Chapter SevenFor a moment everyone present seemed turned to stone.
Then the Marquis stretched out his hand to take the smoking pistol from Madame de Salres’s .
As he did so, she turned and then, screaming at the top of her voice, ran down the salon towards the door.
Galvanised into action, two of the men in the party bent over Orvil, but Kezia did not see them.
She felt a sudden darkness beginning to envelop her and she put out her hands to hold onto something that was not there.
She would have fallen had not the Marquis thrown the pistol he was holding into a chair and picked her up in his arms.
He did not speak to anybody.
He merely carried her down the room and, as his relatives behind him all started to talk at once, he went out into the hall.
He almost bumped into a valet de c
