by Anne Mallory
“Join you?”
“You have as much a right to revenge as I do. We will have to get rid of that sycophant Worley, of course, as well as any of the other deviants. I had quite hoped you would do away with Worley a week past.”
“How?”
“How what? How could you have killed Worley? Oh, any number of ways.” He puckered a brow. “I suppose that having Marietta there was a bit of a damper, but a clean push from the roof would have put Worley to rights.”
“No, how could you do it? Kill…them? And in that manner?”
“Very, very easily. And with no small amount of vigor and satisfaction.” His eyes gleamed as they looked over Gabriel’s shoulder. “Who do you think has the control now, my lady?”
That Lady Dentry didn’t answer was all the answer needed.
“You could have taken your revenge in a different manner, John. Or moved on.”
“Moved on?” He laughed. “As you did? Burying yourself beneath case after case, helping those in need? You took your revenge too, Gabriel. I helped you with a few of those favors against them, though you had no idea I knew.”
“How did you know about me?” Gabriel had wondered that all night.
John snorted. “They chattered about you ad nauseum. The journals were full of you. It was hardly a challenge to reason out. I had such high hopes. Especially when you started upon your path of destruction. When you shut down the club, I was thrilled. I loved you then. That we could rid the world of them.” His eyes grew anguished. “When you stopped at ruining them, socially and monetarily, I could have killed you myself.”
Gabriel could see the hate in his eyes. And the adoration. He didn’t know which scared him more. “Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t kill you, Gabriel. There was still a chance, after all. And I had time. Time to plan and scheme. Time to change your mind.”
“Why did you think you would change my mind, John?”
“Been missing your investigator?”
The abrupt change startled him for a second, before it fell into place. “You paid him off.”
“Cost me a pretty penny too. But it is better for you this way. Better not to have someone disloyal on your payroll. Besides, I needed you to remain unaware. I knew you wouldn’t go along with the first one. But given some time for the idea to sink in, for you to think your own brother the killer…with me feeding Jeremy just enough information about the case for him to act guilty around you—for all the wrong reasons, of course…yes, then things might look different.”
Anger choked him momentarily. “Different?”
“More acceptable. Enticing. Righteous. Don’t lie. You would not have turned Jeremy over to the magistrates.”
“Life has a strange way of making sure things even out. If Jeremy had been guilty, he would eventually have been punished regardless of whether I turned him in or not.”
“Your punishment. Your justice. But you would not have allowed him to be tried in the courts and hanged.”
“I would try to do the same for you, John,” he said softly.
“We could kill her now, Gabriel. Together.” The eager, pleading look was so strange on his friend’s face that he had to force himself not to take a step away.
“You believe I will do it. That I will help you finish it.”
“I hope.” His hands ran along the flat side of the blade. “It’s a funny thing, to have hope. I easily have revenge. Justice. Friendship. But hope is a precious thing. I left it to fate. Whether you would stay ignorant, join me, or be my downfall.” His eyes were completely focused on Gabriel, his gaze piercing. “Are you my brother or my enemy, Gabriel?”
“I am your brother in life, John.” His stomach hurt. His throat hurt. His heart hurt. “But I am your enemy in this.”
John’s teeth clenched, his lips trying to form expression and failing, pushing together into a straight line. “I see. This is rather an awkward moment, in that case. Will you at least step aside?”
John glanced to Marietta, as if suddenly realizing that she was still in the room. “Your brother will be released. I meant for it to happen with Abigail’s death. There is no real reason they can hold him. And we can give them Worley, if it comes to that. I’ve been helping him evade Gabriel here and there this week, just to keep things interesting. To keep on track.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Come, Marietta, you know it to be true.”
“John, leave her alone.” Steel this time. Not even encased in satin.
John smiled faintly. “She is good for you, Gabriel. I won’t harm her.” He looked across the desk. “However, I do ask that you not stand in my way.”
“John, I can’t—”
“No, Gabriel! Do not disappoint me!”
He positioned himself to intercept John, whose eyes had gone wild. He crouched to leap forward. John’s eyes were grim, his mouth tight. His body lines pitched for battle as well.
The door opened, turning all eyes to the oak. Lord Dentry stepped into the room, Gabriel’s father and Jeremy behind him. Listening at the door or in a secret room this whole time, no doubt.
Gabriel’s fingers curled into fists as Arthur Dresden walked in last, an uninvited witness to the events.
John stepped back, the thin blade of steel dropping to his side. “Lord Dentry.”
“Mr. Alcroft. I am very disappointed in you.”
“I am as well, Mr. Alcroft,” Lady Dentry said, smoothing her hands over her dress and rising, secure in her safety. Six dark glares focused on her. Dresden’s face was unreadable. “One would think after all we did, taking you in—”
“Silence, woman.” Dentry’s voice was flat. “I will deal with you later.”
She stepped back, bumping into a display case.
“I can explain—”
“Silence, I said,” he roared.
Lady Dentry visibly shrank, her eyes wide, a thin band of excitement in their depths. Gabriel curled his lip.
“Lord Dentry,” John said. “I beg you to understand—”
“As much as I am…displeased…with what I’ve heard, and with my wife, Alcroft, I cannot allow you to harm her.”
Lady Dentry smiled, a smug little smile.
“I, however, can do with her as I please.” Unemotional eyes looked to her. “And I find myself inclined for once to do just that.”
Lady Dentry’s smile dropped.
“You have brought trouble upon trouble on this household, Lady Dentry. But I thought them petty things. When Mr. Noble, the senior, left my employ, I knew you were somehow responsible for his sudden want of retirement. I allowed him to leave, however, handicapping myself in the process. I should have watched you more closely, I see.”
“You should have watched me at all,” she snapped bitterly.
Gabriel said nothing to interrupt the interplay. Marietta’s hand slipped into his and he squeezed it.
“I suppose I should have done just that.” The rest of the room’s inhabitants were silent bystanders. “Pity you should disgrace the name Dentry so.”
She laughed, a wild, fierce sound. “It did not take much. And I enjoyed it.” Her eyes swept Gabriel and John. “Every second.”
Lord Dentry’s face remained stern, taciturn, unemotional, but his hand fisted around the back of a chintz chair. “You will pay for this, Lady Dentry.”
“My name is Melissande.”
“This is a Bow Street Runner, Lady Dentry.” He motioned toward Dresden. “Followed Mr. Jeremy Noble up from London.”
Jeremy cringed and sent an apologetic look Gabriel’s way.
“He heard the whole thing, which leaves me in a bind.” Lord Dentry tapped a finger on the chair. “What shall we do?”
“I care little what you do,” his wife said. Gabriel had never seen her as bitter as she was now. Utterly defeated, an ugly sneer on her face.
“Oh, but I think you do. And moreover, I care. I won’t have you disgrace my name any more than you already have.” He sil
ently tapped for a few seconds, a large show of emotion from an altogether stern and unemotional man. “It would be in your best interest were you to be arrested, I will tell you that right now, for I am going to make the rest of your days quite…unpleasant.”
Lady Dentry’s face turned white, and Gabriel squeezed Marietta’s hand as grim approval coursed through him.
Lord Dentry’s eyes moved around the faces in the room. “The question is what to do now.”
“He is the Middlesex murderer. He needs to be brought to justice,” Dresden said, eyes narrowed on John.
Everyone in the room stiffened at his pronouncement. Gabriel closed his eyes. All their secrets would become public. He had put safeguards into place, but this situation was entirely bigger than what he’d planned for. All of London would know in one fell swoop. Printed in every paper and on the lips of every citizen. And John…
“No. You can’t.” Marietta stepped forward. “Please. Let Gabriel handle it.”
Dresden’s eyes narrowed on her. “Noble? I trust him no more than I do the rest of you. He’ll release Alcroft as soon as they leave.”
“He brought Worley to your attention. Deliberately put his own secrets at risk in order to help your investigation.”
“He wasn’t helping my investigation, he was helping his own.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t you see—it hindered him. You are a smart man; you put the pieces together enough to follow Jeremy out here. Why did you do that?”
Dresden’s lips pulled tight. “That is neither here nor there. Why should I trust him to turn over the murderer?” He pointed a thumb at Alcroft. “His lifelong friend.”
“Don’t you see? Gabriel is the reason you know all of these things. He allowed you to know them. Took the chance that under all of your stuffy, upright theatrics, you are a decent man.”
Dresden was taken aback. Gabriel could only sympathize with that state at the moment. Could only keep his jaw from sagging as Marietta made her passionate declarations.
“And Lord Dentry.” She turned to him. “Gabriel has said nothing publicly about your wife, nor your own unwitting part in this. Trust him to continue that. Support whatever story plays.”
Lord Dentry inclined his head an inch.
“And you think he’ll do right by you, do you?” Dresden’s eyes were narrowed upon her.
“He has done right the entire time,” she said simply. “He hasn’t hurt anyone, when he could have. I’ve placed my trust in him, we all have.” She looked at Jeremy and his father, then back to Gabriel. “And none of us have been betrayed.” Her brown eyes were beautiful and clear. A spring shower washing away his sins. He nearly staggered under the impact. She looked back to Dresden. “Please.”
The entire room seemed to take a breath.
Dresden’s eyes scrunched. “I don’t like people mucking around with the law. Mucking around with justice.”
“No, not mucking. Just giving justice a chance to succeed in a different way. To prevent the innocents from being hurt.”
Dresden looked around the room. “What innocents?”
“My brother, for one.”
“It will hardly hurt him when he is exonerated by Mr. Alcroft being taken into custody.” But the corners of Dresden’s eyes loosened a fraction.
“The innocents taken advantage of by Lady Dentry and her—” Her mouth turned down. “—club.”
When Dresden’s eyes softened another fraction, Marietta stepped forward. “Please. I know you want the letter of the law followed, but those victims, those boys, will never get their justice this way.”
“And what of the women?”
“I didn’t say that justice wouldn’t be done. Just…just let Gabriel handle it.” She took another step forward, her fingers spreading. “Please.”
The faith in him, when she didn’t even know what he would do…he could just let John go. His closest friend, his brother in all but blood…he could let him walk through the door. Marietta trusted him not to allow Kenny to take the blame, when it would all be so much simpler for him in this one, singular aspect to do just that.
“Mr. Alcroft needs to be tried and punished,” Dresden said.
John wasn’t looking at the Runner, he was looking at Gabriel. Gabriel stared back, thinking through plan after plan. John tilted his head, then nodded, tired eyes never leaving Gabriel.
Pain ripped through him. Gabriel stepped forward, at Marietta’s shoulder. “He will. I will take him,” he said, barely above a whisper. He cleared his throat. “Someone fetch a rope and a male servant’s outfit.”
“Why do you need—”
Gabriel held up a hand. “It will be easier this way.”
No one responded to that, though Marietta looked up in confusion. Lord Dentry disappeared to retrieve the items.
“John, the letter opener.” He held out his hand. John opened his palm, the long blade resting on top, and looked at the weapon for a long moment before giving it to Gabriel. Gabriel slipped it into his inside pocket, the cold steel pressed against his ribs.
“If you betray me, I will destroy you,” Dresden whispered, his voice low and even behind him.
“I know,” Gabriel said.
Lord Dentry returned and Gabriel handed John the coat, simple shirt, trousers, and shoes. “Put these on.”
“Something for prison, Gabriel?” John asked. “How thoughtful.”
He put on the borrowed garments and removed his pocket watch, slipping it inside his new trousers.
“No. Your watch.” Gabriel held his hand out. “And your signet.”
John raised a brow, but removed the objects and handed them to Gabriel. “Robbing me?”
“No. Keeping them for you,” Gabriel said simply.
John narrowed his eyes, searching Gabriel’s, then nodded. “Very well.”
“Come.”
They exited the house in a knotted formation, Dresden and Gabriel’s father in front, Gabriel and John in the middle with Jeremy and Marietta at their sides, Lady Dentry clasped uncomfortably against her husband, bringing up the rear. Dresden and Gabriel’s father spread to the sides and Gabriel entered his carriage, then motioned John inside. He could see Marietta’s wide eyes and bitten lip.
He moved his eyes from her and nodded to Dresden, whose face was dark, shoulders tight. Gabriel understood the need for people in the law to view the world in terms more black and white than his own shades of gray. Although a softening of Dresden’s edges would be more than welcome.
“You came by horse? Stop by the White Stag for a drink on your way back,” Gabriel said. Dresden’s eyes narrowed and darted between them. Gabriel wondered if he would go to the tavern or if he would follow behind, just in case.
His father handed him a strong rope surreptitiously, so that any curious servants would be unable to see. They had somehow kept the entire debacle within the two rooms and behind the thick walls of the manor, the servants none the wiser. Gabriel motioned for John to hold out his hands. He did so with another raised brow, though his eyes were resigned, haunted. Gabriel tied the knot.
His eyes connected with Jeremy’s, which were as haunted as Alcroft’s, but strength lurked behind the uncertainty. Gabriel nodded to him, held his gaze, tried to communicate everything he could in that one glance. Sorrow, apology, love, trust. Jeremy’s face broke for a minute, then he nodded back, shoulders firm, head up.
Marietta’s hands curled around the door’s frame. “Gabriel,” she hissed, trying to get him to lean out. “What if he does something to you in the carriage?”
“He won’t.” The sand was slipping through the hour glass, his tongue unable to reveal his plan. Marietta understood honor. She’d understand later. He needed her to.
“But—”
“He won’t. I’ll see you back at the house.” He touched her chin. “Everything will be fine.”
Everything wouldn’t be fine. But they all had to believe it to be.
They stepped away, as one, from t
he carriage. He closed the door and rapped the trap. The wheels rolled down the drive. Away from the beautiful estate with its ugly memories and unhappy inhabitants.
John was silent, staring at the rope binding his wrists. Gabriel didn’t know where to look. Out the window, toward the setting sun, bloody and fierce. At his friend, a murderer, a victim. At the pristine bundle sitting innocuously at his side, waiting.
“How did you let it go, Gabriel? How did you become you, and not me?”
The afternoon had obviously drained them all. John’s voice was reflective and even.
Gabriel stared through the window at the passing scenery. “I don’t know, John. I never wanted them to win.” He looked at his friend. “Their goal was to break us. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You think me weak?” John’s chin jutted forward; he looked more like his old self in that moment.
“No. I think you wronged. I wish…” He looked away. “I wish you had come to me. Or that—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d stayed, Gabriel.” John’s voice was matter of fact and even more reflective, accurately guessing what he was going to say. “Did you read Abigail’s journal? The parts where we overlap?”
“Some.”
“Then you will know that it didn’t matter. It would have been worse had you still been there, though I said differently earlier. You couldn’t have saved me. I stopped blaming you during the day long ago.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “I sometimes still blame you at night, but we can’t all be perfect.”
“None of us are,” Gabriel said quietly. “None of us are.”
They sat in silence, the carriage rolling across Blackfriars, swaying over the stones as dusk fell.
Gabriel rapped the trap. “Is the Runner still following?”
“No, sir. He left ten minutes back and rode ahead. Haven’t seen him since.”
Gabriel nodded and stretched his suddenly tight fingers.
“Where are we going?” John asked, his head tipped back, eyes closed. “Cold Bath? Newgate?”