LITMIR.BIZ

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paced away from the window. The practical problem of escape was mercifully blocking out the true horror of her situation, but it lurked in the back of her mind, surfacing every now and again to send shocks of paralysing terror through her before she could wrestle control back again.

      Giles…what would Giles do if he were captured? The thought steadied her again, gave her courage, something to fight for. If she never saw him again, if these evil people defeated her, she would at least know she had done all she could and had not been a feeble victim.

      There was the sound of carriage wheels on the drive outside and she ran to the window. Surely this was not the threatened Milo Thomas so soon? But all she could see was a curricle, the reins looped around the whip, a pair of handsome matched greys in the shafts standing steaming, their heads down.

      Probably a friend of the Thoroughgoods. But what if it were not? What if this were some innocent neighbour or passer-by? Joanna looked around the room wildly. Faintly from below came the thud of the knocker sounding. How could she open the window? The door below must have opened, for she could just hear the rumble of masculine voices. Desperately she snatched a sheet from the bed, wound it around her fist and punched a hole through the glass.

      ‘Help! Oh, help!’ she screamed, hitting the glass again until it showered down on to the front step below. ‘Help!’ There was a scuffle from below, then silence.

      Joanna snatched up a long sliver of glass from the floor and ran to the door, standing at the hinge edge, desperately trying to quieten her gasping breath. There was a noise on the landing and the sound of bolts being dragged back. The visitor? Or Thaddeus Thoroughgood? If it was Thaddeus she was going to stab him, she had no doubt about it, not even the slightest qualm. The back would be the place…

      The door swung open, she took a step forward and a voice she could not believe she was hearing said, ‘Joanna?’

      ‘Giles?’ She must be hallucinating, delirious, the whole thing was a dream. Then he came into sight around the door and she was stumbling forwards and into his arms, the lethal glass dagger falling unregarded to the floor. She was saved: and saved, miraculously by the man she loved. ‘Giles, oh, Giles…how did you find me? These people…oh!’ Over his shoulder she saw Lucille, a poker clenched in her fist, her arm upraised to strike. ‘Behind you!’

      Naturally Joanna had never seen a fight, let alone men boxing, but even she could appreciate the economy and power of the single blow that Giles delivered as he swung round. It took Lucille perfectly on the point of the chin and she went down with a thud, quite still.

      ‘Damn it!’ Giles knelt beside the recumbent form. ‘I’ve never hit a woman before.’

      ‘I hope you have broken her neck,’ Joanna said vehemently, startling him. He had expected tears, fainting, but not such fierceness. She must have been terrified: he recollected the feeling of her quivering body as she hugged him so fiercely. ‘Where is her brother?’

      ‘Unconscious on the hall floor. Joanna, never mind them, are you—’

      ‘Yes, I am fine, thanks to you,’ she said, regarding Lucille with a wary eye. She did not appear to understand what he was really asking, and he did not persist. Time enough for that. ‘Giles, we must not risk these two escaping before we can get the magistrate. I cannot begin to tell you how evil they are.’

      Giles had formed a very good suspicion of exactly what he was dealing with as soon as he heard the landlady’s tale of the kind clergyman and the string of unfortunate young ladies who all had their pockets picked on the stage. The last few miles, springing the already tired horses, had been a battle between his imagination and years of disciplined calm under extreme pressure. Now he simply nodded, accepting what she said without questioning her. ‘Is there a room where we can lock them up?’

      Joanna put her head around the adjacent door. ‘This one, the window is not broken. Oh—’ She broke off, turning to him, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Oh, look.’ The room had manacles bolted to the wall at the bed head.

      She had gone so white that Giles thought she was about to faint. He put an arm around her and she looked up into his eyes, her own dark with, he realised with a jolt, burning anger. ‘Put them in here,’ she said fiercely. ‘Shackle them to the bed.’

      Before he could respond she was running downstairs, the poker in her hand. ‘Joanna, stop!’ For a horrible moment he thought she was going to strike the unconscious man who sprawled on the dingy tiled floor, but she was only standing over him, watchful for any sign of returning consciousness.

      Giles crouched, hauled Thaddeus over his shoulder and stood up in one clean movement, only a slight grunt of expelled breath revealing the effort it took. Joanna ran upstairs after him, and, when he turned from dropping Thoroughgood on to the bed, she was already dragging his sister into the room by both arms.

      He picked up the unconscious woman and laid her on the bed beside her brother, then snapped a shackle around one wrist of each. ‘Now, where are the keys, I wonder?’

      ‘Here.’ Joanna, who had been carefully checking the room for anything that might give the Thoroughgoods assistance, picked up the key from the bare washstand. She bent over Lucille, pulling the hair pins from her head and the reticule from her waist. ‘They might pick the lock,’ she said tersely. ‘What has he got?’

      Giles raised his eyebrows at this ruthless practicality, but if it was helping Joanna he was not going to try and distract her. He removed Thaddeus’s tiepin and patted his pockets, coming up with a roll of bank-notes, a leather wallet and a pretty guinea purse.

      ‘That is mine!’ Joanna reached across and took it, clutching it tight in her fist. ‘He stole in on the stage.’

      ‘I know,’ Giles said, keeping his voice low and calm, sensing that it would take very little to tip her over the edge. ‘Come downstairs now, they are quite secure.’

      ‘Lock and bolt the door.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ He reached up and pulled across the topmost bolt, allowing her to turn the key and shoot the lower bolt. Let her be certain her nightmare was safely shut away.

      ‘Now, come downstairs and I will see if there is anything for you to eat or drink in the kitchen.’ Joanna let him guide her down the stairs, her arm quivering under his hand. All at once she stiffened.

      ‘Miss Thoroughgood! Miss Thoroughgood, ma’am!’ A thin voice was calling from the back of the house, coming closer, accompanied by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

      Giles pushed Joanna firmly behind him and called, ‘Who is there?’

      ‘Just me, Mrs Penny, Mr Thoroughgood… Oh! Who are you, sir?’

      It was a woman, perhaps in her fifties, perhaps older, skinny in a shabby hand-me-down dress covered by a large sacking apron, her straggling grey hair pulled back into a bun. She stood wringing her hands in front of her, obviously completely unable to cope with the unexpected sight of two strangers in the hallway. Giles noticed with a pang how red and sore her hands looked.

      ‘Do you work for Miss Thoroughgood?’

      ‘Yes, sir. I comes in three times a week and does the rough cleaning.’

      ‘Does she have any other servants?’

      ‘No sir, just me.’ She did not seem able to ask what they were doing there, just stood and stared at them.

      ‘Well, Mrs Penny, I am sorry to tell you that Mr and Miss Thoroughgood are a pair of rogues of the worst kind and are going to be handed over to the Justices and will come to a very bad end.’

      ‘Gawd, sir!’ Her eyes widened. Giles could not believe for a moment that she had any idea what had been going on in the house.

      ‘I am Colonel Gregory, and this young lady is my…my sister. Now, Mrs Penny, where is the sitting room?’

      ‘In the front, sir…Colonel, sir.’ She threw open a door on to the most comfortable and well-kept room they had seen

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