“Keep quiet,” Chambers whispered in a strangled voice as her eyelids flew open. The knife poked into her throat and she felt something warm and wet running down neck.
“Albion? Are you in there? Just looking for my wife.”
Help me, Phineas. Help me, help me.
“And Miss Lavinia, too, of course.”
Hearing her name, Lavinia raised her head and let out a single bark. Chambers’ other hand clamped down on Caroline’s shoulder.
“La? Are you in there?”
The knob rattled.
“Lavinia?”
Her dog barked twice more. A thud against the door with the rattle of the knob. Phineas was trying to use his shoulder to get the door open.
Please, please, please. But the door didn’t open.
Steps going away. He was leaving, he was going elsewhere, he was abandoning his silent wife and her barking dog.
Then some sounds Caroline couldn’t understand. A quicktap-tap-tapgetting louder and a crash and the door burst open and her husband was in the room.
Phineas saw his wife. In the first fraction of a second, he could only see Caro’s face. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale.
Redness at her neck.Caro doesn’t wear redwas his first foolish thought
Then.
Blood.
Knife.
Albion.
He didn’t think. There was no time to think. And thinking was not what he did best.
He came across the desk, using one arm to push Albion’s hand away from Caro’s neck and the other arm to pull Caro out of the chair and to his chest.
Lavinia had been barking ever since he came into the room, but now she was growling. And Albion was screaming, staggering back, his ankle in Lavinia’s mouth.
Phineas pulled Caro all the way over the desk and got her behind him and was backing them toward the door.
“La, he’ll hurt La.” His wife’s whisper in his ear.
A moment of relief that his wife could speak. But, yes, Albion still had the knife in his hand and in the next few seconds he would realize and start slashing at the dog.
“Call her,” Phineas said.
“C-c-come.” A whisper. It was too quiet.
“Louder, Caro.”
“Come! La!”
Lavinia appeared around the corner of the desk, loping toward them, and Albion fell behind the desk and couldn’t be seen.
Phineas got his wife and her dog out into the passageway. He was trying to look at the wound on his wife’s neck and his wife was trying to kiss him and the dog was whimpering and rubbing up against both of their legs.
