“Yes.” She met his gaze without flinching.
He released her hands. Turned on his heel and crossed to his desk in three long strides. She watched him pull out paper and ink, his pen moving across the page in quick, decisive strokes that spoke of a mind already working three moves ahead.
“What are you doing?” She followed him, her skirts brushing the carpet.
“Writing to Magistrate Harding.” He did not look up, the nib scratching against the parchment. “Reporting an assault on my betrothed and a threat of blackmail against a peer’s household. I am also sending men to search every inn and boarding house within twenty miles.”
He sealed the letter with a firm press of his signet ring, the Westmore crest biting into crimson wax. He rang for Graves, handed over the letter with clipped instructions, and turned back to her with a look that brooked no argument.
“We need to think about the children.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, grounding her. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere Gabriel does not know about.”
And then it hit her.
The children. The lessons with the vicar’s wife would have ended an hour ago. They would have walked back to the bakery the way they always did — down the lane, past the churchyard, through the front door with its jingling bell. They would have found Daphne behind the counter and Martha upstairs.
Suddenly, Nell had a presentiment that something was wrong. Something dreadful.
“Dominic.” She gripped his wrist, her nails biting through his shirtsleeve. “The children are due back at the shop. Daphne and Martha are alone.”
The colour left his face. He did not waste a single breath on words. He crossed to the desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out a pistol — checked the flint, the powder, the ball — and shoved it into his belt. A second pistol followed from the cabinet near the door.
“Graves!” The shout carried down the corridor like a cannon report. “My horse. Now. Both horses.”
They were mounted and riding before the last of the daylight bled from the sky. Dominic pushed his horse hard, leaning low over the animal’s neck, and Nell kept pace beside him with her skirts bunched in one fist and the reins in the other. The frost-hardened lane rang beneath the hooves. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to say that the horses were not already saying with every stride.
Twenty-Seven
The village came into view as the first lamps were being lit in cottage windows — small, warm squares of gold against the gathering dark. Ordinary people living ordinary evenings. None of them knew what was coming.
Nell saw it before they reached the door. The dread in her bones had not been misplaced.
The bakery sign hung crooked above the entrance, knocked sideways by some violence she did not want to name. The front door stood ajar, and a wedge of lamplight spilled across the cobblestones. A bread knife lay on the ground near the step, its blade catching the last of the dusk.
She was off her horse before the animal had fully stopped, her boots hitting the cobblestones at a run. Dominic caught her arm.
“Behind me.” Dominic ordered. He drew two pistols and went through the door first.
The shop was wrecked. Flour covered the floor in a fine white drift, disturbed by boot prints — large ones, a man’s — that tracked from the front room into the kitchen and out through the back. A stool lay on its side near the counter. The display case was cracked, a spider’s web of broken glass glittering in thelamplight. One of the bread racks had been shoved sideways, its contents scattered across the floor like fallen soldiers.
“Daphne!” Nell pushed past Dominic the moment she saw there was no one standing in the room. “Martha!”
A sound came from behind the counter. Low, ragged, thick with pain.
Nell rounded the corner and found them. Daphne was propped against the wall with her legs stretched out in front of her, one hand pressed to her ribs and the other cradling her wrist at an angle that made Nell’s stomach lurch. Blood matted the hair above her left ear, and her face was the colour of tallow. Martha knelt beside her, pressing a cloth to the wound. The girl’s lip was split and swelling, her dress torn at the shoulder, and her hands shook so badly the cloth kept slipping.
“The children.” Nell dropped to her knees, her fingers framing Daphne’s bruised face. “Where are the children?”
“He took them.” Daphne’s voice came out scraped thin. She blinked, her eyes struggling to focus. “He came through the back, maybe ten minutes after you left. The children had just come in from the vicar’s. Oliver was still hanging his coat.”
“Tell me what happened.” Dominic crouched beside them, one pistol resting across his thigh. His face was stone, but a vein beat hard at his temple.
“He had a pistol.” Daphne swallowed, wincing at the effort. “Martha heard the kitchen door and went to check. He backhanded her into the wall before she could scream.” She glanced at the girl, something fierce and protective cutting through the pain. “I grabbed the bread knife from under the counter. Went at him. But he was fast — caught my wrist, twisted it.” She held up her damaged arm, her fingers dangling at a wrong angle. “Snapped it like kindling. Then threw me into the shelves.”
“Oliver.” Nell could barely form the word.
“Brave, stupid boy.” Daphne’s tears cut tracks through the flour dust on her face. “He grabbed the poker from the kitchen hearth and swung at Gabriel’s knees. Caught him, too — Gabriel stumbled, cursing. But then he wrenched the poker away and shoved Oliver down. Put a boot on his chest. Lily was screaming. He bound Oliver’s wrists with a curtain cord and dragged them both out through the back.”
“Where?” Dominic’s hand tightened on the pistol.
