“What will happen to Holt?”
“He will not trouble you again,” the commander replied.
Elise felt the words sink under her skin like splinters.
She watched, dazed, as if her mind had separated from her body for safety.
Then the elegant man—Manners, she heard someone call him—briefly held up the leather packet. “It is secure.”
Secure. Elise almost laughed. Nothing felt secure.
Mr. Leigh turned to her fully. “We should return,” he murmured. “You must breathe. You must sit down. You must—” he stopped, and his voice softened, “—you must not stand here trying to understand everything at once.”
Elise’s shock deepened. “What he said—about your brother…”
Mr. Leigh’s face went very still. His eyes did not leave hers. “Later,” he said gently. “When you are safe behind walls, not on a wharf with men nearby trying to take in every word.”
Elise swallowed hard. ‘Later’ implied so much.
Later, she would have to comprehend that the man she had let into her house—who had tended Blake, who had insisted she sleep, who had protected her with his own body—carried the name of a traitor in his blood.
Later, she would have to decide what that meant.
For now she could only nod, because her body still shook and because Mr. Leigh’s hand at her elbow was the one stable thing in a morning that had turned the world upside down.
They began to walk back toward the concealed place where the tunnel would take them home.
Behind them, Holt’s voice rose once more, faint with distance but harsh enough to sting.
“Keeping it all in the family,” he called again, laughing. “Tell her, Cholmely! Tell the widow what your brother was!”
Elise’s feet faltered under her. Mr. Leigh leaned closer, his voice low and urgent. “Do not look back.”
Elise forced herself to keep moving. She did not look back, but she felt the weight of those words settle upon her shoulders like a cloak she could not remove.
The ledger was recovered. Holt was contained. Yet Elise knew with a terrible certainty that what had been taken from her today was not just fear, but ignorance. Ignorance, she suspected, had been the last comfortable thing she possessed.
CHAPTER 19
Although Edmund had walked men through gun-smoke, darkness, and the shriek of iron, nothing had ever felt so perilous as walking a woman across a quiet stretch of wharf when her mind was tearing itself in two.
Elise moved beside him with a composure that was not peace, but discipline—her head lifted, her pace measured, her hands kept still by sheer force of will. If anyone had looked upon her from a distance, they would have seen a lady on an early errand. Only Edmund, close enough to feel the tremor that occasionally betrayed itself in her sleeve, could tell how near she stood to splintering.
“Do not look back,” he murmured again when Holt’s voice carried after them, cruelly merry.
Elise did not. Her chin lifted a fraction higher, as if pride might hold her upright when strength threatened to fail, but Edmund felt the weight of those words settle upon her all the same. He knew he could not protect her from the knowledge much longer.
They reached the concealed tunnel without incident. Manners, as poised as ever, had already slipped the ledger to Renforth, as if it were no more than a bill at White’s. Stuart andBaines shepherded Holt and his men, bound and swearing, away to the waiting Revenue men whilst Fielding watched with a look that suggested he was disappointed the morning had not offered him more sport.
Renforth remained a moment, surveying the scene with the cold satisfaction of a man who had ended the danger. His gaze touched Edmund’s.Later. The message was in the look, though no words were exchanged.
Edmund led Elise into the undergrowth beyond the lane and toward the hidden mouth of the tunnel. The grey light made everything colourless. It should have been tranquil. It was not.
Elise paused just at the entrance, fingers clutching her cloak as if she were bracing herself against the dark.
“You are shaking,” Edmund said softly.
“I am well enough,” she replied at once, and if her voice had been firmer, he might have believed her.
