The knowledge did nothing to diminish the feeling. Had it been only one-sided?
If it had been wholly genuine, she might have known how to guard against it; if wholly false, she might have dismissed it as such. This, however—this mingling of necessity and sincerity, of calculated action and unguarded response—left her without defence, uncertain of what to believe and more uncertain still of what to desire.
Without conscious thought, her hands pressed together, as though physical pressure might contain the turmoil within.
She was not a girl to be carried away by the first attentions of a gentleman, however compelling. She had seen enough of the world to understand the difference between appearance and reality, between politeness and feeling.
Well, she would not long have to pretend a courtship if tonight produced a resolution.
Supposing he had been hurt? Supposing the plan had failed—or the conspirators had not been taken, but had struck first?
Then she saw the scene, vividly and against her will: a crowded room, confusion, violence, the sharp report of pistols, the clash of steel. She saw Arch among them—not as a distant observer, but engaged, exposed, and vulnerable in a way she had not allowed herself to consider before. He was not invulnerable. He was a man, and however capable, was subject to the same brutal uncertainties as any other. Supposing he were killed?
The possibility struck her with such force that she rose abruptly, crossing the room as if movement alone might drive it away. She could not remain seated beneath that thought. It seemed to alter the very air she breathed, to render everything unstable.
She had no claim upon him. The truth came at once, clear and undeniable.
Yet the absence she imagined—the sudden removal of his presence from the world—felt like a loss she could not endure. She closed her eyes. No, she would not think thus.
Her thoughts drifted, unwillingly, to Thomas. Supposing he had been taken? If he stood under guard even now, his confidence stripped away, his future reduced to the narrow confines of accusation and judgement—to treason?
The word no longer held the distant abstraction it once had. It carried weight now—real, immediate, and terrible. She understood, perhaps for the first time, the full consequence of what he had attempted. This was no mere scheme of influence or profit. This was an act that, if successful, would have plunged the nation into chaos—and if a failure, would bring upon its participants the severest punishment the law could inflict.
Francesca shuddered. She had misjudged him. That truth settled slowly and inexorably. Never had she thought Thomas to be a man who would align himself with violence of suchscale, who would speak so fervently of remaking England that he would countenance treason as a means to that end.
In spite of this, she did not understand why he had brought her here.
A knock at the door broke through her thoughts. With a start, she turned at once.
Nelly looked at her. “Miss?—?”
“Wait.”
They listened. The knock came again. Francesca crossed the room and opened the door.
A man stood there, his bearing unmistakably military despite the plainness of his dress. “Miss Vale?”
“Yes.”
“Sergeant Lucas Webb.”
Relief flooded her, though she did not permit it to show fully.
“A note for you,” he said.
She took it, breaking the seal with hands she could not entirely still.
The message was brief, and yet it was enough.
He had not forgotten her. The tension she had held within her loosened, though it did not disappear.
“You must come in,” she said.
“I am not supposed to?—”
“Well, everyone is in London now,” she replied, with a firmness that surprised even herself. “I think we have time.”
He hesitated, then stepped inside.
