His last sentence was her undoing.
She rose and stepped aside. Mr. Swift wasted no time in jerking Griffin to his feet and ordering him to hold his hands behind his back. Griffin complied, his face impassive. Expressionless. This was not the first time he had been taken captive, and it showed. But it also killed her inside, crushing her and extinguishing all the air in her lungs, as she watched his arrest unfold.
Lucien retrieved shackles, and they were placed on Griffin’s wrists and ankles. The process took minutes, but it felt more like hours as she stood, a silent observer, her stomach knotted and clenched, bile a sick stew rising up her throat. Griffin said nothing. Did nothing. Did not even attempt to defend himself.
Everything within her cried out at the injustice. It was wrong. Griffin was not guilty. He had bruised her heart, but he was not a traitor. He was strong and kind and true. He had been a faithful servant to the Crown, and her brother was too caught up in his own self-importance to concede he could be wrong.
The last lock on the shackles clicked, and the time had come.
Violet closed her eyes, inhaling fully and deeply in an effort to dispel the turmoil churning within her. She knew she needed to remain calm for both herself and Griffin, but she was wound tighter than a pocket watch spring.
“Lucien, please.” She turned to her brother once more, determined to make him see how wrong he was. “Do not do this.”
His lips flattened into a grim line. “I would not do it if it weren’t necessary.”
“Vi.” There was Griffin again, calm and reassuring, even when he was the one who had been beaten and shackled, when he was the one about to be sent to prison. “This is goodbye.”
She stared at him, taking in his beautiful countenance, now marred by her brother’s fists, and she knew the deepest, most soul searing sadness she had ever experienced. “It will never be goodbye for us,” she promised him.
His jaw clenched, and his gaze burned into hers, traveling over her face as if he were committing her to memory. As if he would never see her again. “I love you.”
She swallowed down her heartache, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “And I love you.”
Mr. Swift jerked him forward, leading him away from her, and it required every last bit of restraint she possessed to keep from following. To stop her from running after him, hugging him tight to her, from clouting Mr. Swift over the head as he so richly deserved.
In the end, there were only two facts that mattered. She loved Griffin. He loved her. Time, distance, bruised feelings, opposition, accusations…none of that mattered. Nothing but Violet and Griffin. And somehow, somehow, they would find their way to each other again.
She promised herself as she watched him being hauled away, bleeding and bruised and broken.
Chapter Twenty
“Eat.”
Violet stared at Lucien from across the table in the small, private dining hall he had commandeered for their use. The plate in front of her was heaped with warm, inn fare. Boiled potatoes, ham, a fresh slice of bread. There was nothing wrong with it, but she had never been less inclined to eat in her life.
She pushed the plate away from her. “I do not want your food.”
His jaw ticked, eyes narrowing. “Eat, Lady Violet, or you shall go hungry this evening.”
She was once more Lady Violet, which meant she had earned his displeasure. But she did not care. All she did care about was Griffin. He was her husband, and he had come here to the inn because of her. It was her fault he was, at this moment, en route to Newgate.
“How could you imagine I can eat when you have sent the man I love away to be imprisoned?” she demanded, fury making her quiver as she faced him.
After Mr. Swift left with Griffin, she had been in shock initially, and she had allowed herself to be led here to this chamber, for she had not known what to do. Where to go. Her mind had been a jumbled mass of confusion and fear for Griffin. But she would not sit calmly and break bread with her brother, as if he had not just ordered her husband’s arrest.
“A guilty man is suffering the consequences for his actions,” Lucien argued, his expression impassive. “I will not apologize for bringing justice where it is deserved. You need to acquaint yourself to the fact that Strathmore is guilty. He is a liar and a manipulator and a traitor. Any tender feelings you developed for him are wholly misplaced.”
“It is an injustice,” she argued, slamming her palms on the scarred table. For a moment, she returned in her mind to a different scarred table. To the evening she had shared dinner with Griffin, when he had cooked for her. Her heart ached. “Griffin is innocent.”
“The evidence proves otherwise.” Lucien’s gaze, unrelenting, challenged her.
Why did he insist upon being so stubborn? How could he not see what she saw? Frustration and anger rose up within her, spewing forth, making her shake. She had never felt as helpless as she did now. As futile and powerless.
She thought of how she had felt just that morning when Griffin had taught her to shoot a gun. How she had realized she did not need anyone else to defend her, because she could defend herself.
If she could defend herself, then why could she not also defend the man she loved?
The answer came to her, simple and easy. She could. And she would.
