“I’ll need you to untie my hands so I can use my cane,” said Alison.
“Ye gods, I’ll do it.” Lady Kirkwall was still standing beside the chair. Leaning down, she worked the knots free, allowing the rope to drop to the stone flaggings, and helped the dowager stand. But rather than step away, she fixed her brother with an implacable stare.
“Enough, Fenwick.” As the whisper slipped from her lips, she tried to seize the hand holding the knife.
Taviot recoiled and managed to push her away. But the move had him off-balance for an instant—
A flash of steel!Charlotte eyes widened in shock as Alison twisted the knob of her cane and drew a thin steel sword from its ebony sheath.
Merciful heavens!
But before she could react, the dowager deftly executed a fencing two-step and evaded Taviot’s attempt to grab her.
Panicked, he lunged again.
Scooting back, Alison calmly stabbed him in the thigh and watched him fall to the floor, howling like a stuck pig.
For the next few moments, everything was a blur. Charlotte rushed to pull Alison to safety, Wrexford hurried to kick the fallen knife away from Taviot’s grasp, while Sheffield and McClellan raised their weapons to cover Lady Kirkwall and Maitland.
“Do something, Elizabeth!” screamed Taviot.
Lady Kirkwall slowly shook her head, her expression one of grim resolve. “No. It’s time to put an end to this madness, Fenwick. No more lies and prevarications. I intend to confess everything about what you and I have done.”
She closed her eyes for an instant. “I have sold my soul to protect the family name from scandal, only to find that the road to perdition is indeed a slippery slope. We have committed great evil and must pay—”
A gunshot rent the air, followed a fraction later by a second one.
Lady Kirkwall crumpled to the floor, shot by her brother. “Damnation—I saw Taviot draw his pocket pistol, but he fired at his sister before I could react,” exclaimed McClellan, as she tossed aside her smoking weapon—she had, Charlotte noted, been the one to shoot Taviot—and rushed to tend to Lady Kirkwall.
Charlotte kept tight hold of Alison. “Is she . . .”
“She’s taken a bullet to the belly,” answered McClellan. She tugged off her shawl and pillowed it under the wounded lady’s head. “We need to send for Baz—immediately!”
“I’ll go,” volunteered von Münch. He and the Weasels had rushed into the room at the sound of gunfire. “The sailors will be more likely to take orders from me than from your urchins.”
“Make haste,” replied Wrexford, crouching down beside Taviot. “Kit, you had better go with him and explain to the officer in charge of the King’s Dockyard what is going on.”
As Sheffield and the librarian hurried away to recross the river, Charlotte settled Alison back in the chair, and the Weasels rushed to form a protective ring around her.
With myriad questions colliding inside her head, Charlotte hardly knew where to begin.First things first, she decided. “Is the miscreant dead?” she asked, keeping her voice pitched too low for Maitland to hear her.
“Yes.” Wrexford looked up from examining Taviot’s body. “The bullet pierced his sin-black heart.”
“One fewer devil treading this earth,” murmured Charlotte. A harsh sentiment perhaps, but she couldn’t muster a grain of sympathy for such a thoroughly despicable man.
Wrexford rose. “But an even worse one is still at large.”
Charlotte knew what he was going to say. And though it frightened her to death, she could not—she would not try to—stop him.
“And you’re going after him.”
“I am,” he replied.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
He rose and went to take hold of Maitland. “For now, I feel beholden to lock you in the storage alcove until the authorities arrive.”
The inventor uttered no protest as Wrexford marched him to the far end of the room, where a door with a sturdy lock stood half-open. Head bowed, Maitland entered the darkened space. The earl turned the key and tossed it to Charlotte.
