Strong hands closed around her arm instead.
“Do not struggle,” Covington said, his voice low again, though the urgency had not left it.
Arabella twisted against the grip, shock cutting through the lingering weakness from earlier. “Release me,” she demanded, though the words lacked the force she intended.
“There is no time,” he replied.
Her heart began to race, the situation settling into something she could no longer dismiss as a misunderstanding. “What are you doing?”
“Removing you from a situation you do not yet comprehend,” he said, his grip tightening as he pulled her back.
Arabella’s gaze darted once more across the promenade. The distance between them and the nearest walkers felt suddenly, disastrously far.
“Let me go,” she said again, more urgently now, though her strength did not match the demand.
Covington did not release her.
Behind them, Eleanor lay unmoving where she had fallen.
And before Arabella could gather herself to resist again, the world shifted abruptly as he forced her away from the path and toward the waiting carriage just beyond the line of tree.
CHAPTER 27
“They were not here.”
James did not raise his voice when he said it, but the words landed with a finality that allowed no room for misunderstanding. He stood near the center of the drawing room, one hand braced against the back of a chair as though he had only just come to his feet, his attention fixed squarely on Maxwell.
Maxwell did not move further into the room.
“Not here?” he repeated, quieter than he intended.
“They went out earlier,” James said, his expression sharpening as he took in Maxwell more fully. “A promenade, I believe. They were not expected to be long.”
Something in Maxwell’s posture shifted because James straightened at once, his focus narrowing. “What has happened here?”
Maxwell did not soften it.
“There was an intruder at my house this morning,” he said. “A boy. He had been paid to take my wife from the house.”
James went completely still.
“For what purpose?” he asked, though the answer had already begun to show in his expression.
“He did not know,” Maxwell replied. “Only that she was to be removed without notice.”
James’s teeth clenched. “And you came here because you believed?—”
“That she would be safer,” Maxwell finished. “Or that she had already arrived.”
The silence that followed was brief. It was enough.
James turned immediately, already reaching for his coat. “Then we are wasting time.”
They did not wait for a carriage.
The distance was not great, and urgency stripped them of patience. By the time they reached the street, James had fallen into step beside Maxwell without further question, his gaze sharp, his attention fixed ahead.
“You are certain of what he told you?” he asked after a moment.
