“Lady Bredlebane! Lady Bredlebane!”
They stilled at the sound of Mandal’s shaky voice and looked at the house where the butler stood at the open doors.
“Mandal? Is Charlie safe?”
A beaten Charlie stumbled into the doorway behind Mandal, and a sob tore through her chest.
“He’s alive,” Sébastien said.
“He’s alive,” she repeated, crying as she began walking back toward the house with three precious gifts wrapped in her arms.
“The garden door is open,” Edeen said.
Edeen’s words, spoken with a cold, unflappable honesty, were like a knife to his chest flaying his flesh from his body piece by piece. That one open door exposed his heart to the brutal truth—he may have lost her once more.
Robbi leaned across Edeen’s lap, craning her neck to see the view outside her sister’s side of the carriage.
They had planned to enter from the servants’ entrance, but seeing the open garden door, it seemed they should have stormed the front door.
“That’s one of garden doors off the drawing room. Look, Charlotte’s on the fence,” Robbi said, pointing at the parrot.
Simon pounded on the roof for the driver to stop. He turned to Payne. “We’ll get out here and approach the house on foot. We need to stick to the plan and use the servants’ entrance.”
“Give me a gun,” Edeen demanded.
“Do you know how to use one?”
“Of course I do.”
He looked to Robbi for confirmation, but she only winced.
“Give her a gun, Payne, and let’s go.”
Payne handed Edeen a pistol and said, “Don’t point it at anything but the center of a man’s chest.”
Simon was the first one through the servants’ door, with Payne following the girls as they ran. He stopped at the entrance, where a dead silence filled the air, as the candles in the sconces flickered in the hallway to the kitchen. Payne stood at his back with Robbi and Edeen behind him. Each had a pistol in hand.
Cautiously, he made his way past the kitchens where the fire in the hearth burned low. They reached the doorway to the foyer, and Payne put a steadying hand on his shoulder. They listened together but heard nothing on the other side.
Simon slowly pushed the door open to a ransacked foyer. Art littered the floor along with shattered vases, spilt flowers, and broken furniture.
“Caillen! Sébastien! Millie and Lillie!” He yelled as he ran for the staircase.
The sound of the baby crying was the first human noise he recognized, and he chased it. Taking two steps at a time, his leg screamed at him to slow down. He pulled himself up with the railing and ran until he reached the third floor. He sprinted for the nursery door and paused to listen for occupants. All he could hear was the wail of the babe inside.
He breached the door with the force of a bull…and froze. His chest heaved with each breath he took. Caillen, Sébastien, Lillie, and Millie all sat on the floor of the nursery, Caillen in the center, bouncing a screaming Dorian on her lap. He immediately swung his pistol behind his back to hide it.
They all looked up as if the noise he had created was nothing more than a scratch at the door. They appeared not to notice the splintered wood or the slightly off cue door. They smiled at him and it eased some of the panic he felt when he saw the bandage around Caillen’s head.
He was home. His wild, uproarious, raucous and loving home, where one and all were attempting to calm the loudest one among them.
A man had never been so lucky in his life.
Robbi skidded to a halt next to him, and he batted her pistol behind her back.
“Caillen looks happy, if a little worse for wear. But you should see the other blokes.”
“I’ll tear them limb from limb,” he said under his breath as he smiled at his family.
