“No doubt, yet I prefer not to take the chance that you might escape. You see, you are part of this, Lady Forsythe.”
I was past any possibility of intimidation. I was furious. Yet, it would do no good at the moment.
I was grateful that I had left on my chemise and petticoat.
When I reached the door of my bedchamber, I quickly stepped inside, pushed the door closed and dressed before the door opened. I finished tying the laces on my boots, then grabbed my jacket.
There was only one man I dressed, or undressed, for!
When we returned downstairs, Blackwood instructed me to call for a driver.
And we waited.
“What are you going to do?”
A slow smile. “I am going to pay Mr. Brodie back for what he has done to me.”
I had not known Brodie then, and he had never spoken about the cases he pursued as an inspector with the MET.
Yet, from the few things I knew from him about Blackwood, the circumstances far too closely mirrored the circumstances that led to my own father taking his life. Three people who were directly involved in his imprisonment were now dead. I could only assume that he intended to kill Brodie as well.
“I understand.”
He smiled that faint, drugged smile filled with pain.
“You cannot possibly understand what it is to lose your family, your home, everything.”
But I did, far too well.
The driver arrived and Blackwood motioned for me to go ahead of him. He held back briefly.
I ran to the driver then, but Blackwood quickly caught up, a hand on my arm.
He pushed me up into the coach then closed the door, the revolver in his pocket pointed at me as he gave the driver instructions.
Fourteen
THE BOXING CLUB, BETHNAL GREEN
BRODIE
He wasawake in an instant with a sense that someone had entered the room— someone who hadn’t been invited. He reached for the revolver when a sound came that might have been surprise as he found the matches and struck one.
The flame caught, momentarily casting light across features as the man who had made that sound tried to fight off the other one, who pinned him against the wall beside the door—Munro.
Brodie lit the nearby lantern. It sputtered to life, growing stronger as it found the oil in the bowl of the lantern, the man Munro had caught dangling like a fatted pig—Ives.
“There’s been word,” Ives managed to choke out as Brodie came to his feet and crossed the room.
“What word?” Brodie demanded.
“It came from Mr. Brown’s man,” Ives managed to squeeze out a reply. “Ease off, I’m just delivering the message.”
“By stealing into the room,” Brodie demanded.
“He said to bring you. Best speak with him.”
“It would be easy to gut him like a fish,” Munro commented.
