Michael stared at her with cool detachment in his half-hooded gaze. “You’re the one who killed that earl.”
No. Please. He didn’t want her to be guilty of murder. She would hang.
“No, Michael,” she insisted. “The earl pulled down my mask and saw who I was. Sebastian killed him to protect me.”
“Oh, well that makes all the difference, Charlotte,” he told her harshly, disgusted by them all. “A man lost his life to keep you from jail, where you belong.”
“Aye. Aye, you’re correct,” she admitted with tears forming in her eyes and falling over the rims. “I told you, did I not, that you would end up caging me. Oh, I wanted to tell you the truth, Michael. I—”
“What is this?” Preston interrupted with a biting edge in his voice.
Michael noticed the dark red stain flowing down his hose. He was losing blood. A lot of it.
“You speak like this stranger means something to you.” In his hand, the pistol shook. His face was pale. He was dying.
Michael thought the viscount might not have the strength to pull back on the trigger, but he wasn’t about to test the theory.
“Preston, I have loved you for so long I don’t know what it’s like not to love you. I will remember the good parts of you.”
She was trying to comfort him. She knew he was dying. He’d been her friend. Michael expected nothing less from her.
Preston nodded and tears fell from his eyes. His knees gave out. He fell on them.
Rushing to him, Charlotte took him in her arms. Almost instantly, he pulled the trigger. The pistol was fired, and Charlotte collapsed to the ground.
No! She wasn’t just shot! No! Michael couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t lose her! NO!
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Michael?” she managedlightly. Michael held her close so she didn’t have to make much noise. “’Tis my side. See? A flesh wound.”
He hovered above her, his sapphire eyes examining her wound. He looked mildly relieved. “What kind of doctors do they have here?”
Mr. Simeon appeared beside them and had a good look at her wound. “Not anywhere near as skilled as when you come from, but she will make a full recovery.”
Michael was so relieved he thought he might cry. He looked around quickly. It wouldn’t do for the men to see the captain of the police cry. Then again, maybenotcrying when his friends were killed was the reason he used to wake up every morning and put the barrel of a gun into his mouth.
She’d changed everything. She brought happiness back into his life. She made him feel human again, alive.
“I’m going to have you taken care of, my love,” he promised her, then looked at Simeon, realizing that the time traveler had appeared in front of William. He didn’t care. “Go to the duke, tell him what happened and where we are—”
Another voice came up from behind him. “What are you going to do against all the men coming upon the keep in the meantime?”
Surrey. For some crazy reason, Michael smiled. It was help. That’s why when the baron asked for Michael’s coat, he gave it, not realizing what he meant to do.
Surrey put on the coat and pulled the hood up over his head. Then he heaved Preston’s body off the ground, walked to the edge of the wall, and hurled him over the side.
In Michael’s arms, Charlotte cried out and buried her face into his chest.
“That should take care of that,” Surrey said, stepping away from the wall while Michael comforted his wife. “If you could kill the leader of the Horsemen, and the overseer of all the crime in southern London,” the baron continued, “you can do just about anything.”
“But it was you who killed him, not me,” Michael corrected.
“They don’t know that. They just sawyouthrow him over.”
Michael shook his head. “I won’t take credit for stabbing a man in the back.”
“Even if it was to save your wife?” Surrey asked with a challenging smile that went warm after a moment. “Tell me why I like you even after you punched my friend, Colin, in the jaw?”
