by Julia Kelly
“And Andrew.”
Gillie’s mouth flattened. “You should prepare yourself. Just in case.”
She shook her head. “I can’t think anything but that he’s alive.”
Gillie paused. “You love him?”
Lavinia spread her hands wide. “I always have.” She’d never stop, no matter how hard she’d tried to suppress it over the years. She should’ve known it would never work. They’d grown together like two trees, twining until it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began.
“Then I’m sorry. I may have had something to do with your fight,” said Gillie.
“You might’ve been the catalyst but you weren’t the cause. Now, shall we find him?”
Gillie nodded and cocked her gun. “Stay alive.”
With those reassuring words ringing in her ears, Lavinia set off to find a side way into the building.
Her breath was short and her hands were shaking when she edged open a door and slipped inside. She wasn’t the brave sort who could face down gunmen with nothing more than a smirk, but her bravery manifested in other ways. It was in the way she’d chosen to carve out her own life for herself after seeing how horribly wrong it had all gone when someone else had chosen for her. It was in the way she’d faced down Wark every month. It was in the fierce protectiveness she felt for the girls she employed in her shop. Now she had to harness that strength to save Andrew.
Please let him be alive. Please let him be alive. The soundless words formed on her lips as she mouthed them over and over.
Inside the warehouse, she found she’d slipped into some sort of side room where they stored huge balls of yarn, the raw materials Wark’s business depended on and that Douglas clearly hadn’t seen fit to remove yet. All the better for her. The clutter would give her something to hide behind.
Moving carefully, she wound her way around the stacks of wool to the closer of the two doors in the room. Putting her ear to it, she could hear voices but couldn’t tell how close they were.
It wasn’t worth the risk. If she was captured now, Gillie would have two people to save with very little time to position herself up high as she’d said.
Lavinia picked her way along to the other door and listened there. Nothing. Pushing gently, she managed to edge it open without a sound and carefully poked her head around. It was a wide, empty corridor with a dim light through another passageway visible at the end.
Slowly, she crept toward the light. If she was right about what she’d seen of the configuration of the building, she was nearing the back. Right where Gillie wanted her to be.
When she reached the open doorway, she hung back in the shadows for a moment to catch her breath. She was just checking her grip on the gun when the rattle of chains snapped her chin up. Edging a little closer, she could barely see the outline of a figure. A man’s hands were strung up over his head from a huge chain. He twisted a little, and it was everything Lavinia could do not to gasp at the sight of Andrew, his hair tousled and his right cheek caked with mud. He’d caught a blow across his brow bone, and she could see blood drying in rivulets down his face. One of his eyes looked as though it was swelling shut.
Something fierce and primal surged up in her. They’d hurt the man she loved and now she wanted them to pay.
There was a noise to the right of the door, and she slunk back in the shadows a little farther.
“I’ll take care of this myself.” Douglas’s voice prickled the hairs on the back of her neck, and she slipped her finger onto the gun’s trigger.
She could do this. She could make both Douglas and Mrs. Wark beg on their knees for mercy.
She tried to draw the hammer back with her thumb, but it wouldn’t budge. Her hands shook as she tried again. Nothing. Of all the guns in the world, Gillie had to give her one that seemed to be jammed.
What was she doing? Lavinia had never held a gun before. She didn’t even know what to do with it other than point the barrel and shoot. And even if she did manage to get the bloody thing to work, wasn’t there recoil or something equally ominous sounding to worry about? And that wasn’t even considering that if she missed, she risked hitting Andrew.
She was a woman who wielded scissors and needles and words, and at the moment, all she had were words. Even a knife would’ve felt more comfortable to her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her silver cloak pin. Her very pointy cloak pin. She might not have her usual tools, but she wasn’t entirely without resources.
Undoing her cloak, she slipped the heavy silver pin from the fabric. It wasn’t particularly thick, but she kept the point wickedly sharp to manage the heavy fabrics she secured with it. Clasped in her hand, it looked almost like a stiletto . . .
She slipped her gun in her pocket as she heard Mrs. Wark’s voice call out from a little way away. “The boat will be here in an hour and a quarter.”
“I’m aware of that, my dear.”
“I told you that was too much time between the kidnapping and the boat’s arrival.”
This was her chance. Mrs. Wark and Douglas were distracted with their bickering. If she was going to fell this plot with a cloak pin, she was going to need the element of surprise.
Toeing off her slippers, she gathered up the edges of her skirts to keep them from rustling around her legs. Then, as quietly as a girl slipping out of her bedroom window to meet the boy she loved, she snuck into the room.
“And then there’s the matter of him. What do we do with him?” Mrs. Wark asked, sweeping her hand out to gesture at Andrew.
“It was your men who attacked him. I saved us a lot of bother by bringing him here,” Douglas said.
“My men? You hired them and foisted them on me. Four footmen who can hardly manage a dinner service.”
“It was your choice to make them footmen,” said Douglas.
“And whatever was I supposed to do with four men hanging about the house? People would’ve noticed,” said Mrs. Wark as Lavinia crept to the next stack of crates.
“I think we should use the time to become more acquainted with Mr. Colter,” Douglas said.
Andrew’s head was hanging down, but still she could hear his response clearly. “That will be as much a waste of your time as it is mine.”
She would go for Mrs. Wark. Mrs. Wark was taller than she, but the woman was unused to any physical labor. She’d never hauled bolts of fabric up three flights of stairs, moved iron sewing machines, or hefted jugs of water for a bath.
There was another advantage: Lavinia had no doubt the woman was ruthless and wouldn’t think twice about letting Douglas die. Douglas, however, seemed to harbor some sort of affection for his partner in crime. Better to put Mrs. Wark in peril and let him hesitate.
Ten feet and Lavinia would be right up on Mrs. Wark. Nine.
“I want to know the names of the government bureaucrat who sent you, and then I want to know how it is that you know Mrs. Parkem,” Douglas said.
Andrew lifted his head at that, and there was no conceivable way he could miss her creeping up on his captors. Instinctively she held her index and middle fingers low but visible. It was their sign, the same one he’d used when he’d walked into her shop what felt like a lifetime ago. She prayed that, injured and vulnerable though he was, he would understand.
Other than the faint flinch of his brow, Andrew’s features stayed schooled in an expression of utter boredom. He’d understood.
He lifted his lip in a scowl. “I won’t speak of Mrs. Parkem with you or anyone else.”
Five feet. Keep talking.
Douglas sighed. “I’ll tell you what I think. You asked Mrs. Parkem to weasel her way into Wark’s bed so she could extract secrets from him. She contrived to faint at the dinner party so that she might search the house.”
“Whoever replaced the measurements in my desk drawer was sloppy. One fell to the floor before the drawer closed,” said Mrs. Wark.
“Perhaps before you kill her you should give Mrs.
Parkem to Harold,” said Douglas cheerfully. “He was the reason that we discovered we were being investigated.”
One final step and Lavinia was on Mrs. Wark. As fast as she could, she twisted the woman’s arm behind her back as she used to do to her brother when they fought as children and jabbed the cloak pin against the base of her neck, right at the vulnerable point of her spine.
“I’m no one’s to give,” Lavinia hissed. “Drop your weapons and kick them away.”
“Daniel!” Mrs. Wark cried out.
“What is—” Douglas stopped abruptly.
“Hello,” said Lavinia. “I thought I would join you.”
Mrs. Wark was scared. Lavinia could feel it in the tremble of her body and the stink of sweat about her.
“Mrs. Parkem, be reasonable,” said Douglas with his hands spread, his confident bluster gone.
“Drop them.” She pushed the thick but sharp point of the pin harder against Mrs. Wark’s neck, pulling a cry from the woman’s lips. Douglas threw his revolver away.
“And what of yours?” she asked Mrs. Wark.
“In my left pocket,” the woman ground out.
“Take it out and drop it immediately,” she said.
Mrs. Wark hesitated.
“I imagine if I stab you right here you won’t fare very well,” said Lavinia.
“You’ll be lucky if you can walk,” said Andrew. “Or you might just die. My grasp of anatomy has never been the best.”
“A trait we share, but I suspect you’re right,” said Lavinia.
This time the lady pulled out the weapon and immediately threw it away.
“Mrs. Parkem, be reasonable about—”
This time Lavinia drew blood, cutting Mrs. Wark off mid-plea. Douglas lurched forward, and she stepped back, dragging Mrs. Wark along with her.
“No,” she said. “If you move again, she dies. Now lie down on the ground.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Douglas. “Do you know how much I paid my tailor for this evening suit?”
“Yes, I can probably hazard a reasonable guess. Do it now, Mr. Douglas,” she ordered.
Reluctantly, the man slowly got to his knees and lay down on the ground face-first in the dirt and dust.
Andrew had started swinging on the chain, building up momentum. In one smooth move, he arched his body up, grasping the links with his legs and slipping his bound hands off the hook. Then he dropped to the floor, stumbled, and wearily drew himself up. He was hurt and tired, but he was free.
Lavinia kept the pin against Mrs. Wark’s neck while Andrew retrieved a small knife on the ground. He grasped the handle in his teeth and bent to saw through the rope.
“One word from me and the prince dies,” Mrs. Wark threatened, but her words were weak.
“Only if my colleague doesn’t shoot your men first,” said Lavinia. “And the constabulary is here, surrounding the building.”
“You’re lying,” said Douglas, his voice muffled by the floor.
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you inside?” Mrs. Wark asked.
“I wanted this to end without bloodshed,” she said, thinking fast. “I told them to let me try to speak to you.”
“Too late,” growled Mrs. Wark, thrusting all of her body weight backward and knocking Lavinia off-balance. Lavinia’s pin sank into the side of the woman’s neck. Mrs. Wark gave an unladylike bellow and, clutching at her wound, lunged for Lavinia as Douglas scrambled up, but Andrew’s rope finally gave way. He punched Douglas hard across the jaw, knocking him back to the ground just as Lavinia managed to elbow Mrs. Wark in the stomach. Her elbow connected painfully with the steel frame of the woman’s corset, but the blow was enough to knock Mrs. Wark to the ground.
Lavinia lunged for the closest discarded gun, but Mrs. Wark grasped her by the foot, trying to pull her down. Andrew threw himself on the woman, wrenching her hands away from Lavinia’s foot. Mrs. Wark reared back and then clamped her teeth around Andrew’s arm.
“Bloody hell!” he shouted, trying to shake the woman off.
Lavinia scrambled up, two hands gripping the gun. She slid back, raising her arm up and hitting Mrs. Wark roundly on the back of the head with the butt of the weapon. The woman dropped in a heap, Andrew partially sprawled across her back.
Oh Lord. She’d just knocked a fellow woman out with a wicked-looking gun. She looked down at her hand gripping the weapon, but instead of the horror that she expected to feel, she felt something else. Pride. Fierce and righteous, it burned at the center of her. She’d saved the man she loved without firing a shot.
She looked up and they stared at each other for a moment before a grin cracked over his bloodied face. “Have I ever told you you’re magnificent?”
Something between a sob and a laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she hauled him to his feet before throwing her arms around him and kissing him. And instantly everything fell away. The shock and the worry were all secondary to this. Being back with Andrew . . . it felt like home.
But the kiss didn’t last. Andrew pulled away, his expression grim. “We need to find the prince.”
She nodded, but then another voice cut through the warehouse. “No need. I took care of all of that while you two were kissing and making up.”
They turned and Gillie was standing in the doorway, elbow on her hip, gun pointed up in the air. If she didn’t know any better, Lavinia might’ve sworn it was smoking.
“All of them?” Andrew asked.
“All,” said Gillie with a grin. “The prince and the duke aren’t quite as grateful as one would think they might be, but I suspect they don’t particularly like the idea of being rescued by a woman.”
Behind them, Douglas groaned. In a flash, Gillie pointed and shot him in the foot. The man howled and clutched at the wound.
“Oh, don’t be such a child,” the young lady said. “It’s just so you won’t run away. Be grateful I didn’t shoot you in the knee. Far more damage.”
“Gillie, you’re a wonder,” Andrew said, pulling his liaison to him in a side hug.
Gillie squirmed a little. “Save the affection for her.”
Andrew cast his gaze back at Lavinia. He was, she noted, still smiling.
“Oh, I plan to.”
It took until four that morning for Andrew to make good on his promise. Even though it had been a bluff on Lavinia’s part, it turned out that Mr. Noble had a good nose for trouble and had taken it upon himself to hail a pair of constables on their nightly rounds. One of the officers ran back to his station, gathered up as many free men as he could, and stormed back to the warehouse. It was all Gillie could do to discreetly stuff the Prince of Wales into Mr. Noble’s cab and spirit him away before everyone could see him.
Lavinia stayed on, giving a statement several times over sans some details about the prince’s involvement. Suddenly, the kidnapping and possible near-regicide of a prince became a kidnapping and ransom of a duke for a mountain of gold a dragon would be proud of. Whether the constables believed her or not didn’t matter. She and Andrew stuck to their stories as close as could be, and soon even the most suspicious threw up their hands and decided to call it a lucky break that everyone was relatively unharmed.
At some point in the night, Andrew had drifted over and draped a blanket he’d found in Mr. Noble’s cab around Lavinia’s shoulders. She’d sunk back into the reassurance of his touch but then he’d been pulled away again to be questioned by a rather stern man with a heavy mustache.
It wasn’t until the sky had taken on the faintest purple tint that predicted the day that Andrew made his way to her again. Lavinia was sitting on a low wall, clutching a cup of tea that a kind constable had brought her, when he dropped down next to her with a sigh.
“Are they finished?” she asked.
“For now. There will be reports and paperwork to fill out, and I’ll likely be called down to London for a briefing as well. My retirement seems doomed to be chronically delayed.”
The adrenaline
that had been pulsing through her veins for hours had drained away, and hearing him speak of his retirement and his plans to disappear chipped away at the confident resolve that had sent her racing across town to save him.
“You’ll be able to take that house on the shore and not tell anyone where you’re living soon enough.”
You’ll be able to leave me without a second thought.
But it had been worth it.
He glanced at her and frowned. “Your teeth are chattering. Why didn’t you go home? One of the constables could’ve escorted you.”
And miss her chance of seeing him—maybe for the last time? She wished she could’ve walked away. It would have been easier than this gnawing doubt.
“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms, slipping his inexplicably warm hands inside the blanket, and hugged her to him.
“Your hands were always warm no matter what time of year,” she said. “It seems a funny thing to remember after all this time.”
“I thought I remembered everything, but it wasn’t until I was around you that I recalled all of the little details.”
“Like what?” she said, the sting of unshed tears making the bridge of her nose tingle. She wouldn’t cry. Not right now.
“The scent of your hair and the way you worry your lip when you’re thinking about something unpleasant. How you straighten your back just a little when you’re about to tell me I’m wrong.”
“You were wrong about not giving me a weapon,” she said with a little laugh.
“You seemed to improvise just fine. What was that you stabbed Mrs. Wark with?”
“A cloak pin.”
Andrew threw back his head to laugh but winced immediately.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked.
“Everywhere.”
She started to pull away, not wanting to contribute to his pain, but he hugged her tighter. “I want to touch you. It reminds me how fortunate I am.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Lavinia watching the last of the officers close up their notebooks and tuck away their pencils. The weight of the words she needed to say was a millstone around her neck. She had to say them now, or she would live a life of two regrets.