“He came back,” he offered when the young woman seemed to struggle with the telling.
Fresh tears filling Melinda’s blackened eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “He snuck in and he found me. He…he…”
She ducked her head, and Adelaide caught her breath. “He did this to you?”
Melinda nodded slowly, and it was Toby who stepped forward. The young man was slender and wore spectacles and didn’t look like much at first glance, but now Graham recognized a deep protectiveness in his stare. And a deep love as his gaze fell on Melinda.
“He did that and more,” Toby snarled out, pain making his voice sharp. “When I came in he was—”
He cut himself off and turned away, his shoulders shaking with rage and heartbreak. Graham couldn’t help it—he reached out and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder as comfort.
“You couldn’t have known, Toby,” Melinda gasped out. “If you had you would have come sooner. You would have prevented—”
“But I didn’t, did I?” Toby asked, turning back.
Adelaide shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Melinda. I’m so sorry that it happened to you. But what happened next? Because the man was found floating in the river just beyond the theatre with a bullet between his eyes.”
A heavy silence hung in the room then, a silence that seemed to last forever. Finally, Toby lifted his chin and said, “Ishot him. I killed Sir Archibald. And I’m not bloody sorry about it.”
Chapter Eighteen
Adelaide rose to her feet slowly, staring from Toby to Melinda and to the twisted, horrified face of Graham. Pain and empathy flooded her, for what her friend had endured. For whatbothher friends had endured, for she could see that murdering a man, even if justified, weighed on the kind and gentle Toby.
“My God,” she whispered. “Oh Melinda, oh Toby. I’m so very sorry.”
“I’m not,” Toby repeated, just as strong as the first time he’d said it. “I’m only sorry I didn’t do it before he touched her.”
Melinda rose then and rushed to him, wrapping her arms around him as they trembled together. “It’s not your fault. It’s not.”
Adelaide’s eyes went wide as she realized she wasn’t seeing two friends who comforted each other. She was seeing two people who were in love and had gone through almost the worst thing imaginable. They leaned against each other, giving comfort and taking strength. She couldn’t help but look at Graham in that moment and wish she were so free as to do the same.
But they had not spoken of feelings. Or anything else to do with whatever their relationship had become in the past few weeks.
“We’ve been hiding here for two days,” Melinda explained as she broke away from Toby’s arms. “When the Home Office captain comes to question us, as he has a handful of times, the others put us where we can’t be found. But we both know it won’t last. They’ll figure out what happened eventually and then…then...” She bent her head and began to sob softly.
Toby lifted his chin. “I’ve told you, Melinda, I won’t let them know your part in hiding the body. I’ll happily be hanged or transported.”
Melinda glared at him. This was obviously an argument they’d had more than once. “As if I’d let you take the blame alone. We will go down together.”
Graham had been mostly silent since entering the room, allowing Adelaide to manage the exchange, but now he straightened his shoulders and his presence filled the room just as it always did when he chose to allow it.
“I will not let that happen,” he said. “I will put all my power behind stopping it.”
Toby and Melinda both stared at him, confusion and disbelief in their mutual stares. “Why would you do that?” Toby asked.
Graham hesitated and then said, “Because I understand the drive to protect a woman you…you…” His gaze flitted to Adelaide. “A woman you care about.”
Adelaide took in an unsteady breath. Care about? It wasn’t exactly a grand declaration of love, not that she had expected one. Caring for her was perhaps the best she would ever get. And yet it felt hollow.
“Besides,” he continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “I was asked to watch Sir Archibald months ago, for the very kind of bad acts that he perpetrated upon you, Miss Melinda. I was…I wasdistractedfrom that duty. If I had not been, perhaps I could have prevented this. Or if I hadn’t attacked him the night he moved on Ade—Lydiahe would not have returned and vented his rage on you. Whatever the answer, I see it as my duty to see that you don’t pay for a crime that was my fault.”
Melinda stared at him, then to Adelaide. “He would truly do this for us?”
Adelaide nodded, her gaze firmly on Graham. “He would, for he is the best of men.”
Graham paced the small room. “I’ll arrange for a carriage to pick you up and you’ll be taken to a small estate I own just outside London. It will be as good a place to hide as any while I contact a solicitor and we come up with the best plan of attack.”
“Could we be married at your estate?” Toby asked, his gaze flitting to Melinda.
