The carriage took a wider street, the moment too smooth, too confident, as if the man on the box had memorized London the way Eleanor memorized books.
“The route is wrong,” Graham said, voice low.
He leaned closer to Eleanor, keeping his voice even as the carriage rattled. “Do you recognize these streets?”
“No,” she said, equally quiet. “Mordaunt’s footman said it was the only carriage left not hired away for the opera.”
Graham’s jaw tightened.
The carriage jolted over a rut. Something beneath them answered with a stutter that did not belong to weather or chance. He felt it through the seat. A fatigued spring, iron loosened, wood shaved.
It was not an accident, but a timed failure.
Graham reached for Eleanor’s wrist. His fingers closed around warm skin and bone, too firm to be gentle, too careful to be cruel. “Brace yourself,” he said. “Hold the seat. Do not move until I tell you.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue, but the look he gave her closed it. She shifted, obeying with visible reluctance.
His hand slid into his coat, finding the knife stitched into the lining. The blade would not save them from a collapsing wheel, but the familiar weight steadied his mind.
Ahead, an oil lamp burned at the intersection.
“Now,” Graham murmured.
The carriage had barely entered the crossing when the wheel went.
Wood shrieked. Iron screamed. The compartment lurched and slammed sideways into the curb hard enough to throw Eleanor against him.
Graham caught her and pulled her down, shielding her with his body as the window burst and glass cut through the air.
For one breathless moment there was only impact and rain and the driver’s startled shout. Then a shadow moved past the broken frame—swift, purposeful—too quick to be a gawking bystander.
Graham’s instincts snapped taut.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
He kicked the damaged door with his boot, forcing it outward until the hinges protested. Cold air rushed in.
“On three,” he said. “One—two—three.”
He hauled Eleanor out into the street and dragged her into the shallow shelter of a closed shopfront. He pressed her into the brick alcove and angled himself between her and the road.
A second carriage rolled into view at the far end of the block.
Unlit. Silent.
It paused long enough to assess the wreck and the scattered debris.
Then its door opened, and a man stepped out into the rain, his outline clean and deliberate, as if the night were his drawing room. He surveyed the scene and climbed back inside.
The carriage moved on.
Eleanor’s breath hitched as she tried to peer around him.
“No,” Graham said, catching her shoulder. “You do not look. You listen.”
She swallowed hard and nodded once.
A thin warmth touched his palm.
