“It is only ill-fated or doomed if we decide that it is,” Louisa snapped, her whole body stiffening. “You, on the other hand, will lose everything you hold dear soon enough.”
“You never did approve of me,” the woman said to Louisa, a bitter edge to her voice. “I’ve always been curious. What was it about me that put you so on edge?”
“Your face,” Louisa answered without any hesitation. “I clearly saw two.”
“Ah, well, you cannot win all hearts.” She motioned with her pistol to Oliver. “No harm shall befall your Juliet. However, I cannot leave her here like this, and now that I’ve seen your hopeless affections for each other, how can I bear to part the two of you?”
Oliver ground his teeth.
Damn it, he didn’t want Louisa near this woman and the aim of her pistol. Her eyes blazed with a cold, ruthless determination. She would shoot. The way her fingers tightened around the grip, the slight shift of her weight, the dead aim—it all made his blood run cold.
Louisa stood close to him—so close the sweet scent he so loved tickled his nose—her shoulders squared, her chin raised defiantly, but he could feel the subtle tremor that coursed through her body.
She was afraid, but she was also committed.
Oliver’s mind raced for a way to get out of this without Louisa getting hurt. He couldn’t stand by and let this woman gain a victory. Not after everything they had endured, not after the secrets they had unearthed and the truths he had yet to confess.
He had to take a risk.
A four-step risk.
His muscles coiled, ready to leap, to knock the weapon from the duchess’s hands. But before he could move, Louisa’s arm shot out and she called, “Camilla! Catch this!”
Oliver barely had time to process what she was doing before he saw his black-velvet jewelry box sail through the air.
The duchess’s gaze flicked towards it, and Louisa shot past him like a cannonball, arms outstretched.
“Louisa!” Oliver lunged forward. Everything happened so damn fast. He reached out, his fingers grazing Louisa’s arm as he tried to pull her back, to shield her, to take the risk himself. But it was too late. The duchess’s lips twisted in a snarl.
Too late.
A shot fired, the blast echoing off the walls of the chamber.
Time seemed to slow to the pace of a snail, the world narrowing down to the sharp crack of one shot, the acrid scent of gunpowder, and the crippling fear gripping him.
“Oliver!”
He snatched the wrist of the duchess in a grasp that could have suffocated death, and yanked, the sound of a loud crack, and even a louder cry of pain, following in the wake of the shot.
The pistol fell to the ground with a thud.
Oliver kicked it away immediately and flung the woman’s hand away from him. He’d snapped a bone in her wrist, but didn’t bloody care. She could be grateful he hadn’t done more.
“Oliver?”
He glanced at Louisa, their eyes meeting, and the look on her face had the blood seeping from his. He staggered toward her. “Were you shot? Where are you shot?”
“No, you fool! I’m not the one who was shot! You are!”
He glanced down, assessing himself. Sure enough, his arm was bleeding. He pressed on the wound. “It’s nothing.”
“Do not lie to me! That is certainly something!”
“Louisa!” Leo cried before Oliver could respond. The boy rushed into the chamber, only to be yanked back by Talbot, who had a pistol in hand. His eyes took in the scene with one sweep.
Ah, well.
It seemed Oliver was going to die tonight after all.
