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the time? Is she worthy of our investment, or should she be destroyed?”
    Lydia? Miss Temple looked at the blonde woman. Could this be the daughter of Robert Vandaariff, the fiancée of the Doctor’s drunken Prince, the heiress to the largest fortune imagined? The object of her gaze did not respond, save to search again for the decanter, this time catching it, pulling out the stopper, and pouring another glass.
    Mrs. Marchmoor chuckled. Lydia Vandaariff downed the contents—herfifth glass?—and positively bleated, “Shut up. You’re late. What are the two of you talking about? Why am I talking to you two when it’s Elspeth I’m supposed to see? Or even more—the Contessa! And why are you calling her Temple? She said her name was Hastings.”
    Miss Vandaariff wheeled to Miss Temple, squinting with suspicion. “Didn’t you?” She looked back to Mrs. Marchmoor. “What do you mean, ‘hunted down’?”
    “She is making a poor joke,” said Miss Temple. “I have not been
found
—on the contrary, it is I who have come here. I am glad you spoke to the Comte—it saves me time explaining—”
    “But who
are
you?” Lydia Vandaariff was becoming drunker by the minute.
    “She is an enemy of your father,” answered Mrs. Marchmoor. “She is undoubtedly armed, and intends some mayhem or ransom. She killed two men the night of the ball—that we know of, there may be more—and her confederates have plans to assassinate your Prince.”
    The blonde woman stared at Miss Temple. “
Her
?”
    Miss Temple smiled. “It is ridiculous, is it not?”
    “But … you
did
say you were at Harschmort!”
    “I was,” said Miss Temple. “And I have tried to be kind to you—”
    “What were you doing at my masked ball?” Miss Vandaariff barked at her.
    “She was killing people,” said Mrs. Marchmoor tartly.
    “That soldier!” whispered Lydia. “Colonel Trapping! They told me—he seemed so fit—but why would anyone—
why would you want him dead
?”
    Miss Temple rolled her eyes and exhaled through her teeth. She felt as if she had become marooned in a ridiculous play made up of one rambling conversation after another. Here she had before her a young woman whose father surely sat at the heart of the entire intrigue, and another who was one of its most subtle agents. Why was she wasting time confirming or denying their trivial questions,when it was in her own power to take control? So often in her life Miss Temple was aware of the frustration that built up when she allowed other people their own way of action when she very clearly knew that their intentions were absolutely not her own. It was a pattern followed endlessly with her aunt and servants, and again now as she felt herself a shuttlecock knocked between the two women and their annoyingly at-odds nattering. She thrust her hand into her bag and pulled out the revolver.
    “You will be silent, both of you,” she announced, “except when answering my questions.”
    Miss Vandaariff’s eyes snapped wide at the sight of the gleaming black pistol, which in Miss Temple’s small white hand seemed fearsomely large. Mrs. Marchmoor’s reaction was, on the contrary, to adopt an expression of placid calm, though Miss Temple doubted the depths of its serenity.
    “And what questions would those be?” Mrs. Marchmoor replied. “Sit
down
, Lydia! And stop drinking! She has a weapon—do try and concentrate!”
    Miss Vandaariff sat at once, her hands demurely in her lap. Miss Temple was surprised to see her so responsive to command, and wondered if such discipline had come to be the only kind of attention she recognized and thus, though her entire rambling rant would seem to contradict the idea, what she craved.
    “I am looking for the Contessa,” she told them. “You will tell me where she is.”
    “Rosamonde?” Miss Vandaariff began. “Well, she—” She stopped abruptly at a look from the end of the table. Miss Temple glared at Mrs. Marchmoor and then turned back to