She was already running before her uncle had finished speaking, and the Misses Amelia and Caroline were dumped on the floor a second later with two hard shoves. Racing between the tumbled hassocks and flailing arms and legs, she jerked the drapes aside, wrenched the window open, and leaped through it onto the balcony. The cold rain struck her like a blow, but there wasn't time to completely register the wet and chill. Throwing a leg over the wrought iron railing, she pulled herself up and over and dropped to the walk below in a splash of muddy water. Her silk gown was already drenched, her stained skirts catching on her legs as she ran full out down the street.

The shouts and cries behind her only added to her speed, and when she reached the corner, she careened right, hoping to gain shadowed refuge in the tall oaks of St. James's Square. Moments later, panting, she slumped against the wet bark, trying to draw in much-needed air to her lungs.

Her gaze was trained on the corner.

If they turned left, she was safe.

Harold was first under the streetlamp in the intersection, followed shortly by his portly relatives-father, uncle, and two cousins. They apparently couldn't agree on a course, their raised voices echoing down the street, indecision in their milling forms. Then Harold seemed to point directly at her, although he couldn't possibly see her in the murky darkness of her surroundings.

Nevertheless, terror washed over her and, turning, she ran down King Street without waiting for further confirmation of their possible route.

Unable to avoid the light on the next corner, her saffron gown glowed in the night like a beacon as she sped past.

Immediately a hue and cry rose behind her, and she knew she'd been sighted.

A half block later, she turned again, then again in another block, hoping to evade her pursuers in the narrow lanes, and when she spied the flaming torches illuminating a fine-porticoed entrance, she raced down the wet cobblestones and banged on the blue door with both fists.