Eventually they’d proven averse to further distraction, and so she’d progressed to writing the note that they’d demanded. She’dspelled every third word wrong on purpose, but either Didier was scarcely literate in English or he thought that she was, because he had not mentioned it.
“How would you like for me to sign it?” she asked desperately.
“In whatever fashion allows you to finish this goddamned letter in as few words as possible.” Didier’s patience seemed stretched to its limit.
“Well, generally I sign notes to him,Your loving sister, but as this one will be arriving at his place of work, I wonder if that’s not entirely appropriate—”
There was a solid crash on the door to the office, a noisy splintering of wood.
Didier whirled. Claudine produced a pistol of her own and aimed it at Lydia from across the room.
The lock held. The door stayed closed.
“Lydia!”
It was Arthur’s voice, rough and familiar. Relief flooded her—gratitude—love—and fear too. Fear most of all.
Arthur was at the door, the wood a fragile barrier against a weapon.
“Get back!” she shouted. “Get away from the door! It’s the Thibodeaux—they each have a pistol—they—”
Claudine lifted her gun. Lydia shrieked and threw herself beneath the desk just in time for the sound of an explosion.
Oh God. Oh no. Oh God.
She couldn’t see anything. The front of the desk touched the ground—she was boxed in on three sides by thick wooden panels. Damn it, who had been shot? What had happened?
She had to know. She picked up the gun from where she had dropped it on the rug and crawled toward the side of the desk. Didier Thibodeaux’s hat lay on its side on the ground.
When she’d gone far enough to make out the contours of the room, she froze. The door had burst inward, the sound drowned out by the explosion of gunfire. She could see Didier’s back, his arms bracing his pistol. Beyond him, she could see Jasper and—she could not make out any more figures in the sliver of room that was visible to her. But Arthur—she knew she had heard Arthur’s voice.
Her ears rang, and the scent of gunpowder was acrid in her nose and eyes. There was plaster dust in the air.
The gunshot. Where had it gone? She craned her neck to try to see. It was difficult to tell from her vantage on the floor, but it seemed likely that Claudine had fired into the wall behind the desk.
She cautiously wiggled her fingers and toes, then put her free hand—the one not brandishing a pistol—to her face.
No blood. Everything seemed in working order. She was fairly certain she had not been shot.
“Gentlemen,” said Didier, “there is no need to act in haste.”
He was not facing her. She did not know if he had seen her. Her fingers tightened on her weapon.
Could she shoot him, if she needed to? But oh God—what if she missed? What if the bullet ricocheted and hit someone else?
There was a muffled sound, a suggestion of motion that Lydia could not see.
“Stop,” Didier said sharply. “Do not come any closer, Strathrannoch, or I will shoot you where you stand.”
“You’re down to one gun,” Arthur said. “You’re outnumbered. If you use your gun on me, the others will have free rein to shoot you and your wife both.”
“Yes,” Didier said, “but you will still be dead. Do not underestimate the satisfaction that would give me.”
“How satisfied do you think you’ll feel if you are six feet underground, Thibodeaux?” This was Jasper’s voice, she knew—but she scarcely recognized her rakish, laughing brother in those icy words.
“If you shoot Strathrannoch,” Jasper went on, “I will kill you myself. I rather think they’ll give me a medal.”
“Well,” Didier said, “it appears we are at an impasse then.”
