Duncan rushed away from the windows. “They’re here...”
Moira crossed to her father. “The Brotherhood.”
The front door—left unlocked as it had been under guard—crashed open. Duncan pictured the assailants dragging the dead man inside with them. It would not take them long to search the house.
Sir Kelly must have realized the same and slipped a pistol from a hidden holster. It seemed the constable intended his role this night to be more than ceremonial. “I’ll hold the bastards off. Moira, take the others out the back.”
Duncan frowned.Out the back?Behind the row of Tudor houses was only a ten-foot-thick wall.
Moira looked similarly dismayed, but for a more personal reason. “Father—”
“This is my duty. To the Tower, to theGardiens. Now go.”
The last words cracked with command, but grief deepened the lines on the old man’s face. He pushed Moira away, which clearly took all his strength.
Moira stumbled to obey, turning to the table. Sharyn had already grabbed the book and struggled to shove it into her crossbody bag.
“This way!” Moira called to them all, her voice tight.
They hurried toward the door. The hum of a motor trailed after them as Sir Kelly followed in his wheelchair. Out in the hall, Moira led them away from the main stairs.
Duncan paused at the threshold and turned to Sir Kelly. “I can stay. Help hold them off.”
Kelly drew his chair to a stop, half-sheltered by the stout door. He lifted his pistol toward the stairs. “Son, I have the only weapon. You’ll do more good getting everyone away.”
Duncan hesitated, hating to abandon the old man.
Boots pounded up the steps.
Kelly barked at him. “Go! Help the others!”
Duncan turned and spotted Tag hobbling to keep up, reminded that the old man was not the only one compromised. Past Tag, Moira vanished into another room off the hall, drawing the others with her.
Duncan bit down a curse and rushed after them.
He reached Tag and scooped the man under his shoulder. Together, they followed the others into the next chamber. A gunshot exploded behind them. A glance back showed a shadow ducking out of view into the stairwell.
Duncan lunged with Tag out of the hallway and into a small bedroom. An old stone fireplace filled one wall, large enough that two chairs stood inside it. Despite the age of the space, it had none of the formality of the rest of the King’s House. A tangle of blankets and sheets covered a four-poster bed. The bureau held a densely packed assembly of cosmetics and brushes of various sizes. A wardrobe stood open, overstuffed with sweaters, blouses, and jeans.
Moira’s bedroom, Duncan realized, which only stoked his panicked confusion.
Tag voiced it aloud. “We’re trapped in here.”
A flurry of gunfire erupted out in the hall, a mix of deafening blasts and muffled pops.
“Hurry!” Moira rushed toward a closed door at the back, either a closet or private bathroom. She yanked it open and ducked through.
The others piled after her—and into the past.
Beyond the doorway, the plaster walls turned to rough stone. They all rushed into a vaulted space, crannied with crumbling cubbies and cut through by cross-shaped window slits. Shocked by the sudden change of venue, Duncan stumbled on the roughhewn floor. Archie caught and steadied him, taking Tag from him.
Archie gawked around. “We’re in the Bell Tower.”
Duncan pictured the fortification that rose behind the corner of the row of Tudor homes. He had no idea the King’s House had its own entry into this twelfth-century tower. On the walls were hung the images of its former prisoners: Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth I, Sir Thomas More. In more contemporary times, the Nazi Rudolf Hess had also been held here. Somewhere off this chamber, Duncan had read a flush toilet had been installed—not for Hess, but for another Nazi whom the Brits had hoped to imprison here: Adolf Hitler.
“Keep moving,” Moira urged them.
She led them down a short tunnel, past a stairwell that led up to the belfry and down to a possible exit. Duncan glanced at the dark spiraling steps. They were clearly not leaving that way.
