“Is the works operating at the moment?” whispered Blackstone. “It seems quiet.”
“It doesn’t appear to be,” said Madame. “Besides the boy who greeted me, I’ve seen only two other children playing in a corridor. There’s no production going on.”
“Excellent,” said the earl. “That will make things much easier.” He inclined his head to Madame. “Thank you. We’ll meet you back at the inn, if all goes well.”
Madame nodded and slipped out the door they’d come in. After a few moments’ whispered discussion at the doorway between the storeroom and the works proper, Blackstone and James prepared to part ways, each setting off to search half the cavernous building.
“Be careful,” said James. “The tearoom Madame spoke about is tucked into a corner on your side.” Exchanging nods with the earl, James emerged into the furnace room, and, to his great surprise, found Jude and Grace sitting on the floor, playing with a set of jackstraws that Catharine had enclosed in their school supply packages. Sensing him, they turned, eyes questioning. Grace’s face lit up, and she started to rise.
He shook his head violently, putting a finger against his lips and using the other hand to motion them to stay. “Have you seen a lady?” he whispered.
Jude nodded. “She went to the storeroom.”
“The maid, but not the usual one,” said Grace.
“No, another lady. A younger one.”
Grace turned to Jude. “The lady in the ropes that you saw.”
The lady in the ropes. Oh, God, his chest was going to crack open. He turned to Jude, fury making the boy blur before his eyes. “Where is she?”
Jude recoiled, as if he thought James might strike him. “In the office,” he whispered. “Alfie’s with her and—”
James took off at a run, not waiting for the end of Jude’s account, not caring about the echoing of his footfalls across the silent space. The lady in the ropes. He felt for the pistol in his waistband. Blackstone had given it to him with a stern lecture to use it only for self-defense. But by God, no matter how this ended, he was going to kill Biedermeier himself. Apparently, there were some problems that science couldn’t solve.
Heart pounding as he covered the last stretch of the corridor, he focused his attention on the office door at the end of the hall. How was he going to get in? How was he going to get to her? Breathing heavily, he stopped and sized up the heavy door. A calm certainty swelled in his chest. He was going to kick it in, that’s how he was going to get to her. Just as he was about to, the door swung open of its own accord.
Catharine. He heard a gasp. Was it hers? His? It hardly mattered. As her eyes widened, he seized her by the shoulders and crushed his mouth to hers, trying to imbue his frantic kiss with the truth he knew as surely as he’d ever known anything: she was his, and they would no longer be kept apart.
She kissed him back, wildly, her arms snaking around his neck. Her fevered response snapped him back to reality, and he pulled away, ending the kiss as suddenly as he had initiated it.
“Did he hurt you?” Holding her shoulders, he scanned her body.
When she didn’t answer immediately, it was all he could do not to shake her. Fingers tightening, he demanded, “Did he?”
“No. James! We have to get out of here. I don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back.”
She was right. Like lightning he made his way to the desk, extracted the key from the mahogany box and used it to open the hutch.
“What are you doing?”
“He’s sabotaging the gun barrels so they explode on English troops. There were incriminating documents in here. I assume he’s destroyed them, but I promised Blackstone I would check.”
“There’s someone coming,” she whispered, stepping in from where she was standing, half in the room and half in the hallway.
He was up in a flash. Grabbing her, he maneuvered them so they were flush with the wall, next to the door. With the door open, they could hide behind it and have a momentary advantage over an intruder. Using one arm, he pressed Catharine to him as tightly as possible. With the other hand he pulled the pistol from his waistband. She shook her head violently when she saw the weapon.
“Shhh.” He wrapped his free arm around her even tighter and pressed her head against his chest. Leaning down he whispered in her ear again, “Shhh.”
The door began to move. Slowly, slowly, it creaked open. He lifted the pistol, suffused with confidence. Murder was going to be so easy. A relief even.
“Dr. Burnham?” a high, girlish voice whispered. He inhaled. A pair of big brown eyes peered at them as their owner extended her head around the door that still concealed her small body.
“Grace!” He lowered his weapon and loosened his grip on Catharine.
Grace stepped out from behind the door and presented him with a key. “I thought you might need this. Jude was scared to come, but I thought it was important, if you were looking for the lady.” She smiled at Catharine and then ducked her head, suddenly shy. “No one knows we have a key to this room. Jude stole the original and had a copy made.”
“Thank you, Grace. You’re very brave,” said Catharine, laying her hand on the girl’s shabby woolen sleeve. “I managed to open the door myself.”
“Grace,” said James, “are there any other children in the works right now besides you and Jude?”
She shook her head. “They’re all in the barracks. Mr. Tomkins told us we didn’t have to work today.”
“Then listen to me.” He crouched down so he could look her in the eyes. “Do you know where the Rose and Castle is?” Another shake of the head. “Go back to the children’s quarters. One of the others will, one of the older boys who runs the guns around town. It’s on Church Street, near the cathedral. You must all make your way there as quickly as possible. Wait for me there—all of you. Don’t leave anyone behind. Do you understand?” She nodded solemnly. “Now, go. Don’t let him see you.”
“Now you,” he said, grabbing Catharine’s hands. “It will take me a minute to look for the documents. Get a head start. Run to the end of this hallway. There’s a door at the end that leads to a storeroom. On the other side of the room is another door that discharges onto a lane. Take the first right, the second left, and you’ll find a little courtyard where two horses are tethered. Wait there.”
“No!” She shook herself out of his grip. “I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to.” He held up a hand in an attempt to still the wild shaking of her head. “I’m not discussing this.”
“A lovers’ quarrel, so soon after the reunion?” The Earl of Blackstone appeared from nowhere, as calm as if he were approaching them in a drawing room. The spy had been so silent and stealthy James hadn’t had an inkling of his approach. Blackstone smiled in acknowledgment of their incredulous looks, closing the door behind him. “I ran into a very charming, very freckled young lady who told me she’d seen you,” he whispered. He looked at James, over to Catharine, and then back to James. “Have you found the documents? Has he been stupid enough to leave them here?”
Suddenly, the door swung open to reveal another figure behind Blackstone.
“No, he hasn’t been quite that stupid. He was smart enough to destroy the evidence, thank you very much.”
Biedermeier. With a gun pointed at the back of the earl’s head.
Don’t think. Just act.
It was Blackstone’s advice that galvanized James. With a great howl, he pushed Catharine to the floor and drew his weapon. Blackstone dove to one side, as smoothly as if they had choreographed the action in advance, leaving James a clear shot. In a flash, he rotated the cock and released the safety lock, praying he would be quicker than Biedermeier.
He was not.
Catharine screamed. There was a deafening explosion.
It took a moment before he realized what was happening. The gunmaker was slumped on the floor, his face bloodied. The earl flew to the wounded man, and began pounding his chest.
“He discharged one of the faulty guns,” James said to Catharine in amazement.
“You will not die, you bastard,” said Blackstone, ripping off his own coat and using it to staunch the flow of blood from Biedermeier’s shoulder. “I will see you tried and hanged for treason if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Two days in a carriage with Catharine should have made James a happy man.
Unfortunately, since those two days were also spent with Grace and Jude, they were turning out to be the longest James had ever endured. Since there was no need for the punishing speed that had characterized the flight to Birmingham, the journey felt as if it would never end.
He had been exceedingly patient. Someone should come along and knight him. No, scratch that, he should be sainted.
A great deal of to-ing and fro-ing had ensued after Biedermeier’s gun discharged. He’d expected that, and steeled himself to endure it. Much to the earl’s relief, a surgeon’s report informed them that Biedermeier, unlike many of the English soldiers who’d been unfortunate enough to be armed with his handiwork, had sustained only superficial injuries and would make a full recovery. The fates smiled on Blackstone, it seemed: he and Madame Cherie also managed to recover a threatening letter Biedermeier had sent through his solicitor to his contact at the proof house, a man whose conscience was growing unsettled at the increasing volume of faulty guns he was expected to prove.
The man would be tried, and then he would hang.
And then there were the children. James glanced at Jude. The hardscrabble boy was nestled under Catharine’s arm, as if he’d always belonged there, dozing angelically. Grace was stretched out on the seat, her head on Catharine’s lap.
Catharine caught him looking. “I wish we could have brought them all,” she whispered.
“I wish we could have brought none,” he answered. She blushed a little, and he tempered his strident tone. “Don’t worry about the others. Your earl knows how to get things done. He’s got magistrates to see, villains to interrogate, and barrel men to see settled into new jobs. He’s spent his career taking down some of England’s most powerful enemies. What’s moving twenty children a hundred miles?”
“He’s not my earl. I wish you’d stop saying that.” She continued to whisper so as not to wake the children. “And it will be twenty-one children, remember? Alfie’s coming to school, too.”
“He’d better be your earl, because we’re going to need his help when we open a school for pauper children in your house!” The idea was so absurd that it almost made him laugh. Catharine the spy. Catharine the social reformer. She flashed him a lopsided smile, as if she couldn’t quite believe it, either.
Catharine, his love.
He heaved a great sigh. Soon they would stop for the second—and last—night at a posting inn, posing as a family of four. A family of four who would share one room. He crossed and recrossed his legs. Sainthood—he’d earned it.
Why was she so shy all of sudden? All these hours in the carriage gave Catharine too much time to think. As they made their way toward London, she grew increasingly nervous.
Every time the children dropped off to sleep, she’d look up to find him staring at her intently. But aside from his one early comment about wishing the children weren’t with them, he had been a perfect gentleman. She wasn’t even sure now if she had correctly interpreted that comment. Perhaps he’d only meant that he didn’t relish a long journey with a pair of pint-sized chatterboxes who exclaimed constantly over the passing scenery.
What had she expected? That he would ravish her in the coach while the children slept?
No, a small voice said inside her heart. It’s just that she wanted him to want her. And she wasn’t sure he still did. Or, that if he knew what she’d done, he would even want her help with the school.
At the posting inn, they agreed it was best they pose as a family, and he’d secured them a private parlor, fed them, and bundled them all off to bed. It was hard not to lose herself in the fantasy, difficult not to see them as the innkeeper and other patrons did.
A family. Staying awake long after James and the children had fallen asleep, Catharine thought of little Edward, even as she lay next to Grace. Listening to James’s soft snoring, she’d marveled that this man, who had given her so much, had also helped her let go of the pain associated with Edward’s memory. She could finally think back on her tiny boy with peace. She could finally let him go.
She’d squinted through the dark to make out James, stretched out on a pallet on the floor next to the bed. Watching his chest rise and fall, she wanted nothing more than to slip under the woolen blanket that covered him and curl up against his warmth. She sighed, and, surprisingly, it was enough to rouse him. He turned to her, lifting his head. The thin shaft of moonlight that entered the room through the slit in the curtains was not enough to illuminate his face, but she could imagine his brow knit in concern. He swiveled, taking stock of Jude, who slept on a sofa on the other side of the room, then turned back to her. She didn’t need to see his face to know that it held a question.
“All is well,” she whispered.
“All is well,” he repeated, and she could hear the smile in his voice. He lifted an arm toward her, palm up. She extended her own to meet his, and it was clasped by his large, warm fingers. He squeezed, holding her hand for a long moment before dropping it, turning over, and laying his head back down.
He didn’t seem to be holding any grudges. There was going to have to be a reckoning of some sort, though. Even if he didn’t force the issue, she would have to—and she didn’t relish the task. But there was no way to move ahead without addressing what stood between them.
Yes, it would all need to be discussed. Honestly and without guile. The prospect scared her witless.
Catharine’s anxiety increased exponentially as the coach traversed the familiar streets of Mayfair the next afternoon. Happily, no one noticed, because the children were beside themselves with excitement, peppering them with questions which James answered while she remained mute.
He watched her the whole time, though.
“Are we here?” squealed Grace, leaning out of the window as the coach rolled to a stop.
“Yes,” said James, emerald eyes boring into hers. “Finally.” Her heart thudded as he hopped out, lifted the children down, then reached for her.
He did not release her hand when she attempted to take it back, having murmured her thanks. Even as Chilton and two footmen hurried down the steps from the front door, he bent over her gloved hand, turned it over, and pressed his lips to the small patch of bare skin visible at her wrist. “Finally,” he whispered again, his voice thick with promise.
Chilton remained poised as he ushered the group inside, but as Lucinda descended on them, shrieking with relief at their safe return, followed by the flustered housekeeper, the scene became almost comically chaotic.
Catharine tried to explain to the housekeeper that Jude and Grace would need rooms while the children in question exclaimed excitedly over everything and everyone they saw in the richly appointed foyer.
“Ahem.” The low clearing of a masculine throat cut through the din. Everyone’s attention, including her own, swung to James, who, though he was a mite ruffled from the long journey, looked, in his typical dark attire and with his usual serious countenance, like quite the authority.
“You are the housekeeper?” He turned to Mrs. Smith, who nodded dumbly. “May I introduce Miss Grace and Master Jude. They will be staying for some time and will need a nursery set up.” He turned toward Chilton. “There is no luggage, but the horses will need to be seen to. The coach belongs to the Earl of Blackstone. Please see that it is returned.” The butler nodded. James then shifted his attention to the younger of Catharine’s two housemaids. “What is your name?”
“Ginny, my lord.” The girl curtsied. No doubt she thought she was being spoken to by a peer.
“Ginny, may I ask you the especia
l favor of making sure the children are entertained and made comfortable? Of playing nursemaid, at least for tonight?” The maid nodded.
Dumbfounded, Catharine could only watch him issue orders to her servants—and watch them scurry to obey him.
Turning back to the housekeeper, he issued a final command. “Have you supplies enough for luncheon, or shall I visit a cookshop for you?”
After a bit of discussion about what the children would eat, James turned to her and bowed. “Lady Cranbrook, I take my leave.”
“You take your leave?” Searching his face, she saw only a polite, bland smile—nothing like the promise-filled ones he’d graced her with earlier.
“Yes, you’ll be tired from your journey, and I have some matters to attend to this afternoon. Will it be convenient for me to call tomorrow, and we can discuss our plans for the school?”
She could only nod, for certainly to speak would betray her astonishment. She’d been steeling herself to deal with a great deal from him: questions, accusations, even, perhaps, amorous advances. Indifference was not something she had considered.
With a final nod, he was off. It seemed he was giving her exactly what she’d thought she wanted—a reprieve from the difficult conversation they needed to have. Reprieve, it turned out, was worse than torture.
For the rest of the day, she went through the motions of calming the excited staff, getting Grace and Jude settled, and treating herself to a much-needed bath. But in her heart, she nursed the hope that he would return before tomorrow’s appointment to talk business. How could he not, with so much left unsettled between them?
So, buoyed by hope, she ordered a feast for supper. After Jude and Grace had been packed off to bed, she ate alone in her cavernous dining room. To the footmen, it would have looked like she was sampling each course placed in front of her. But in truth, she was waiting.
She’d dressed up, fool that she was, cinching her corset tightly so she could squeeze into a formfitting magenta taffeta she hadn’t worn for years. It was perhaps slightly out of fashion, but she’d always felt confident in it, beautiful, even.
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