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L ucy felt the wind knocked out of her as Will pushed her to the bricks beneath them and covered her with his body.

By the time she’d gotten her bearings back and Will was helping her to her feet, the drama enacted by Fleetwood and Cheswick was over. The pistol, she saw, was lying on the ground, as was Cheswick, who was clutching his arm.

Fleetwood was nowhere to be seen.

“That bloody idiot shot me,” the earl said in disbelief.

Immediately, Lucy rushed to the wounded man and knelt by his side. “Let me see, my lord,” she told him in a firm tone as she pried his hands off the injury.

Still in shock, Cheswick didn’t fight her, and Lucy saw blood oozing from the wound. Over her shoulder, she said to Will, “I need your knife.”

He handed it over, and said tightly, “We’re drawing a crowd.”

Lucy had no time to care. “I must bind up the wound before he loses too much blood. Will you ask one of the servants for some clean cloths? And contact my cousin.”

Wordlessly, Will hurried away to do her bidding.

To Cheswick, Lucy said, “You’d better take off your coats unless you wish me to cut through them.”

If it were possible, the earl turned even paler at her suggestion. “Do you know how much this coat is worth, Miss Penhallow?”

He began shrugging out of the admittedly well-made suit coat. With Lucy’s help it was soon off, and the sight of the blossoming splotch of red on his sleeve made Cheswick swear.

“I knew it was a mistake to bring Fleetwood into contact with Hamilton,” Cheswick said as Lucy expertly used the knife to slice through the sleeve.

“You’ll need a surgeon to remove bits of cloth, I’m afraid,” she told the earl as she gently pulled the fabric away from the singed flesh.

He nodded mutely, but the tautness of the man’s jaw told her that he was in pain.

To distract him, she asked, “Why do you say it was a mistake to bring Fleetwood and Hamilton together?”

Cheswick winced as she pressed the wound with a makeshift bandage from the lower half of his sleeve. He looked away from what she was doing as he responded. “Fleetwood has always been a bit high-strung. The sort who falls in love at the drop of a pin and sings the lady’s praises to anyone who will listen, only to give her a disgust of him. I should have guessed he’d become prostrate with guilt over taking money from Hamilton.”

Will approached then and, crouching beside her, handed Lucy a stack of white cloths.

“How did you become the one who facilitated their meeting in the first place?” he asked Cheswick as he watched her replace the makeshift bandage with a fresh one. “If I recall correctly, you two have never run in the same set.”

“You recall correctly,” Cheswick said with a touch of asperity. “Fleetwood is a nodcock of the highest order. And I never had much patience with him. But Hamilton I met during a trip several years ago to Philadelphia to visit my maternal aunt’s family. We attended many of the same social events during my time there, and when he hailed me in the street near White’s a week ago, I immediately recognized him, despite how changed he seemed. Once he told me his reason for coming to London—heartbreak over Miss Blackwood—his haggard condition made sense. He said he was determined to win her back, but as she refused to see him, he needed a way to meet with her. He asked if there was one particular suitor of hers who might lure her into the garden the night of the Leighton-Childe ball.”

“He used that word?” Lucy asked sharply. “‘Lure’?”

Cheswick’s cheekbones reddened at her question. “I see now that I should have questioned the fellow’s motives, but at the time, the man sounded lovesick and desperate. The devil of it—apologies, Miss Penhallow—is that I liked Hamilton. He’d begun his own company with only his own brains and determination. I was impressed. Perhaps overly so, it would seem.”

Lucy didn’t respond, just waited for him to continue.

Accepting the handkerchief Will handed him, Cheswick mopped his brow. “I thought of Fleetwood as a candidate for Hamilton’s little scheme at once. Not only because, despite his pestering, Miss Blackwood still seemed to treat Fleetwood with kindness.”

“Probably because she feared a scene,” Lucy said with disgust. Men were so slow to recognize bad behavior in their fellows unless it directly touched on them.

Reading her reaction correctly, Cheswick said with self-recrimination, “I admit it, Miss Penhallow. My own actions in this case have been ignorant at best and careless at worst.”

With a sigh, Lucy started to rise, but Will was there to offer her an arm. Once she was up, she pulled away and shook out her skirts.

She watched as Will turned to Cheswick and helped him to his feet as well. The earl wobbled a bit, and despite needing the assistance, he pulled away from Will and all but propelled himself onto the nearby bench.

He took a moment to catch his breath, but then said, “One of the other reasons I thought of Fleetwood was the sum Hamilton proposed to offer for performing what was, actually, an easy enough service. I thought by providing Fleetwood with a way to earn enough to keep himself in comfort for a while, I was removing him from Miss Blackwood’s cadre of fortune-hunting suitors. At least temporarily.”

Seen in that way, it was a sound enough idea, Lucy thought.

“Did Hamilton explain just why he needed to speak to Vera?” she asked aloud. “I have reason to believe she’d broken things off with him. Was that his reason?”

“Something like that,” Cheswick agreed bitterly. “He said that he had to plead his case one last time. And that if she still refused him, he’d be on the next ship back to Philadelphia. I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised he lied. It isn’t as if we were anything more than acquaintances. Still, one does expect another gentleman to behave with honor.”

Lucy wryly wondered how many ladies of her acquaintance would agree with his lament. Still, when she spoke, it was with kindness. He had paid for his stupidity, after all. “Do you have your own physician you’d wish us to call, Lord Cheswick?”

Before the earl could speak, Will spoke up. “The duchess insisted on sending for their family’s doctor.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with a duchess, can I?” Cheswick said wryly. “I just hope my mother doesn’t hear anything about this. She’ll stick her own oar in, and I shall be entirely henpecked.”

At the mention of the Duchess of Maitland, Lucy gasped. “Oh dear. I got so taken up with treating his lordship’s wound, I didn’t even think of our hosts and the other guests. My poor mama must be frantic.”

Elise, who must have been lurking behind them for several minutes, stepped forward then and pulled Lucy into a hug. “My dear, what a fright you must have had. And don’t worry about your mama or the guests. The musicians were playing so loudly no one heard the shot. And as for your mother, I assured both Mrs. Penhallow and the duchess that you were feeling unwell and were waiting for me in my carriage.”

“Oh no, I do not wish you to miss the rest of the ball,” Lucy said to her friend in dismay.

But Elise waved away her words. “I have danced until there are nearly holes in my slippers. I’m perfectly willing to leave before the end of the ball.”

On the bench, Cheswick struggled to his feet. He looked a bit unsteady, but he managed to remain upright. “Mrs. Clevedon,” he said with a truncated bow. “I apologize for appearing before you in my shirtsleeves.”

Elise turned to him with a raised brow but offered a brief curtsy. “My lord. It’s a pity Sir Charles has such a poor aim, my lord. We’d all have been spared a great deal of trouble if he’d aimed a few inches to the left.”

Shocked by her friend’s rude words, Lucy gave a little gasp. “Elise,” she said in a warning tone.

But Cheswick waved away her concern. “Mrs. Clevedon has never been particularly fond of me. We know one another of old.”

Some silent communication passed between the earl and Elise before Lucy’s friend said with what looked like embarrassment, “His lordship speaks the truth, but that is no excuse for my poor behavior. I apologize.”

It was clear to all of them that the apology was meant not for Cheswick but for Lucy.

They were spared further discomfort by the arrival of Detective Superintendent Eversham and Detective Inspector Cherrywood.

Eversham’s first concern was for Lucy. He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders, looking her over as if assessing her condition. “You are not hurt?” he asked, as if confirming what he’d already heard from someone else.

Lucy gave him a smile and a quick hug. “I am unharmed. I cannot say the same for Lord Cheswick, however.”

At her reassurance, Eversham snapped back into his usual professional manner at the scene of a crime. Turning, he surveyed the area and his eyes landed on the earl, who, to his own shame it was clear, had been forced to resume his seat on the bench.

“I was given to understand by Gilford’s note that Fleetwood is the one who delivered the gunshot?”

Lucy nodded and quickly gave her cousin a recounting of what had happened earlier, including her own conversation with Sir Charles and the confrontation between the man and Lord Cheswick.

Eversham took it all in and then turned to Elise with a frown. “What is your role in all of this, Mrs. Clevedon?” Perhaps unconsciously, he glanced toward Cheswick.

As if determined to set the detective superintendent straight, Elise raised her hands as if in denial. “I am here only because I have offered to drive Lucy home.”

Lucy’s cousin nodded at the widow’s words. “Good. That’s good. Lucy should get away from this business sooner rather than later.”

At his words, Lucy protested. “I am not some wilting flower who must be protected from reality.”

But Will spoke up in support of Eversham’s proposal. “No one thinks that of you. But this is not your first encounter with violence this week. Not to mention that we have been together during both incidents. There is already talk.”

At this last, Lucy blanched. “There is?”

“Your absence from the ballroom has been noted,” Elise told her gently, and Lucy felt her face heat. “Though I did my best to correct much of it with the tale of your feeling ill, the fact that Gilford was also missing couldn’t be explained away as easily.”

Lucy felt her heart sink. She’d never been a particularly punctilious young lady when it came to propriety, but this week she may have ruined her reputation for good.

“You mustn’t worry about the gossip,” Will told her from where he stood beside her. “I feel sure once news of the shooting comes out, your disappearance from the ball will be forgotten.”

Changing the subject, he continued, “I promise to pay a call upon you tomorrow and let you know everything that happens here after you leave.” Will’s eyes shone with sincerity, and Lucy felt a surge of fondness for this man whom she hadn’t even really known until a few days ago.

Glancing over to where Elise stood, as if waiting for her to make a decision, Lucy gave her friend a decisive nod. “Very well. I shall leave. But please make sure that a surgeon looks at Lord Cheswick’s arm.”

“You may be assured that I will not risk dying of a fever over that sapskull Fleetwood, Miss Penhallow,” Cheswick said from the bench.

In a less aggrieved tone, he added, “You have my thanks for your kindness in binding up my wound. If you’d been born a decade or so earlier, you would have made a fine addition to Miss Nightingale’s Crimean campaign.”

“I was happy to help, my lord,” she told the earl.

Turning to the others, she said her goodbyes, and feeling as if she were leaving a play before seeing the end, she and Elise left.

The friends were quiet as they made their way to the line of carriages waiting outside the Maitland townhouse. Once they’d reached the snug interior of Elise’s town carriage and she’d given the driver the order to go, Lucy leaned back against the squabs in relief.

Still, before she could fully relax, there was something she needed to speak to her friend about. “Elise, I beg your pardon if this question is impertinent, but I fear I must ask it nevertheless. What is between you and the Earl of Cheswick?”

The widow looked at her with a mix of amusement and resignation, and Lucy knew that the smoke in this case was most certainly pointing to fire.

Perhaps an inferno.