His broad shoulders flexed beneath his jacket. His gun—he was lining his pistol up to take a shot.
Now, Lydia thought.Now is the time you act.
She leapt to her feet.
Everyone in the room whirled toward her. Every eye was on her—Arthur’s beloved face taut and pale; Jasper’s lips parting on a shout; Didier’s pistol trained, once again, on her own body.
She was sick with terror. She could barely feel the gun in her fingers.
But she could do this.
She held the gun out shakily, allowing it to dangle loose in her hand. “Let them go,” she gasped. “Please, Jasper. Don’t do this. Don’t let this become a firefight. Just… let them go.”
“Lydia,” her brother rasped. He held his pistol almost casually in front of him, but nothing about the lines of his body suggested ease.
Oh God. She might be wrong. This might be a mistake. But she thought—she was almost certain…
“Please,” she said. She looked at Jasper, trying to show him with the force of her expression that she meant what she said. “I need you to do this.”
He looked back. His blond hair was damp with perspiration; his mouth a grim line.
Trust me, she tried to tell him. I need you to believe in me.
And, slowly, Jasper stepped aside, leaving the threshold open for the Thibodeaux to walk through. The door hung crazily at an angle, the frame half-shattered.
Gratitude blossomed inside her, even as Jasper’s grim expression went grimmer. Cautiously, she deposited the pistol on the desk in front of her. “Go,” she said, shifting her gaze to Didier. “They’re letting you go. This is the best chance you’ll have to get away safely. Take it and run.”
Didier’s eyes flicked across the room, from Claudine and Jasper to Arthur and the remaining figure—a lean, dark-haired man who had to be Davis Baird.
Ever so slowly, Didier pivoted, his back to the open door and his gun trained on Lydia. He jerked his head toward Claudine. “You first,” he said in French. “Take the stairs. I will be right behind you.”
Claudine, her face contorted with fury, did as she was bade.
The dark-haired man—Davis—had begun to ease himself in Lydia’s direction. The tip of Didier’s pistol shifted from Lydia to Davis and back again. “What do you think you are doing, Baird?”
“Standing,” Davis said. His accent was identical to Arthur’s, though his voice was lighter, a smooth tenor. He took another step, putting his body between Lydia and Didier’s firearm. “I’m not in your path, Thibodeaux. The door is right behind you.”
Didier nodded once, his gun still fixed chest-high. And then he stepped backward through the threshold and moved cautiously to the stairs.
“Shut the door,” Lydia choked out.
Arthur was the closest. He shoved the broken door back against the shattered frame and held it fast with his body.
She could not tear her eyes from his face. He was still haggard, his hazel eyes dark with fear and locked upon her. She wanted to throw herself at him; she wanted to beg him to come away from the place where the Thibodeaux had gone. She wanted to drag him underneath the desk, wrap herself in his safe, solid body, and never move again.
“Lydia,” said Jasper, “what in God’s name—”
“Go to the window,” she whispered, still staring at Arthur. “Look outside.”
There was a shout, a gunshot, the sound of clamor. She pulled her gaze from Arthur and turned to Jasper as he crossed the room in two long strides.
He looked out the window and his mouth came open in shock. “What the devil—”
Tears of relief were spilling from Lydia’s eyes, hot and cleansing. “I told Georgiana to bring reinforcements. I heard sounds in the alley a few minutes before the three of you came exploding through the door. I thought—I hoped—I believed Georgiana and the Home Office would be here. I did not think the Thibodeaux would get away.”
But she had not known. She had not been certain.
And Jasper had trusted her anyway.
