“There is not time.” His eyes pooled. “Not if you wish to save Simon and the children both.”
The air outside the open carriage windows smelled of smoke and street dung. Rain pattered in, lending the already dirty and musty carriage interior a choking dampness.
“Perhaps we should close the windows.” Georgina spoke for the first time, glancing at the butler’s face.
He did not glance back. Instead, he stared out the window, rain wetting his cheeks, watching as they turned down a brick street with towering warehouses and shops. “They do not close. I am very sorry. The carriage is old.”
“I did not know you owned one.”
“My brother’s.”
Silence again, save for the creaking carriage wheels on the cobblestones and the distant cry of “Fair lemons and oranges!” from a street hawker.God, keep them safe.Over and over.Please, protect them. Please.
The carriage jerked to a stop.
Then the door banged open.
The man who had been driving the carriage—as tall, gangly, and black-haired as Mr. Wilkins—handed her out. “Inside that door. Hurry.”
She bristled at his sharp tone and would have resisted, but the rain was drenching her. She ducked under the shop awning. A shingle, hanging from the yellow-brick side of the building, read WILKINSPERFUMERY ANDTOYWAREHOUSE.
Confusion swirled in her stomach. “Mr. Wilkins, I thought—”
“I shall explain inside.” The butler came up behind her, his hand on the small of her back, and guided her through the door.
The room was spacious, shelves lined with multicolored perfume bottles, while wood-carved counters sported an assortment of small jewelries, glass trinkets, watch fobs, chimneypieces, and other utilitarian items.
“Rupert, you should have assisted the lady with an umbrella.” Bustling forward with a child on her hip and a tot behind her skirts, a stout blond woman clicked her tongue. “Forgive my husband. Those two brothers have not the sense to do anything right. What do you care to look for, miss? I have any amount of needlework paraphernalia.”
“Forgive us, Phoebe.” Mr. Wilkins took Georgina’s arm, led her toward a back door. The brother called Rupert had already disappeared. “We have a matter to handle in the—”
“Wait.” Georgina steeled her feet. The overpowering perfume scents caused her head to throb, eyes to water. “You said you were taking me to Simon.”
“I am.”
“Then why are we—”
“We cannot talk here, Miss Whitmore.” Mr. Wilkins dug his fingers harder into her flesh, and the urgency in his stricken eyes rang alarms throughout her body. “I need you to trust me. I know this is all dreadfully confusing, but I promise we are not here without purpose.”
Too many warnings stampeded her at once. She had a faint thought of ripping free and bursting her way back into the rain, but she allowed him to tug her through the back door anyway.
She feared she would never see Simon again if she did not.
“It was not there.”
Simon’s hands clenched the arms of the wooden chair. Dread plummeted his heart. “I left it locked in the desk drawer.”
“It was already open.”
“No one else had the key.”
A fist slammed Simon’s nose. Cartilage cracked. Blood spewed, warm and coppery and bitter on his already-busted lips.
“You lie.” Another clout. The man kicked over Simon’s chair, then barreled a boot into his stomach. Pain burned through him like a wave of fever.
He grunted even though he tried to pull back the sound. He could not breathe. Could not move. He counted the boot thuds, the rib cracks, because if he did not focus his mind on something, the severity would yank him under.Seven. Eight.
Blackness tugged at him anyway.
