“What happened to you?” She glanced at the scratches. “Your face.”
“Your cousin would probably say I just finished assaulting my next victim.”
“She would be lying.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, jaw flexing, then pulled from her hold.
“Do not move another step, Fancourt.” A male voice boomed across the anteroom, as the two runners entered with drawn powder pistols. “You’re going to Newgate.”
“No.” Simon’s frame visibly trembled. “My children are not safe—”
“Save it for the magistrate, birkie.” The shorter one approached with manacles. “Hold ’em out.”
With one desperate lunge, Simon smacked the man off his feet, the manacles clattering to the marble floor. He swung in time to kick at the second runner who charged him. Tangling in blows, they hit the ground, rolled into a stand, knocked over a vase until the glass shattered into a million shreds.
No.Georgina backed into the wall with a rattled heartbeat. In the name of mercy, what was he doing? Why was he fighting when it would only make things worse?
This was not America.
He had no hope of disappearing, avoiding the runners, nor escaping the law. Did he not realize? What could be worth a violence that would only make him appear more savage to the entire world?
“Simon!” The warning flew from her lips, but not before the shorter runner brought his truncheon down on the back of Simon’s head. The crack echoed. Simon collapsed onto the body he had wrestled to the floor.
“All right, get him up.” The runner shoved Simon off him, the other locked his wrists, and between them both, they dragged him to staggering feet.
Blood dripped down the face he struggled to hold up. “Georgina, my children. They are not safe. They cannot be left alone. Please—”
“Shut up, birkie. You’re wasting the last good air you’ll be having for a while.” They shoved him across the room, pushed him through the door, and were gone.
Georgina clutched the brass candlestick so hard her fingers hurt. She did not know what to do, nor how she was supposed to protect his children, nor why she had waited up half the night for a man she should despise.
She only knew she had to do something.
Simon’s secrets were greater and far more dangerous than she’d known.
CHAPTER 10
“I must speak with Sir Walter.”
“Ye dinnae be listenin’ very good, noo do ye?” The Scotsman’s open-sored face grinned from behind the barred window in the door. “The barrister has already been called upon, he has, but is in court and cannae be disturbed.”
“This cannot wait.” Simon hammered a fist into the grimy stone wall, too many fears rearing. For the remainder of the night, he had paced this hay-strewn cell with prayers on his lips. He murmured so many they didn’t make sense.
All he could see was the river.
The dead body they plopped into the rowboat. The red circle on the soaked, threadbare fabric. The white face.
My fault.Guilt flogged him, followed by another blow, then another.Ruth, I am sorry.For not being there the only time she had truly needed him. For not reaching her fast enough. For forsaking the cabin they loved.
For tonight.
The woman he’d let die in his arms.
For the danger now stalking his children when it should have been stalking him.
