“Your sister?” He stumbled back a step. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“Do you impregnate and kill so many women you can’t distinguish between them?” She advanced on him. Her aim wavered between his heart and his head. She didn’t know which would be more satisfying.
He stumbled to his knees. “Please.” He wiped his cheek. “I don’t know what you’re speaking of. You can’t do this.”
The sincerity in his voice almost swayed her. Almost. “Lydia Moore. Five years ago.” It was best he knew which woman he was dying for. “She was in love with you. She carried your babe in her belly. All she wanted was to be loved. And you took her from me.”
“Lydia…Lydia. Yes,” he babbled. “Lovely girl. We each enjoyed the others’ company—”
She took two steps and swung her arm as hard as she could. The butt of the gun struck his temple, shutting him up with a whimper. “Do not speak of her like that.” She scampered back, out of his reach. Her hand shook wildly as she leveled the pistol at him again. She’d best aim for his chest. It was a larger target.
Her finger tightened on the trigger, slowly drawing it back. Her body tensed, waiting for the explosion.
“Cassie.”
The voice was soft. Gentle. And one she couldn’t bear to hear at this moment. “Go away, Charles. I need to do this.”
He stepped into her field of vision. His mask was gone and his hands were stretched wide. “This isn’t the way.”
She took her gaze off Wiltshire. “This is my way,” she said fiercely. She took another step closer to her quarry when four more figures melted out of the shadows, surrounding them. “This is why I’m here. The only reason.”
The compassion on Charles’s face nearly undid her. “Please go,” she begged him.
“I can’t.” He took a step closer. “Let me help you, sweetheart. Don’t do this.”
“This is why I’m here. My sole purpose.” Pain throbbed behind her temple, and she shook her head. “If I don’t do this, I’ve failed her.” She turned her focus back on the man sniveling in the dirt. She didn’t come to London for Charles. Nor for love. She came to kill.
And she finally had her chance.
Chapter Thirty-One
A bead of sweat gathered at the base of Charles’s neck and rolled down his spine. The gun shook in Cassie’s hands, the trigger pulled halfway back. It would only need a little more pressure and two lives would be over.
Three, if he included his own. He could no longer imagine his life without Cassie in it.
He took another step towards her. The other men, Wilberforce, Verity, Hurst, and Hereford held back. “You came to find justice for your sister.” He kept his words calm, even. He didn’t know how he did it as inside he was a clawing mass of panic and confusion. “And if Wiltshire is your man, then you’ve succeeded. You can put down the gun now.”
Cassie shifted to the right, keeping the earl in her sights. “Your idea of justice does not match with mine. This”—she jabbed the pistol at the man on his knees—“is justice.”
“Why don’t we let her shoot him?” Hereford flicked one edge of his cloak over his shoulder. “If he killed her sister, he deserves it. That locket,” he continued, speaking to Cassie. “It was hers?”
Charles clenched his hand. When this was over, he was going to have a conversation with the man about encouraging his girl to kill. And also about withholding information. What bloody locket? Why did a thief know more about Cassie’s situation than he?
Cassie nodded jerkily. “She wore it always. The braided hair was from our brother. He died as a child. She left it empty, waiting to fill it with a miniature of her husband and her first babe. She would not have given it away unless….”
Unless it was to the man she expected to marry.
Charles glanced at Wiltshire in disgust. The earl was a shit stack of the largest order, and a coward to boot. He watched as the man begged, tears and snot coating his face. It was difficult to believe such a man had it in him to commit violence. Despicable as the act might be, it took some level of backbone to choke the life out of someone.
“Are you so certain this man deserves death that you are willing to give your own life away? You’re trading your own future for his.” He edged closer. He was almost within reach. A few more inches and he could take the weapon, save his Cassie from herself.
She looked at him then. Her eyes were fathomless pools. “My life is nothing if I don’t do this for her. It is a trade I’m willing to make.”
His breath caught in his chest. She was going to do it. He could see it in every line of her being. He stepped between her and Wiltshire. “No.”
He’d known a hundred different reasons why they couldn’t be together. Their stations were too disparate. Their temperaments, sentiments, were too far apart to lead to a happy match. But in this moment, when he faced the possibility of truly losing her, he knew all those other reasons were shite. Excuses to keep him safe in his organized, dull little world.
His heart thudded at the nose of the flintlock brushed his torso. As her hand tensed in shock. “Charles.” She jerked the gun away from him, pointed it at the fountain. A tremor wracked her body. “Why?”
