Chapter 25
James
James’s blood ran cold as Kate’s scream tore through the night, splintering light and music like shards of glass. He felt the sharp prick of each one.
“Kate!” Her name was ripped from his chest.
He spun toward the terrace where she had been moments before, but only shadows remained. Shock held him for half a heartbeat before he turned to Hugh and Nicholas.
Hugh did not hesitate. “Go!”
James broke into a run toward the terrace, leaving his two friends to watch over the assassin.
Chill wind nipped at him as he rounded the bushes and reached the terrace steps, his chest heaving. He searched the gardens—torchlight, dark hedges, empty paths. Laughter and music drifted through the terrace doors, mocking him with their normalcy.
Where was Kate?
Panic surged, sudden and blinding. He forced air into his lungs as he scanned for signs of her. Only one impossible truth remained. Kate was gone.
He had lost her.
For one terrible instant, the world emptied of everything but the echo of her scream.
Guilt churned in his gut.
Think. Focus.
He forced himself to study the ground, the paths, the places where darkness met torchlight.
Near the terrace, dirt and gravel had been kicked about, marking the spot where a brief struggle had torn at the soil.
He followed the path at a run, loose stones spraying behind him, until he emerged at the east corner of the house, away from the ballroom lights.
A wiry, dark-haired groom was leading a horse toward the stable.
“Ho, you there!” James ran toward him.
The groom stopped, hands trembling on the reins. “Are you the gent looking for the lady?”
James’s heart seized. Could this be a trap?
“Where is she?”
“The man said to tell you he took her to the house on Beaufort Street.” The groom swallowed. “Said you would know why.”
Beaufort Street. The words struck harder than the wind. A house on that street had long stood empty, the estate tangled in legal matters. The last time he had crossed its threshold, Henry had been alive. Had someone chosen it for Henry’s sake, knowing precisely what memories the place held?
He grabbed the reins from the startled groom. “I need this horse. Tell your employer Lord Brenton will reimburse him for any inconvenience.”
“James!”
Alex came running from the west side of the house, face grim. “I was at the north gate. Someone drew me away. By the time I realized I was chasing a decoy—”
“Beaufort Street. Get Hugh, Nicholas, Westmarch—anyone you can find. They took Kate.” James swung into the saddle in one swift motion; the rest of his words were lost in the wind as he broke the horse into a gallop.
The lights spilling from the ball illuminated his path for a short distance, but soon the dark London streets swallowed him, the occasional oil lamp staining the cobblestones with a sickly glow. He was alone save the ghosts that haunted him.
James drew back on the reins before turning onto the street. No need to alert whoever had taken Kate that he was approaching.
Beaufort Street was isolated, near enough to the Thames for damp river mist to coat his skin. It was a place of high brick walls and long silences. He swung down and tied the horse to an iron gate.
The house stood like a tomb, a single lantern burning in a large window.
Henry had once stood on those steps, rain dripping from his hat as he declared the old house a great find.
James shoved the memory aside. It would not help him find Kate.
He crept toward the house and kept to the narrow strip along the west side, where overgrown ivy shielded him from view and a low window sat beside a trellis.
He climbed the warped trellis, testing each rung before trusting his weight. At the window, he peered through the grime, grateful the curtains were not drawn. His gaze swept the room until it found her.
Kate.
She was alive.
Relief struck so hard his grip slipped on the trellis.
She was bound but unbroken, beautiful in the sheer force of her defiance.
Her eyes sparked with indignation as she glared at someone he could not see.
He cursed under his breath. The thought of the man who had done this to her tightened every muscle in his body.
A figure crossed the far edge of the room, one step catching slightly before he disappeared into shadow.
James dropped from the trellis, landing in a crouch. A quick circuit of the house brought him to the servants’ door, which stood ajar.
Someone was waiting for him.
Inside, lantern light slashed across the floorboards. He followed the glow spilling from the room, moving carefully over the old floorboards. The place held too many memories of Henry, and every one of them seemed to stir in the dark.
The door was open, revealing a room in wild disorder. Holland covers draped over the furniture like ghosts, and the room smelled of dust and neglect.
A figure moved along the far wall, metal catching in the lantern light.
James raised his pistol.
The lantern flickered.
“Release. My. Wife,” he said, each word cut from restraint.
It was no lie. No frantic claim made only to save her. Kate was his wife. His partner. His future. The one vow he would never regret. And this man, whoever he was, would not take her from him.
The assailant tightened his arm across Kate’s shoulders, his pistol angled against her side, his face shrouded in darkness. Kate made a furious sound behind the gag. Rage coiled in James’s chest until he could scarcely breathe.
“Your wife? Interesting development,” the voice in the shadows drawled.
The assailant’s voice struck him with a terrible, sickening familiarity, but James’s mind refused to place it.
No.
“I would have expected you to choose any weapon other than a pistol to rescue someone who mattered so much to you,” the voice mocked.
The words turned familiarity into dread. James knew that voice. He had trusted it.
It could not be. It was impossible.
The flame guttered as the man inched forward, his weapon trained on Kate. The light caught the line of his jaw, the old scar near his temple, the smile James had not seen in months.
“Henry.”
James could not move. Every muscle locked, and his mind refused what he saw.
Sound fell out of the room—the scrape of Kate’s breath behind the gag, the wind rattling the window shutters, even the blood pounding in his ears.
Grief had made a ghost of Henry for months, but this was no ghost before him.
This was Henry, alive and smiling, a pistol aimed at Kate.
Henry’s smile turned cruel. “You always were quick.”
“I saw your blood on the stones of the bridge.”
“Did you? Or did you see only what I wanted you to see? A gunshot, a paid witness, a coat left behind.” Henry gave a small shrug. “You trusted the performance. Then you supplied the guilt. The Thames did the rest for me, though it left me with a little memento.”
Henry’s weight shifted, revealing the slight favor he gave one leg. His deception had left its mark.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath James, every certainty of the last months coming apart at once. His hand went to his coat pocket. The token seemed to burn against his chest, its familiar shape suddenly wrong. He had carried it like a talisman. A promise. A reminder that Henry deserved justice.
And Henry had been alive all along.
James’s voice came out low and uneven. “You let me mourn you.”
“You thought my absence a tragedy,” Henry said. “I made it an opportunity.”
Rage broke through his shock. “So you betrayed your duty as an agent? For what? To run errands for the Arcadian Circle?”
“Errands?” Henry laughed and shook his head. “Oh, James.”
James went rigid as the pieces slid into place. All this time, the name he had been chasing had belonged to the man he had mourned.
“You’re The Sentinel.”
“Bravo. I knew I shouldn’t underestimate you.” Pride flashed across Henry’s face. “The Circle has hundreds who believe in its cause, but there are only twelve of us to lead it. Twelve who understand what England can, and must, become.”
James knew where to wound him, to unsettle him. “They made you one of the twelve? Or do they only let you believe it?”
“I earned my place.” Henry’s voice hardened. “Westmarch sent me to investigate them. To expose them. Instead, I listened.”
“They told you only what you wanted to hear.”
“They saw the decay in this country for what it was,” Henry insisted. “The old order rewards complacent fools, while men of ability are expected to wait politely for scraps. Arcadia offered power to those with the courage to take it.”
“By betraying the Crown?”
“By ceasing to bleed for men like you, men who would let me serve beside them, but never stand among them.” Satisfaction hardened Henry’s expression.
“The Circle had trusted me with the name Sentinel, but they would not tolerate a divided allegiance. I had to sever my old life. And when it came time to disappear, you made it almost laughably easy. Grief and loyalty told you what to see.”
James absorbed the words like a blow. “You used what we were against me.”
“You thought friendship made us equals. It never did. You could afford recklessness because the world would always catch you.”
Henry’s contempt ran so deep that James doubted every memory of their friendship. Had any of it been real? Every shared confidence turned to ash. James had trusted this man once. He would not make that mistake again. Every old loyalty died the moment Henry threatened Kate.
“And now you have trained the Circle on me? On Kate?”
“I kept your name out of places where it would have meant your death. For old times’ sake.” His mouth curved without warmth. “Do not mistake me. Once you began asking after The Sentinel, I considered giving them your name. It would have been simple. But you were mine to deal with.”
A humorless laugh scraped from James’s throat. “How generous of you.”