“I know,” she says, her gaze dropping. “If you are helping Dr. Dupuis, then you are doing God’s work for the people of the bay. Thank you.”
Those last two words, spoken without a spark of sarcasm, cut straight through me.
I reach to squeeze her arm. “I am sorry. I will apologize better later, if I can.”
“No need.” Her gaze goes from Nicolas to me, and her lips twist. “Of course, he would be with someone like...” She inhales sharply again. “You must leave.”
“We truly must. We were caught and fled to the dance floor.”
“And now you’re running out the front door?” She shakes her head. “Follow me. There is another way.”
“No,” says a voice behind us. I glance back to see Lord Thomas’s ghost. I’d lost sight of him when we fled, and now he’s there, as agitated as ever. “The foreyard is clear. They think you ran out the back.”
He says more, but I don’t hear it. Nicolas tightens his hand on mine as he tugs me in Emily’s wake. I glance at him, my gaze asking whether he trusts her, and he only makes a gesture that is half headshake and half shrug. He isn’t sure of her intentions, only that he agrees we ought not to flee through the front door.
I try to tell him what Lord Thomas is saying, but we’re moving too fast, the din of voices and music too loud. Emily opens a door. Beyond it is darkness, and I hesitate, but Nicolas guides me through.
“It is a servant’s corridor,” Emily whispers. “One that is not in use this evening. There is a door at the end.”
“No,” Lord Thomas says behind us. “Do not follow her. Please. I don’t like this. I do not know what she is up to, but I do not like—”
A crack has my entire body spasming. Nicolas yanks me to him, but it is only the sound of the door opening. Emily pushes it wide and then leans out. From beyond, distant footfalls sound, and Norrington’s voice rings out, “Why is everyone out here? Is no one searching the house? I want themfound. Now!”
Emily keeps looking about. Then she gasps and pulls back. Before we can ask what it is, she peeks out again and nods, as if satisfied.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I thought I saw my—” She shakes her head. “I am mistaken, obviously.”
I glance to my side. Lord Thomas is gone. Scouting the way, I presume, in case we are walking into a trap. Did Emily catch a glimpse of his ghost? It is not impossible.
“They are looking for you,” she says. “They seem to be searching the back of the estate, expecting you will have fled into the moors.”
“Then we shall not flee into the moors,” Nicolas says.
“I would suggest you head that way.” She points. “Circle past the stables and along the stone wall until you reach the—”
A shout cuts her off. She turns that way, and her eyes widen just as someone yells something about a door.
“They see the door open,” Nicolas says. “We must go. Now.”
“No!” she says. “I can—” She pauses a heartbeat, as if she was about to say she’d handle her uncle when she realized the futility of that. “Yes. Run. I will distract them.”
She darts out the door, skirts hiked, heading in the direction of the voices. Nicolas and I take off. Lord Thomas comes running from the front of the house, quickly telling us he knows a way, but we can see our path, and whatever Emily is doing, it has forestalled anyone coming around that corner of the house.
We make it to the stables. Then we’re creeping around it to the pasture when boot clomps sound on the hard earth to our right. Emily calls something, as if in distress, and her uncle shouts for someone to help her while the others circle the house.
We’re at the pasture. A trio of horses stares at us.
“Pay no mind to the humans sneaking past your corral,” Nicolas whispers.
“Also, if you could stop staring at us, that would help.”
The horses do not stop staring. One of them comes trotting to the fence and follows us, whinnying. It takes a moment, but then I see why. It’s the mare we used to make our escape yesterday.
I worry at first that she has come home to her abuser, but the other horses are sleek and healthy animals. She must have belonged to one of the men chasing us, rather than Norrington himself. Someone from the Norrington estate found her and brought her here. Now she’s whinnying her greeting and trotting along the fence as we run.
“The horses!” a man shouts. “Something is disturbing the horses.”