Chapter SevenFor a moment the Marquis was unable to answer.
He thought that what he was hearing could not be true.
Then the unmistakable terror in Sedela’s voice made him say quickly,
“Where is the snake and where are you?”
“I am up on the – boards under the – roof,” Sedela replied, “but I am – very afraid he may – climb up the wall.”
The Marquis’s brain began to work as swiftly as when he was on a battlefield in the War.
“Stay where you are and keep very quiet,” he ordered.
As he spoke, he turned and ran back to the house.
He ran faster than he had ever done since leaving Eton where he had won a number of races for his house.
He tore in through the garden door, knowing that it was much quicker that way to reach the gun room.
He remembered that not only were guns kept there but t
