He told her to stay on the floor, and then ordered Hastings to take her straight home. Before she had the chance to protest, he was out of the carriage and had slammed the door shut. She fell back as Hastings spurred the team to a reckless speed that had other drivers cursing him as he cut them off. He also had her jouncing and bouncing, unable to regain her footing sufficiently to even attempt to climb back into her seat, much less manage to jump out to chase after Julius.
One would think she was in a runaway cart barreling down a cliff.
But it was not long before Hastings, shouting for Greeves, drew the team to an abrupt halt in front of the Thorne townhouse.
He had jerked on the reins so hard, Gory had tumbled onto the floor again. “Botheration!”
She was still sprawled on the floor, desperately trying to fix her gown that had entangled in her legs, when the door flew open and Greeves, along with a small army of footmen, lifted her out. “Quickly, m’lady,” Greeves said as he and the footmen formed a protective wall around her while hurrying her into the house.
“But Lord Thorne–”
“Knows how to take care of himself,” Greeves assured her.
No doubt this was true, but she was also afraid he had been struck. There was a spot of blood on the sleeve of her gown and she knew it was not her blood.
Adela, Marigold, and her two dowager angels, Lady Withnall and Lady Dayne, came rushing out of the ladies parlor where they must have been enjoying a morning’s conversation. “What happened?” they asked and began to hurl questions at her that she could not possibly answer.
Ambrose and Leo, Marigold’s husband, hurried out of Ambrose’s study and asked the same questions.
Gory, her heart racing for worry over Julius, quickly related the details of the incident as calmly as she could manage. The men listened intently, both of them seeming to be of the same mind as they told the women to stay away from the windows while they searched the grounds.
“You think the killer ran here?” Gory asked in surprise. “But he was on Regent Street and Julius chased after him.”
“It is fairly certain the killer had at least one accomplice,” Ambrose said, for he had been kept apprised of all the details of the murder and knew as much as Gory herself. “Who is to say that only one of them was capable of murder? This second person might be lying in wait right near here,” Ambrose said. “In fact, this is what I would do if I were the killer and desperate to silence you. I’ll stake my dukedom there is someone positioned close by.”
He had no sooner said the words than they heard one of the Bow Street runners shout a warning and saw an agile figure clad in black leaping over the stone wall at the rear of the garden that divided the grounds from the mews.
Ambrose and Leo took off after him.
As Gory and her friends stared at each other in dumbfounded silence, they heard the distant clopping of hooves, no doubt the assailant taking off on horseback.
She did not know if Homer Barrow’s runners also had horses at the ready and could chase after him.
Unfortunately, she did not think they had.
The house was well guarded, so how was it possible for anyone to climb over the wall without being seen?
This troubled Gory.
It was one thing for her to have entered the house unnoticed and slipped into Julius’s bedchamber on the night of her uncle’s murder. Ambrose and Adela were away, so the staff was not quite as vigilant as they might have been. Of course, the house had been properly closed up and secured before the last of the staff retired for the night.
This was a well run household and no one shirked in their duties.
But it had taken little effort on her part to jiggle the latch on a side door until it unlocked, for she was very good at breaking into places for purposes of medical research. She would have been quite adept had she ever decided to steal anything…which she would never do.
She was no thief.
Julius had made the matter of turning the Thorne townhouse into a fortress a priority. Everyone was on heightened alert because there was a killer, possibly two, on the loose who were desperate to silence her.
She stared at Adela and Marigold, both of them new mothers, and her heart sank. “I cannot stay here.”
“What? Why?” Adela muttered.
“How could I have been so thoughtless?” Gory berated herself for not sooner realizing the danger she posed to her dearest friends.
What if this villain had gotten into Adela’s home? Or harmed Adela’s family and guests while trying to silence her? Gory knew she had to go into hiding elsewhere. But where? And would this be enough to protect these friends she considered her beloved family? “I am putting you all in peril. You and Marigold have your children to think about.”
“But what about you?” Adela insisted. “Now that Ambrose and I are back from Oxford, our staff is once more on full alert. Not to mention, there are teams of constables and Bow Street runners also in place to guard you from anyone who approaches this house. They are already on the task.”
