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“You have some very nasty blisters on the palm of your hand.”

She did. It was true. They came from scouring the grates of the fireplaces for hours on end. He’d applied an ointment to them. The chamomile felt soothing on the injury.

Anna opened and closed her mouth, not sure what to say.

He dropped his hands and stepped back.

“I came to pick up Phoebe, of course,” he said as if nothing at all had happened, in an entirely civilised manner, as if he hadn’t sucked Miss Grace’s neck only half an hour earlier, barked like a dog just a few moments ago, rambled about jackdaws and slathered her entire palm with an ointment.

The man was mad indeed.

“Yes—yes—of—c-course,” Anna stammered. Pull yourself together! Miss Hilversham never stuttered. “That is, no! Of course not. Phoebe isn’t here.”

He lifted one of his massive, bushy eyebrows. “I thought I saw her entering the room with you earlier?”

How on earth had he even seen Phoebe? He’d had his head stuck up the chimney.

“She had to leave. She isn’t feeling well. She can’t possibly go with you. I won’t allow it.”

He frowned. “What is the matter with her? If she is ill, I must see her.” He strode towards the door and out into the hallway.

“No! Stop!” Her shrill exclamation froze him in his tracks. He was already halfway up the stairs.

She rushed after him.

What could she possibly tell him to prevent him from going upstairs to seek Phoebe? The girl must be fainting from terror.

Anna said the first thing that came to her mind. “She has a terrible infectious disease, and you can’t possibly see her.”

“Infectious disease? Of what kind?”

The cogs in Anna’s mind whirred. “Measles,” she shouted up the stairs so Phoebe and Miss Grace could hear her. “Phoebe most definitely has the measles, and is in bed, sleeping soundly, and there is simply nothing anyone can do but leave her alone in her bed so she can recover, and you can’t possibly go up to her because then you will contract the measles yourself.”

His dark, intense eyes bored into hers. “Measles,” he muttered. Anna quickly squeezed past him and blocked him on the stairs.

“You can’t possibly go upstairs. It’s dangerous.”

“Nonsense.” He attempted to walk past her. She stood upright in front of him and blocked the staircase.

“It’s not nonsense,” she insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Dying of measles is quite a terrible way of leaving this world. You have dots all over your body and the fever burns you all over. It is most horribly infectious. Surely, if one had to die, another way would be preferable.”

He paused, pondering the gravity of her words. “What would be a more preferable way to die?”

“Any faster, less painful way.” She took his arm and attempted to steer him back down again. “A death that doesn’t linger so.”

“My dear Miss Hilversham, unless you can give me a concrete working example of what the deuce you’re talking about, I shall have to see with my own eyes what is the matter with my niece.” He shoved himself past her and continued to climb the stairs.

“Guillotine!” she exclaimed.

That worked, for he paused and turned to her with an astonished look.

“You asked for faster ways of dying. By the guillotine, of course. I can’t possibly think of a faster way to go. You die within a second.” Anna realised she was still grabbing onto his arm. She dropped it like a glowing piece of ember.

He gave her an appraising glance. “Death by guillotine, eh? Do you think this is indeed the most painless way to end a life? You have hit upon a most controversial topic here. Some claim it might take from a few seconds up to several minutes for the brain to be truly dead and that consciousness might, in fact, live on and sensibility still be present after the head has been severed from the body.”

Anna felt the blood drain from her face. “T-truly? Surely, that can’t be true?”

“I’ve had a lively debate with one of the chaps who put forth this theory based on all sorts of interesting experiments. With chickens.”