“Why are you sad?” Verity asked suddenly.
She was dreadfully perceptive for a child of five years.
“I am not sad at all,” he lied, clutching the missives so tightly his knuckles ached with the strain.
“Papa?”
He glanced up at her. She was tucked into her bed, an innocent girl with Hattie’s dark curls and his eyes. When he looked upon her now and saw the resemblance, the knife in his chest was no longer lodged quite as deep.
“Yes, poppet?” He was keenly aware of how precious every second was.
Arden had given him the address of the apothecary’s shop, though he had warned him to stay away. But there was no bloody way Felix was going to sit calmly by while Drummond McKenna held Johanna captive. Still, he had no wish to alarm Verity.
“Is Miss McKenna ever going to come back to sing with me again?” she asked. “She was ever so much fun. I have not laughed so much since I met her, and neither have you.”
If he had anything to say about it, she would come back as his duchess. But he knew that was out of his hands. And Johanna was in terrible danger. Danger he could not allow himself to contemplate.
Already, he could feel one of his fits beginning. His chest hurt. His heart was pounding. He kept his eyes pinned upon Verity, forcing himself to remain clam.
“I hope she does come back one day soon, poppet,” he said, his voice thick with suppressed emotion.
“I like it when you laugh, Papa,” Verity said softly. “It makes my heart happy.”
He smiled, grateful anew for his daughter. She had been the guiding light through all his darkness, and she would continue to remain so. “It makes my heart happy, too. Rest well, poppet. I shall see you in the morning.”
He lowered the lights and made his retreat.
Just as he crossed over the threshold, her small voice stopped him once more.
“Papa?”
“Yes, Verity?” He turned back, the light from the hall slanting over her bed and illuminating nothing more than her sweet little face.
“Miss McKenna makes my heart happy, too.”
A wall of emotion hit him. “Mine too, Verity,” he choked out. “Mine, too.”
And then, before he said anything more, he gently closed her door. He had not given up on fighting for Johanna yet.
“Sit down, Jojo.”
Drummond’s order cracked through the air of the room where he had taken her. It was a humble abode, consisting of nothing more than a large room with a stove and sparse furniture.
She looked at the chair he had pointed to with the barrel of his pistol, and then to the ropes in her brother’s hand. “No.”
“Sit,” he repeated. “If you do as I say, no harm will come to you.”
“I do not believe you.” She could not bear to be tied. To be unable to defend herself. To be unable to move.
Surely, this was the end for her. Perhaps Drummond was taking pleasure in prolonging her inevitable death. Making her suffer. When they had been but children, he had drowned a sack of puppies in the Hudson. He hurt and killed because he liked it.
He was sick. A sick man who was using a worthy cause as an excuse to hurt others.
“Do you want me to shoot you, or do you want to sit in the bleeding chair?” he asked sharply. “You have until the count of five, Jojo.”
The hated name rankled.
“One. Two. Three…”
