Relief surged through him, not anger, not even confusion.
Just relief.
Relief the man wasn’t dead.
That he’d never again have to wonder, or carry the weight of it in silence. That part of his past no longer clung to him like a coat lined with lead.
“Where the hell is she?” Gabriel whispered through gritted teeth. Olivia was his only focus. “I’ll kill you if you’ve harmed her.”
But Justin staggered to his feet, panic sparking in his eyes as he looked past Gabriel. “Where’s Kate?”
“One of the fraternity’s thugs shot her.” Gabriel paused, letting the blow land, the same low punch he’d felt when he learnt Olivia was missing. “It’s a shoulder wound. Gentry’s tending to her.”
Justin shuffled forward, one hand pressed to his ribs. “I did what I could to save your wife. But they?—”
“If she’s dead—” Gabriel lurched, clasping the man by the throat, the sudden chill in his body at odds with the fire in his voice.
“They have her upstairs,” Justin rasped. “They’re waitingfor Kate to return, to confirm you’re dead. They’ll use her to find the evidence, then kill her. Us too.”
“Did you not warn them?” Gabriel released him and turned for the door. “Never underestimate the devil when he has everything to lose.” He paused. “How many men are there?”
“Five. And one woman. You’d best shoot her first.”
Gabriel nodded. Then said the words he never thought he would. “The trapdoor is open. Miss Bourne is at Studland Park. Tell Gentry the code word isCaesar. It might be best if you both disappear. Abroad. You may be certain I’ll never look for you again.”
They crept up the narrow wooden stairs, boots soft on the worn treads.
The cellar was packed tight, crates stacked to the beams, burlap sacks spilling grain, a rusted cider press hunched in one corner like a forgotten relic. Wooden barrels crowded the space, leaving barely room to turn.
There were no guards at the door. None in the corridor either.
Dalton exhaled. “They never expected you to find the hatch, and certainly not the tunnel.”
“They underestimated Olivia’s father.” He peered into the dining room, then the butler’s pantry as they prowled through the house. “And the power of poetry.”
They stole into the main hall, pausing when they heard raised voices.
“This has gone far enough,” Reverend Clay said, the strain clear in his tone. “When did this stop being about reform? About bringing the government to account? About helping the poor and needy?”
“When one of our members betrayed us,” came SirRandall’s faint Scottish burr. “Reform will nae happen unless we weaken those peers who control the House of Lords.”
“Yet while others shouted in the streets, you were buying up half the high street in Melford, three months before the borough was granted its own Member of Parliament.”
“Aye. To make sure the people are charged a fair rent.”
“Yet you killed my mother years ago.”
Gabriel froze.
Olivia!
Her voice was clear, steady. She was alive.
He’d never heard a sweeter sound.
“Your mother died in a house fire,” Sir Randall countered.
“I have evidence to suggest otherwise.”
