“The evidence against him was staged.” She stood, sending her chair tipping back.
“That is a claim made by a man doing everything within his power to hide his guilt. Only think of this, Violet: he was willing to use you and manipulate you to get what he wanted. He coerced you into marrying him. He stole your innocence.”
“You cannot steal what is freely given,” she said. “I will not sit here with you for another moment more while Griffin is being taken away by Mr. Swift. I have been through enough these last few weeks, with my carriage being shot at, and I will not allow…”
Her words trailed off as a damning realization hit her, square in the gut.
“The man who shot at my carriage,” she said slowly. “He looked like Mr. Swift.”
Lucien rose from the table, his jaw rigid, his countenance grim. “It was not Swift who shot at your carriage, Violet. He was by my side the entire time.”
“I did not say he was Mr. Swift,” she said slowly. “I said he resembled him. Mr. Swift has relations in Ireland, does he not? Cousins, if I recall correctly.”
“He has an aunt and uncle who hail from Dublin, but that does not mean a bloody thing.”
“Not on its own, it does not.” Her mind was whirling, churning, spinning faster as it made sense of what had been unfolding over the last few weeks. “But think of the coincidences, Lucien. Mr. Swift searched Griffin’s study and found the incriminating evidence. The man who shot at your carriage that day looked very similar to Mr. Swift. And Mr. Swift hates Griffin. I could see it in his eyes when he kicked him earlier.”
She had also seen, for that moment before he had hidden it, an ugliness deep inside him. Violet was certain she had hit upon something. That Mr. Swift was responsible for everything that had happened, or at least connected to it in some way.
Before Lucien could respond, the door opened, and the Duke of Carlisle, Mr. Ludlow, and Mr. O’Malley swept over the threshold. The three of them resembled nothing so much as an army about to storm the enemy’s battlements.
“Where is Strathmore?” Carlisle demanded.
“He is under arrest and on his way to London,” Lucien said coldly. “What the hell are you doing here, Carlisle? The League is no longer within your purview, if you will recall.”
“I remembered something about Mahoney’s source,” Mr. O’Malley said then, his brogue thick. “He was someone close to you, Your Grace.”
“Mr. Swift,” Violet said, filled with the sudden combination of relief and dread. Relief because she knew she was right, and horrible, soul-weakening dread because Swift had taken Griffin.
“It cannot be,” Lucien said, but his tone lacked the confidence it had possessed mere moments before.
“Mr. Swift has taken Strathmore,” she told Carlisle, desperation surging through her. “We have to find them before it is too late!”
Because if it was too late, and if her instincts were correct—
No, she could not even think it. Would not. She had to get to Griffin.
“If this Swift character is indeed The Gryphon, he is dangerous,” Carlisle cautioned. “You ought to remain here and await our return.”
“There is no way I am staying behind,” she said. “My husband needs me.”
Griffin’s chin wassplit open, and though the blood had ceased to pour from his wound as vigorously as it had initially, he was still bleeding. It was slowly, silently coursing down his throat, settling into his neck cloth.
The carriage jostled and he emitted an involuntary grunt of pain, bringing a satisfied smile to Swift, who sat opposite him, looking smug. Griffin was fairly certain the son-of-a-bitch had cracked a rib when he kicked him. And the sadistic bastard had been about to hoof him again before Violet’s intervention. There was no mistaking it, Swift took pleasure in Griffin’s pain.
“You’ve been a difficult bird to catch, Strathmore,” Swift said into the silence as their conveyance swayed over the country roads. “But now you’re about to be caged at last.”
Caged.
The word produced a visceral reaction in him. It took him back to Paris, to the dank hole where he had been kept, existing on slop water and roasted rats, the only meat to be had in the city as the siege had worn endlessly on. It took him to the cruel, cold rage on his captor’s faces. To the merciless slice of blades upon his flesh, hundreds of tiny scores that had been just enough to cause him suffering and make him bleed. To the glowing tips of pokers that had been laid in a fire before burning into his flesh.
He could still recall the scent of his own skin, melting.
He began to sweat, nausea churning in his stomach, his face throbbing where he had taken Arden’s blows, his ribs aching, each breath he took laborious. For the last fortnight, his impending imprisonment had loomed, but he had convinced himself he could find the evidence that would exonerate him. He had been so certain he could prove his own innocence.
That all he had needed was time.
He had been wrong, and the situation in which he now found himself, shackled and bound for London, presided over by bloody Swift, proved that amply.
