Earl Crush (Belvoir’s Library Trilogy #2)

Chapter 26

… she felt all over courage…

—from Lydia’s private copy of PERSUASION

“Wait,” Lydia said again. “A moment longer.”

Georgiana stood anxiously at the door by which Arthur had left a quarter of an hour ago. She wanted to be gone—to take the news of Lydia’s revelation to Selina and the Home Office.

But Lydia did not want her to go, not yet, not until she had something tangible to show the Home Office. Without Jasper, all they had were Lydia’s insights, and she feared that, once again, speculation would not be enough.

She knew she could put together something that would convince them. Between Selina’s notes and Davis’s papers, there had to be a way.

If only her cursed fingers would stop shaking so! She blew out a frustrated breath.

“I think this might work,” she said finally. She dipped her quill, making a quick annotation on one of Selina’s records and circling a parallel in Davis’s hand. “Take these and the drawing of St. Saviour’s that Iris excavated. And the parade route in the papers. I think it might be enough.”

Georgiana nodded and crossed the room to gather Lydia’s documents. As she did, she passed by the window that overlooked the back alley. She paused, arrested, her face turned to the glass.

Lydia could see Georgiana’s reflection in the pane, her expression frozen in shock and recognition.

“Lydia,” she said evenly, “there is someone in the alley.”

Lydia hurled herself across the room to peer out the window as well. Her heart leapt for a moment—perhaps it was Jasper, come with reinforcements from the Home Office—perhaps Arthur would not need to face Davis alone.

But it was not Jasper in the alley. It was a couple—a woman in a maroon walking dress and a portly man, balding under his beaver hat.

Claudine and Didier Thibodeaux.

A dozen thoughts crowded her mind, her emotions knotting, her breath catching in her chest.

If the Thibodeaux were here, that meant they were not with Arthur at St. Saviour’s. It meant, perhaps, that Arthur was safe—or at least, as safe as he might be.

But—the Thibodeaux were here? How had they known to come to Belvoir’s?

She wondered dizzily if perhaps they had been working with Jasper and not against him. Perhaps she had been wrong; perhaps they were not Bonapartists.

And then, from the window, she saw Didier Thibodeaux withdraw an iron bar from his coat and begin to prise open the back door. Within his jacket, she recognized the glittering metallic flash of a firearm.

No. They were not Jasper’s allies.

Her heart started to beat again, double time, crashing painfully against her rib cage.

“We have to leave,” Georgiana said, her voice still calm and even. “Right now. Down the stairs and out the front entrance—we’ll blend into the parade-goers outside. They’ll never see us.”

Yes. Georgiana was right. The streets were crowded with people, with horses and carts and pedestrians decked with flowers. If they ran now, the Thibodeaux would not find them.

But if they ran—if Belvoir’s was empty when the Thibodeaux made their way inside—what would the couple do next?

Her brain flicked through the possibilities like engravings in a book. The Thibodeaux—the empty office—St. Saviour’s and the tower. Arthur.

She moistened her lips and forced the words past the thickness in her throat. “You… you go.”

Georgiana turned sharply from the window, where they could see Didier Thibodeaux still striving at the door. “What do you mean?”

Lydia’s mouth felt dry, her fingers numb. “If no one’s here, they’ll realize something’s wrong.”

“Let them realize! We will not be here to face the consequences.”

“But where will they go from here?” She tried to swallow and could not quite manage it. “They might go to St. Saviour’s. They might find Arthur there. But if I remain here, I can keep them distracted. You and Selina can send reinforcements to capture them and—and Arthur will be safe.”

Even as she said the words, she could hear her plan for the mad impulse it was.

She could run with Georgiana. She ought to run. That was the safer choice by far.

But she could not do it. She had to try to protect Arthur—there was no possible course of action other than that. She would never run— never —if running meant putting the man she loved at risk.

She had thought of herself for so many years as a wallflower—as someone who hid from the sight of others, who kept herself in shadow. And perhaps, in some ways, that was true. But that was not all she was.

She had stood beside her friends when scandal had broken over them. She had written her pamphlets despite the risk. She had, in her own quiet way, worked to make the world a better place.

She knew when the risk was worth the potential for disaster. And protecting Arthur was worth any sacrifice she might make.

She could stop the Thibodeaux. She knew she could.

“Lydia.” Georgiana’s voice cracked on the word, and Lydia met her friend’s agonized gaze. “I cannot abandon you.”

“You must.” Didier had pried open the back door partway; there was a splintering sound audible even through the window. “Selina’s footman is downstairs—he’ll try to stop the Thibodeaux if he realizes what’s happening. Go downstairs, take the footman, and run to the Stanhope residence. Tell Selina to send the Home Office. I’ll keep the Thibodeaux busy here.”

“I can’t leave you behind!”

Lydia reached out and gripped Georgiana’s hand. “I need you to do this. Until the Thibodeaux are caught and the rifle scope destroyed, we will never be safe. We cannot let them go free if we have the chance to stop them. And I—I cannot let them go after Arthur, not if there’s something I can do to prevent it.”

“Curse you,” Georgiana said. But she moved to the door, her skirts in her hands and her face ferocious. “I’ll be back with the cavalry. Don’t forget about the bloody pistol—and don’t you dare let them shoot first, or I’ll come back and kill you myself.”

“I promise.” Her voice trembled, just a little, and she could not bring herself to mind.

Georgiana gave her one last blistering look, and then she ducked out the door, pulling it closed behind her without a word.

Lydia took a single shaky breath. Then she made herself walk briskly over to Selina’s desk and sit down behind it. The front of the enormous desk went all the way to the ground. They would not be able to see the lower half of her body—not unless they dragged her out of her chair.

She reached out and picked up the pearl-handled pistol from where Arthur had left it. It felt small and solid in her clammy palms. Her fingers slipped across the metal bore as she slid it into her lap and tucked it into the folds of her skirts.

She was still sitting there, her hands locked on the gun and the gun wrapped in her dress, when the door burst open.

The horse’s flanks bunched beneath Arthur’s thighs and he tried—it took powerful physical effort—not to push the beast into a gallop.

Jasper had commandeered the mounts of three uniformed men straight out of the parade with a low-voiced whisper and a few choice names. The young soldier on the bay had practically flung his reins at Jasper in a burst of fervent subordination.

Once they were mounted, Jasper had led them alongside the parade route, picking their way through the maze of pedestrians and bellowing orders when they seemed to be slowing. Arthur wanted to give his horse its head, but there was no use—they were going as fast as they could. It felt like a crawl.

Lydia. All he could think about was Lydia, and the fact that the Thibodeaux knew where she was.

“How do they know?” he asked Davis at his side. His voice was tight and rough, and his hands felt clumsy on the reins. “How do they know about your signal?”

Davis hesitated a moment before replying. His horse was a large bony chestnut, tall enough that Davis’s head was level with Arthur’s own. “’Twas in a letter that I passed along to the Thibodeaux from Hope-Wallace. I could tell they were growing suspicious—I had to prove my loyalty somehow. But I cleared it with Hope-Wallace before I gave it to them, damn it!”

“And none of you thought to inform the duchess?”

Davis swore blisteringly. “No one from the Home Office was meant to use the library for communication again. There’s no reason that book should have been in the window.”

“Well it was. And now Lydia is there, bloody defenseless , because the pair of you had to keep your goddamned secrets!”

There was a long pause before Davis spoke again, and when he did, his voice was raw. “Was she well? The last time you saw her. Was she all right?”

Somehow Arthur felt he had not stopped seeing her. Her face was always before him—pale and tense as she told him to hurry, soft with sleep as she lay on the cot. Flushed and smiling at him in endless moments, the light playing in the curves and dips of her mouth, lingering on the shape of her happiness.

“Aye,” he said, “she was all right.”

“She knows, then? That—that I was the one who wrote the letters?”

“Aye.” The horse wanted to run; Arthur could feel it. He let up on the reins and squeezed his knees, just enough for his gray to push its nose ahead of Davis’s mount and press closer to Jasper’s.

They were over the bridge; the roads were clearing.

They could get to her in time. He would make it so.

“I’m sorry,” Davis said.

Arthur turned his head to look at his brother: dusty and familiar and somehow edged with despair, his body a line of tension atop the chestnut horse. Davis was not looking at him, only staring straight ahead.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry I stole the scope. I never meant for you to be involved. I never meant any of this.”

“I don’t care about the goddamned scope,” he said, and found to his surprise that he meant it. He understood why Davis had done it. He knew Davis’s intentions had been good. “But I don’t understand why you could not tell me the truth. If I’d known—”

“You would not have believed me.”

“Of course I would have—”

Davis turned sharply, his eyes bright and vehement. “Would you? If I’d told you I needed the scope but I could not tell you why? If I said I’d been lying to you—to everyone—for nigh on half a decade but I could not explain any of it?”

Arthur’s chest felt tight, and he had to look away as Jasper ahead of them angled his horse down an alley and picked up speed.

Would he have trusted Davis? He would have wanted to. But his beliefs about Davis had been informed by a lifetime of rivalry, by five years of lies. What he thought of his brother—and of himself—had been twisted up into a wrong shape and had long ago calcified.

What would it have taken to break away from that old familiar shell? What would have been required to shatter it?

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I don’t know what I would have thought. But I can tell you truly now that I understand why you acted as you did when it comes to the rifle scope. But why”—his jaw went tight, and he had to force himself to get the words out—“why did you lie to Lydia?”

Davis shook his head. “I don’t understand how any of this happened. She was never meant to be involved. She was meant to be at home, safe and unaware of all of this. I…” He hesitated. “I was going to tell her. When all of this was over, the French agents captured, I was going to tell her the truth.”

“I don’t understand why you lied to her in the first place.”

“I never intended for it to go this far. I thought to gather some intelligence—I did not even know her identity at first! ’Twas half a year of passing information to the Home Office before I learned she was Hope-Wallace’s sister. And then—Christ, by then the lie had gone on so long I did not know how to extricate myself and still—and still—”

“Still what?”

Davis’s horse pressed forward, its head outstripping Arthur’s mount. “Still keep her!”

The words lodged somewhere between Arthur’s ribs, a hot heavy weight.

It had not been one-sided, then. They had had feelings for one another, Lydia and Davis. That much had not been a deception on Davis’s part.

Davis was not a traitor. Lydia had believed in him, and she had not been wrong.

All those letters—all that correspondence—Davis and Lydia had been aligned in truth, not just in pretense. Davis had been the man Lydia had come to Scotland for. Arthur had been wrong.

“What would have been left if I told her the truth?” Davis said harshly. “How could she forgive me once she knew I’d deceived her?”

“Davis—”

His own gray horse had nudged forward again, but Davis pressed his knees into his chestnut’s flank and shoved ahead. “No, goddamn it. I wanted her to choose me—to want me —and all along she believed that I was you. Do you know what that was like?”

“Of course I do.” His horse rocked into a canter. They were coming past Jasper, squeezing together through the narrow alley.

“Strathrannoch,” Jasper snapped, but Arthur waved him back.

“I recognize the streets. I know the way.”

Davis’s feet in their stirrups jostled Arthur’s own. Davis’s voice dropped, a clear imitation of the old earl. “ You’re all surface, boy, no substance —that’s what he used to tell me. You were the steady one, the one he trusted with the estate, with the tenants. I was good for nothing so much as dinner parties. Even with Lydia, ’twas your name—your ever-honorable bloody words—that won her over.”

Arthur almost could not make sense of his brother’s words. He had been the one his father had trusted?

Davis had been the favored son. Davis had been the one their father had made much of—the one he’d sent to Eton, the one he’d taken to meet his friends. The earl had told Arthur—again and again, with his words and his actions—that Davis was the son he valued more, the one who ought to have been his heir.

But—the realization was slow and sweeping, crashing like a wave through his understanding of their past.

Their father had sought to foster rivalry between them. Their father had told Arthur time and again that he was less worthy than his brother.

But what had he told Davis?

Arthur had assumed that when they were alone together, the earl had praised Davis, the same way he’d always done in Arthur’s hearing.

But he did not know that, not really. He had not heard what their father said in private. All surface , Davis had said, no substance . He could hear it in their father’s voice—the way the earl would have said the words and laughed.

Arthur had not seen it. It took him hard and suddenly—how many things about his brother he had failed to see.

He had been wrong about Davis. He had wronged Davis. And he had not—he had not protected him from their father’s influence. Had not even known that his brother needed his protection.

His voice came out unsteady. “Wait. Hold a moment.”

His brother was leaning over his horse’s mane now, pushing ahead. “I didn’t need him. Or you or Strathrannoch. I made my own way.”

The resentment on Davis’s face was as familiar to Arthur as the shape of his own hands. He knew it in every bone and sinew; it colored so many memories.

But not all of them. He could look at his brother’s dark head, bent over his mount, and see the boy who’d thrown the trout, one by one, back into the river.

And then Davis looked up. His knuckles had gone white on the reins. “But oh—Christ, Arthur. This time I cannot do it alone. We have to get to her in time, and I need—I—” His voice cracked, his words stumbling to a halt unfinished.

But he did not need to finish. Arthur knew what he meant.

“Aye,” he said. His own voice was hoarse, barely audible over the sound of his gray’s hooves on the street.

He knew precisely how hard it was to ask for help when you did not believe that you deserved it. When you did not think it would be freely given.

Anger, fear, regret—none of that mattered now. Nothing mattered except making sure that Lydia was safe.

“We’re almost there,” he said roughly.

Davis did not look at him when he spoke. “I can’t let her be hurt because of me.”

“It’s all right,” Arthur told his brother. “We’re going to make it in time. I swear it.”