All he could see was the way Rosalind had looked standing in the doorway. She’d been pale and her hands had been shaking, and she hadn’t even tied her cloak properly.
Did that mean she was in danger?
Of course she was in danger. She lived in constant danger.
But bringing him those ledgers had put her in even more danger.
The houses along Lincoln Street blurred as he raced toward the hill where the Caldwells’ mansion sat. He rounded a corner too fast and skidded, nearly losing his footing. A startled man tipped his hat and stepped back out of his way, but Yuri didn’t slow.
He pushed past the dark windows of the mercantile and bakery andGazetteoffice before turning onto the final stretch of road, where the hill climbed toward the Caldwells’ mansion.
Her house came into view and a shape moved near the stoop. Was it her?
“Rosalind!” he shouted.
“Yuri!” Mikhail’s voice echoed from behind him, but he kept running, never mind the footsteps pounding behind him.
“Yuri, stop!”
He made it a few more steps before Mikhail caught him. One hand closed hard around his arm, and the other braced against his chest like a wall.
“Let go of me.”
“No. You need to think, Yuri, with your brain. If you barge into that house, what are you going to do? Reveal to Caldwell that you have proof of his fraud? Do you think Rosalind will be safer if you do that?”
“She asked me to find a way to help her, and now she’s in more danger than before. I can’t let her go back into that house.”
“She’s trusting you to help with the ledgers, you dunderhead. And here you are about to blow everything to pieces.”
Yuri shoved at his brother’s arm, but Mikhail didn’t budge. He was too strong and athletic, and trying to fight him was useless.
“Do you think I don’t want to break that door down myself?” Mikhail growled. “She’s my wife’s friend too, and her father won’t even allow them to exchange letters. But charging up there is only going to make things worse.”
“Then what do we do?” Yuri tried to shove Mikhail’s hand away. “Sit around while her father gives her more than a sprained wrist?”
More footsteps thudded behind them, then Alexei and Sacha rounded the corner, both breathing hard.
“Somebody better tell me what’s going on.” Alexei strode toward them, his eyes moving between the two of them.
“Fine. I’ll explain it.” Yuri shoved away from Mikhail and told Alexei and Sacha all of it, from the bruises Bryony had discovered Rosalind hiding, to the day he saw her wrist for himself, to the fact her father was trying to marry her off to a man who was just as dangerous and violent as he was, if not more. Then Yuri explained that Rosalind had finally agreed to let him help her escape, and they planned to leave Sitka in a week’s time, but first she wanted to find evidence of her father bribing Marshal Hibbs so that the corruption could stop and he could be put in prison.
But the evidence she’d just brought him was far bigger and more involved than that.
Alexei stood silent for a long moment, his head turned toward the grand house at the top the hill while his hands clenched at his sides. Then he turned back to them, and his gaze found Yuri’s. “You did the right thing, Yuri. I’m proud of you.”
Yuri blinked. “You are?”
Alexei rarely gave away compliments, but then, he shouldn’t be surprised his brother would support his helping Rosalind, not when Alexei himself had sacrificed so very much for their family.
“‘Defend the poor and fatherless,’” he whispered. “‘Do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.’ That’s in?—”
“Psalm eighty-two, verses three and four.” Alexei slung an arm around his shoulders. “I know those verses well.”
Of course Alexei had those verses memorized. How could he not?
Alexei used the arm around Yuri’s shoulders to turn him away from the Caldwells’ mansion and back toward home. “And now that we know we have a responsibility to defend Rosalind, we need to figure out the best way to do it. That means deciding what ship to use to get Rosalind away from here, what port you should dock at, and where to hide the ledgers until Secretary Gray gets here. We’re not simply going to take these to the corrupt Marshal we know Caldwell is paying.”
“Like I said before, we should use the mimeograph to make copies of what we have.” Mikhail strode in front of them, moving gracefully through the mud and snow on the road. “Or at least we should copy the most incriminating pages, then hide them in two separate spots in case Caldwell comes looking for his ledgers.”
