“H-i-i-i-i-i-i-g-g-g-g-g-i-i-i-in-s!!!!!!”
He made it to the staircase before he heard the running feet.
“Milord!” Higgins appeared on the run from the west wing. “You’ll want to come with me, Milord.”
“Where?” he demanded, already moving. “And why? Do you know where Miss Chambers is?”
“I do.”
Higgins turned back the way he came, towards Flint’s own room. He didn’t stop there, though. Flint found himself standing in front of Aunt Winnie’s suite as Higgins tapped on the door.
“Higgins, what in the name of...”
But Higgins opened the door, and Flint found himself stumbling to a halt, the little box and chain in his hand falling to the floor.
They were all arrayed across Winnie’s rickety, camphor-scented furniture. Aunt Winnie and Miss Chase shared the pea-green brocade settee, pale, wide-eyed, Miss Chase holding Winnie’s hand. A preternaturally calm Felicity was perched on an old-gold Louis Quince chair facing Francis Reed on the other Louis Quince, a gun in his hand, as if that made any sense.
At least the gun wasn’t pointed at Felicity. It was pointed at Reed’s own head.
“Hello, Flint,” Felicity said with a quiet smile. “Won’t you join us? I think Mr. Reed needs to speak with you.”
“You’re all right?” he asked her, stepping inside.
“I am fine.” She didn’t take her gaze from Reed, but she smiled. Flint wondered if anybody else could see how thin that smile was.
Flint wanted to howl. He wanted to dive into Reed and knock him to the ground. He stood perfectly still.
“Francis?”
Reed turned to him, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Bracken.”
Flint smiled back. “I know, Francis. But what you’re about to do won’t help anyone. Certainly not Melinda or John.”
If it was possible, Reed looked even more broken. “It’s better that she never knew.”
“They’ve blackmailed you, then?”
There was a very small nod, Reed’s eyes closing.
“Attend me, Francis,” Flint snapped, unwilling to lose this man.
At least Reed opened his eyes again, his expression a rueful acknowledgement of the automatic response to a superior officer’s command.
“I’ve been trying to tell Mr. Reed that you would find a way to protect him,” Felicity said. “You were, after all, his commanding officer and are the son of a duke. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?”
She smiled at the rumpled, weary, trembling Reed as if they were old friends.
Reed did not smile back.
“Of course, I will,” Flint promised. “It’s the least I can do when Francis restrains himself from forever traumatizing my aunt by blowing his brains all over her salon wall.”
Felicity glared. Aunt Winnie gasped. Thank God, Francis didn’t.
“Please, Francis,” Flint said, his heart stuttering in his chest. “This isn’t the way. You know it. If you do this, we’ll never have a chance to find a way to save you. Or, for that matter, to save the king and regent. You know how deadly serious the Lions are. So serious they would ruin far more lives than yours. They would ruin Melinda’s. She would suffer for your secret.”
Still, Francis didn’t move.
And then, Felicity did, making Flint’s heart stumble.
