Then his lashes came down as he turned and made for the door. “I’ll go to the church. I have to try to stop him if I can.”
Lydia found she was already on her feet. “I’ll go with you.”
He turned back to her and took a step in her direction. Another.His eyes, rings of blue and green and gold, locked with hers. “No. No, Lydia. I need you to stay here. Wait for Jasper.”
She shook her head in helpless negation. Her eyes burned; she could not see him clearly. “You can’t go alone. You’ll be defenseless. It might not just be Davis—it could be him and the Thibodeaux together. You—”
“I cannot let him do this, my love.” His soft voice stilled her frantic words, and her heart clenched at the sound. “If there’s any chance I can prevent him before it’s too late, I have to try.”
Of course he would think so. Not just to avoid an assassination, but to stop his brother. To save Davis, if he could, from doing something unforgivable.
I wanted to believe him, Arthur had said.Part of me has never stopped seeing that little boy in him.
Fear clutched at her throat, throbbing in her ears.Don’t, she wanted to say.Don’t go, don’t leave, I love you. Stay.
But she could not ask that of him. Not now, not in this moment.
Georgiana had crossed to them, and now she reached into her reticule and removed a small pearl-handled pistol. She pressed it into Arthur’s hands. “Take this. I’ll run back to Selina’s—we’ll go to the Home Office together and tell them Lydia’s suppositions.” Her face was set and uncompromising. “We will make them listen this time.”
Arthur’s burn-flecked hand closed around the modest weapon, and Lydia’s stomach turned over.
“If Lydia is right about this,” Georgiana said, “there’s still time. Wellington is meant to be at the end of the parade, not the front. You have an hour—perhaps more—to search the church and stop your brother.”
He nodded, wordless gratitude writ plain on his face.
And then he turned back to Lydia. He reached out andcaught her around the waist with his free hand, drawing her hard up against his chest.
He kissed her. He kissed her like it was the last time he would ever have his mouth on hers, like he could breathe his stubbornness and determination into her body. He kissed her like his lips were a promise and his heartbeat a vow.
She kissed him back the same way.
When they broke apart, his hand cupped her cheek—once, gently—before falling away. “I’ll be back for you,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry,” she whispered, and then the door closed, and he was gone.
It was some long moments before she looked down at the desk and realized he had not taken the pistol.
He had had only that single armament, that lone defense. And he had left it for her.
It took Arthur nearly the full hour to make it to St. Saviour’s. The duchess’s man at Belvoir’s—either accustomed to misadventure or terrified by Arthur’s general air of ferocious intensity—had not asked questions. He’d produced a hack with a sharp-eyed driver as if from nowhere, and Arthur had, quickly and urgently, communicated his desperation to get to St. Saviour’s Church.
The driver had passed his thumb across his mustache, considered the congestion on the roads, and then hauled Arthur up front alongside him. And then he’d taken off.
Arthur had spent the journey staring at his ancient pocket watch and grinding his teeth. When they could make out the church in the distance, Arthur had leapt down and taken the rest of the street at a dead run.
The entrance to the church was obscured by scaffolding, but there were no workmen about, only milling pedestrians: street vendors, women carrying market baskets, children bundled against the cold and seated on their parents’ shoulders. The parade was nearing its end, though Arthur could not yet see Wellington’s carriage—it was still too far back to be visible.
But he knew—he knew all too well—that with the rifle scope, the distance would not matter.
He ducked behind the scaffolding and tested the church’s front door, which seemed barred from the inside. He tried to force it open, but it resisted his efforts, so he continued on to the transept, shielded by shrubbery. Several yards down, he located a broken window, half hidden by a pile of refuse and building materials.
He forced his way inside. The metal frame scraped against his shoulder, but he ignored it.
Inside the church, the windows were set in ashlar—a cool, airy stone dressing that was marred by crumbling mortar. The remains of pews were heaped in piles near signs of active restoration: bricks and lime, ladders and trowels. Parts of the roof had collapsed, and the late-afternoon sun made bars of light along the stone floor.
He headed toward the tower at the center of the building, from which the transepts radiated. As he made his way up the dark, windowless stairway, his boot caught the edge of a rotted piece of wood paneling, which came away from the wall.
Jesus. He needed to find Davis before the whole tower came down around them
