Her mind swarmed with facts, questions, and plans. She ought to have been sufficiently distracted by the seemingly Herculean task looming ahead of them. But looking anywhere other than upon Arden seemed an impossible feat when she had just suffered three whole days of being deprived of his presence.
He had been evading her.
Yes, she had taken note. On the first day, she had been relieved she would not be forced to look him in the eye following her shameless display in his study. She had devoted herself to combing through her notes and extracting key names, places, and anything else she could. She drafted a dozen assorted lists. She ate each meal in the still-disapproving company of Lady Beaufort, until dinner, when she had a tray delivered to her room, and fell asleep atop the covers long past midnight, only to wake up in the darkness with her face buried in a map of London.
By the second day, she had convinced herself she would apologize for her rash behavior, and promise him it would never be repeated, while urging him to do the same. She spent breakfast stabbing her eggs and sausage and glaring into her coffee. In between exchanging mindless pleasantries with his aunt, she wondered if he would join them, until the butler announcedHis Gracehad already taken his meal an hour earlier. She decided to investigate the railways further on her own, and took great pleasure in wearing the divided skirts which made Lady Beaufort shudder, and hiring hacks all over town.
When the third day had arrived, her inner shame had swelled like a river after a torrent of rain. Arden was not merely too preoccupied with his duties concerning the League to speak with her, and it was blatantly apparent he regretted what had passed between them. So too did she, and though she had spent every lucid hour since her lapse of judgment and reason sternly admonishing herself against it ever happening again, the knowledge he could not bear to face her was nonetheless humiliating.
Her dinner invitation this evening from the Duke of Winchelsea had been a welcome distraction from her isolation. But she would never have accepted had she known Arden would also be in attendance.
“Tell me.” Arden’s deep, decadent baritone severed the silence and her musings both.
She jolted, grinding her molars to keep her cheeks from flushing as she realized she had been staring fixedly at him for Lord knew how long. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your thoughts,” he elaborated. “Tell me what you are thinking. I can see the wheels of your mind working.”
He supposed she was thinking of the bombings and their next step, which she was. But beyond the instinctive decision to visit all hotels surrounding the railway stations where the bombings had occurred, she knew not what step they should take next. And she had just spent the last few minutes ruminating uponhim.
This would not do. She forced her thoughts to return to her duty, where they belonged.
“If the perpetrators responsible for the explosions are indeed sent from the Emerald Club, as I suspect they are, then they are Americans,” she said. “They will be staying at hotels under aliases. They will have arrived a few days prior to the day of the attacks. Common ruses in such circumstances is the pretense that one is a traveler, perhaps with family in the area, or a businessman. They will be traveling lightly, but not light enough to cause suspicion.”
“And you believe them to be staying in hotels near where they laid their bombs?” he queried, his expression impenetrable, his tone harsh. “Why would they be so foolish? Surely they would predict the first places to be searched will be those nearest the crimes?”
“Not necessarily,” she countered, grateful her mind could once more be turned toward a more worthy task. This, she reminded herself sternly—detective work—was what she was meant to do. “The hotels nearest to the railway stations will be most convenient. If one is carrying a portmanteau containing explosive powder, and an accompanying device which will explode it, one will not wish to travel far.”
He inclined his head. “That is a fair point. However, would not the fear of discovery trump the fear of a premature explosion, or other such incident?”
“Valid question, Arden,” she acknowledged. “But I have had ample time to acquaint myself with the way McKenna’s mind works. If he is indeed the man behind this latest atrocity, I am convinced he will have sent a select handful of men, all of whom he trusts implicitly. Their primary goal is bomb detonation. A man carrying a bomb will be nervous; it is only natural. The shorter the distance he must travel to plant his bomb and relieve himself of his burden, the better. Therefore, McKenna’s men will have lodged in the hotels nearest to the stations that were targets. If we are fortunate enough, they could even still be in residence.”
Arden nodded. “If they carried out their plan as you suspect, they likely traveled on the railway themselves. The two explosions occurred just minutes apart, but the stations are too far in distance for the bombing to have been carried out by the same man. Having two suspects heightens our chances of at least apprehending one, and if we can get one, we can be certain the others too shall fall. Imprisoned men facing the threat of the gallows have a way of singing like canaries.”
“Precisely.” When he was not being an arrogant oaf, or kissing her senseless upon his desk, she appreciated Arden’s quick wit. “All we need is to capture one of them, and he will lead us to the others, either with his confession to gain better favor for himself, or through the clues on his person and in his lodgings.”
She and Arden could work well as partners, she knew, as long as she could keep her distance and stop thinking about his lips. Those were the forbidden sorts of thoughts she could not afford to entertain for a fellow agent. Most especially not for the Duke of Arden. And most especially not in this moment. She struck them from her mind, forbidding them to return.
The carriage slowed then, and Arden peered out the window. “We are almost to the Great Western Hotel by Praed Street Station,” he observed with a grim air. “But there is rather a great deal of pandemonium in the streets from the look of it. We may be better served to disembark here and travel the remainder of the distance on foot, since time is of the essence.”
“Then let us do that,” she said, her decision instant. “Every minute which passes us by is one more minute in which the villains responsible for these dastardly acts can escape.”
Arden rapped upon the carriage, bringing them to a halt, and hastily relayed his orders to the driver. In no time, he was springing from the carriage and offering her a hand down as well. Into the sea of chaos they went, her hand firmly in the crook of his arm.
“Stay with me, and follow my lead,” he told her tersely, his jaw tight, as they waded through the stricken men and women who had either been rescued from the afflicted railway or were searching for loved ones who had.
His hand covered hers, holding her tightly to him, and she tried to ignore the spark his touch produced. This was neither the time nor the place for her to indulge in unwanted longing. Through the crowd they went, snippets of conversation reaching her as they made their way.
“Please, sir, have you seen my daughter Miss Jenny Throckmorton? Blonde hair, brown eyes…”
“He was to have been making his way home from his shift, but he never arrived.”
“The name is Tommy Weston. He was to be at the Edgware Road Station, but he never showed.”
“Gas explosion is what they’re saying.”
“Fenians, more like.”
The desperation and fear in those voices as they trickled to her were a lance to her heart. She could not shake the heavy weight of responsibility upon her shoulders as she and Arden made their path to the hotel. She ought to have done something more to prevent this day from happening. But she had not possessed any concrete knowledge of dates and times. Not enough.
