You must wait for the wedding night.”

“The wedding night. Oh ho. Because why? We both know your innocence is not part of the package.”

She froze. Reina. He was thinking of Reina. Lord and Lady Kingsley had eyed the child askance, but even after the news arrived about Papa’s disappearance they had not dared to contradict what they thought was a fiction, that Reina was the daughter of her mother’s dearest friend.

She did not have to feign indignation. “What?”

“You have got your bastard safely away, I hear. And here you stand, boots and all under that large covering, planning to go and join her.”

“She is not my bastard. And it was Lord Kingsley who sent her and my servants away. I am worried sick about them.”

“I think you are lying on all counts. But I don’t care that your baggage is gone or where she went. She is well out of my hair.”

“Her mother’s father is a Spanish don. Papa pledged to her—”

“But I shall enjoy testing your assertion of innocence.”

A shiver went through her and she tried very hard to hold herself still. She had been in this spot on another occasion, with a man who turned out to be just as fearsome. This time no one would come to her rescue. This time she must save herself.

“And screaming will do you no good. Lord Kingsley has dismissed most of the servants tonight.”

She gulped hard over a lump in her throat and her trembling—she could not control it—darkened his smile.

He saw her fear. Oh, that was not good.

Or...was it? She bit down on her lip.

“I should prefer you w-woo me properly.”

“Properly? Shall I kiss you?”

Her stomach flipped and bile rose in her throat. She swallowed hard. “Sw-sweet talk,” she spluttered. “Flowers. P-poems.”

“You have your flowers from me, I see, on your dressing table.”

Those flowers had been from him? Her gaze darted to the withering blooms. No wonder they had shriveled so quickly.

Her hand tightened on the dagger’s hilt. He still held the candle in one hand. He had arrived stripped down to his open waistcoat and his trousers. Somewhere in this house was a servant holding the rest of his clothing. Perhaps he was just outside, guarding her door. She must be careful and silent.

She saw no weapons on him. He was larger than her—most men were—but in the dark...

He leaned close and that breath...Dios that breath...

“And anyway, ladies are wooed. Other women are taken.”

Rage roared through her. She snatched the pitcher and swung it, water flying. He grabbed for it just as the candle went out, and he lunged at her, straight into the point of her dagger.

He yelped, and the pitcher clattered. She yanked the knife out and ran.

The door was locked. He slammed her to the hard panel driving the blade into the wood.

She must hold tight to the hilt. She must not lose it to him.

“Help.” The door muffled her scream, and he bellowed, “Bitch!”

He clawed at her neck, one-handed. She ducked, freed the dagger, and scuttled out of his reach.

One of his hands clutched his belly, but the light from her dressing table candle showed a dark spot spreading beyond the press of his filthy hand.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt, her heart clattering. A stab to the belly, the cloth pushed in—it might fester and kill him, but not soon enough. A man on his feet always had a chance, Papa said.

She edged toward the other candle. She must put it out. Darkness would help her. In the dark, he wouldn’t see her blade coming at him. She must stab him again.

Or…he was weakened. She could club him.

The empty grate with its poker was too far away. Her tortoiseshell brush would not fell a strong man.

The vase with his vile, wilted flowers twinkled in the candle light. The vase was a heavy lead crystal.

He staggered but stayed on his feet, just barely. No true pirate was he. No soldier. No caballero. Like her guardian, this man beat only those he thought to be weak.

She would never be weak again.

“Go and lie on my bed,” she said in a rush. “When they find you there, it will serve just as well to your purpose of ruining me.”

He lunged at her, and hit the wall. The darkness of his belly was spreading, two hand widths now.

She must wear him down. “I will call your man to tend to you. He is waiting outside, no?”

He was panting now, great gasps of air, but under the glaze of what must be pain, his eyes hardened.

Ay Dios, she would have to kill him. She would have to.

“Your master is hurt,” she shouted. No answer. No shuffling feet or pounding on the door. No one was lingering in the hall.

He would have the door key in a pocket, but she did not want to touch the man or his trousers.

“You think your little prick has hurt me?” he growled.

Do not expect your little prick to hurt me. She clamped her lips tightly over the words. Actions must speak more loudly than words, Papa always said.

“Hand over the dagger.” He extended a hand streaked with blood. “I will need it to cut off this shirt.”

And I will use it to cut off your hand.

He took a step closer. She backed up to the dressing table knocking over the chair. With her free hand she groped behind her, grabbed the candle and swirled it in front of her like a weapon.

His hot breath assaulted her again, the flame died, and she skittered back, dropping the hot wax.

Fingers curled around the wrist of her knife hand, twisting. His other groped for her neck, finding her shoulder.

His smell, oh, his smell. Choking and holding her breath, she fought for control. Pain laced up her arm as he bent back her wrist, her other hand scrabbling across the dressing table.

Rot. Water. Stems scratching. The vase.

As her fingers grasped the thick, smooth lip he gave up trying to find her neck and applied both hands to her wrist, bending the knife back upon her.

She shrieked and jerked her knee into his trousers, hitting a lump like a rock.

Dios. Violence aroused him. “Pig.” She struck him there again harder.

He swore, staggered and some of his force waned. And some of hers. Her grip on the knife loosened. She heard it skitter across the floor.

With another curse, he released her wrist.

“Vile.” With both hands she hoisted the vase. “Pig.” Leaded crystal slammed into his head.

An oof popped from his mouth. He lurched and grabbed the edge of the dressing table.

She coshed him again and watched him fold to the floor. With the vase as a shield, she peered closer. Whether his chest moved, it was too dark to tell, and the stench could be him or the rot of the flowers. For a long moment, she waited for him to stir, trying to think.

The dagger. Where was it? It was a treasured gift from Papa and must go with her. She would need it to face other threats on the London streets. She scrabbled over his dark form, expecting his hand to reach out for her ankle, keeping her own hand poised to cosh him again.

When he still didn’t stir, a new wave of terror surged in her.

Get away, Graciela. You must get away. If this man was dead, it would be bad for her, but if he lived, it would likely be worse.

She skirted around the narrow bed and swept open her window curtains, her eyes welcoming the dim bit of light. Somewhere in the fog, there must be a moon tonight.

Edging back again, she honed her vision, searching the dark masses at her feet, the wooden flooring, the carpet, the body.

There. At the corner of the bed lay something. She poked with her toe.

She gathered the blade, wiped it on the bedcover and shed the heavy shawl. The dark wool had cushioned her body from the force of the wooden door and protected her wrist from the full impact of his grip. Now, it would only pull her down. She must be light as a cat tonight.

He stirred and she gulped in air, relieved that he lived, terrified he would try to stop her escape.

Finding the key was out of the question, as was taking the time to pick the lock. She tossed the vase on her coverlet, drove the blade into its sheath, tied her skirts at her waist, and opened the window. The light-filled haze stung her nostrils. A faint dusting of coal, lighter now that the cold English spring had arrived, mixed with the jungle scents of Lord Kingsley’s garden and a more familiar scent.

The sea. She was three stories up, but no matter. She had climbed the main mast and walked a yard arm more than once in her days when Papa was not looking, and the next chamber over wasn’t so far.