“What about when you move? What if he forces you to move?”
“Then I drop my fan and you come running.”
“That might be too late!”
The room fell silent. Morgan stood there, breathing hard.
“Your Grace,” Hartley said carefully. “Perhaps we should take a break. Reconvene tomorrow when?—”
“Fine.” Morgan turned away. “Tomorrow.”
After Hartley left, Eliza approached Morgan where he stood at the window, staring at nothing.
“You’re going to make yourself ill,” she said. “We just went through this last night… or was it this morning?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not eating. You’re barely sleeping. You snapped at Jenkins twice today and made one of the maids cry because she took too long bringing your tea.”
Morgan winced. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t mean it. You’re terrified. So am I.” She moved to stand beside him. “But this constant anxiety isn’t helping. It’s only making things worse.”
“How can I not be anxious?”
“I need you sharp, Morgan,” she said, with all the confidence of a general. “Focused. Not frantic. If something does go wrong, I need you thinking clearly, not paralyzed by fear. Do you understand?”
He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be calm when everything in me is screaming to lock you away somewhere safe.”
“By trusting me. By trusting the plan. By remembering that I survived Whitfield before, and I’ll survive him again. I am not a woman to be messed with.”
Later that night, after a small supper, Morgan sat across from Ambrose at White’s, a glass of whiskey untouched before him.
“You look terrible,” Ambrose observed.
“Thank you. Helpful.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t remember.”
Ambrose leaned forward. “Morgan, you need to get yourself together. Whatever this plan is, that you can’t tell me about?—”
“It’s dangerous. It’s risky. And I hate every aspect of it.” Morgan finally took a drink of his whiskey. “But it’s the only way to get Whitfield.”
“And Eliza’s agreed to this?”
“It was her idea.”
Ambrose was quiet for a moment. “She’s braver than both of us combined, you know that?”
“I know.” Morgan’s hands tightened on his glass. “Which is why I’m terrified. Because she doesn’t have the sense to be as afraid as she should be.”
“Or she has more faith in you than you have in yourself.”
Morgan looked up sharply.
“She trusts you to protect her,” Ambrose said. “That’s why she can be brave. Because she knows you’ll be there if things go wrong.”
