Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Your Grace, the correspondence from Lord Ashford regarding the—”
“Not now, Jenkins. Just set it on the tray.”
Morgan didn’t look up from the map of Pemberton House spread across his desk. He’d sketched out the conservatory, the ballroom, the gardens, marking sight lines and escape routes with increasingly frantic notations.
Jenkins cleared his throat delicately. “Sir, Lord Ashford is waiting for a response regarding the Parliamentary session next week.”
“I said not now!” Morgan’s voice was sharp enough that Jenkins actually took a step back.
A beat of silence.
Morgan closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Forgive me, Jenkins. That was uncalled for. Please… tell Lord Ashford I’ll respond by end of day tomorrow.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Jenkins hesitated. “Sir, if I may… perhaps some rest would—”
“Thank you, Jenkins. That will be all.”
After the butler retreated, Morgan returned to his map. His hands trembled slightly as he traced the path Eliza would take from the ballroom to the conservatory. He followed it again with a magnifying glass.
Forty-three steps. Forty-three steps where she’ll be vulnerable.
He drew an alternate escape route, then crossed it out.
Too exposed.
Drew another.
Too far from where I’ll be positioned.
The day passed in a flurry of plans made and discarded when Eliza found Morgan in his study, at two in the morning.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping, my love” she said softly from the doorway.
He looked up from the stack of old newspapers he’d been reading. They were accounts of Lady Margaret Whitfield’s death and Lady Charlotte’s. He was trying to find some pattern, some detail they’d missed.
“So are you,” he pointed out.
“I couldn’t sleep. I could feel your absence.” She moved into the room, her nightgown a soft white glow in the lamplight. “Morgan, you’re exhausting yourself.”
“I’m being thorough.”
“You’re being obsessive.” She sat beside him, looking at the newspapers spread across the table. “You’ve read these a dozen times already.”
“I might have missed something…”
“You haven’t.” Her hand covered his, stilling his restless movements. “Everything that can be planned has been planned. Mr. Hartley has his men ready. We know the layout. We have signals and backup plans and—”
“And none of it might be enough!” Morgan’s voice broke. He stood abruptly, pacing to the window. “What if he’s faster than we anticipate? What if he has a gun? What if the Runners can’t reach you in time?”
“Then you’ll be there. You’re never more than a room away, remember?”
“A room is too far. The hallway is too far. Anything more than arm’s reach is too far. And even that…” He pressed his forehead against the cool glass. “I should never have agreed to this.”
He felt her arms wrap around him from behind and he ease back into her touch.
“Yes, you should have,” she said quietly. “Because it’s the right thing to do. And because you trust me to be strong enough to do it.”
“I do trust you. It’s Whitfield I don’t trust.”
“I know.” She pressed her cheek against his back. “Come to bed. Please. You need rest.”
He let her lead him upstairs, but sleep didn’t come. He lay awake, listening to her breathing, memorizing the feel of her in his arms as though this might be the last time.
“No, no, no. Move him further east. He needs a clear line of sight to the eastern entrance!”
Hartley adjusted the marker on the floor plan they’d drawn of Pemberton House as they spent yet another day planning before the ball.
“Your Grace, if I move him any further east, he won’t be able to see the western door.”
“Then we need another man.”
“We’ve already committed six men. Any more and we risk drawing attention—”
“I don’t care about drawing attention! I care about my wife’s safety!” Morgan slammed his hand on the table, making the markers jump.
Hartley exchanged a glance with Eliza, who sat quietly in the corner. She’d been unusually subdued during this planning session, letting Morgan and Hartley argue over details she’d already approved.
“Morgan,” she said gently. “Mr. Hartley’s plan is sound.”
“It’s not sound if there’s a blind spot.”
“There won’t be a blind spot. I’ll be visible from three different positions.”
“What about when you move? What if he forces you to move?”
“Then I drop my fan and you come running.”
“That might be too late!”
The room fell silent. Morgan stood there, breathing hard.
“Your Grace,” Hartley said carefully. “Perhaps we should take a break. Reconvene tomorrow when—”
“Fine.” Morgan turned away. “Tomorrow.”
After Hartley left, Eliza approached Morgan where he stood at the window, staring at nothing.
“You’re going to make yourself ill,” she said. “We just went through this last night… or was it this morning?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not eating. You’re barely sleeping. You snapped at Jenkins twice today and made one of the maids cry because she took too long bringing your tea.”
Morgan winced. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t mean it. You’re terrified. So am I.” She moved to stand beside him. “But this constant anxiety isn’t helping. It’s only making things worse.”
“How can I not be anxious?”
“I need you sharp, Morgan,” she said, with all the confidence of a general. “Focused. Not frantic. If something does go wrong, I need you thinking clearly, not paralyzed by fear. Do you understand?”
He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be calm when everything in me is screaming to lock you away somewhere safe.”
“By trusting me. By trusting the plan. By remembering that I survived Whitfield before, and I’ll survive him again. I am not a woman to be messed with.”
Later that night, after a small supper, Morgan sat across from Ambrose at White’s, a glass of whiskey untouched before him.
“You look terrible,” Ambrose observed.
“Thank you. Helpful.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t remember.”
Ambrose leaned forward. “Morgan, you need to get yourself together. Whatever this plan is, that you can’t tell me about—”
“It’s dangerous. It’s risky. And I hate every aspect of it.” Morgan finally took a drink of his whiskey. “But it’s the only way to get Whitfield.”
“And Eliza’s agreed to this?”
“It was her idea.”
Ambrose was quiet for a moment. “She’s braver than both of us combined, you know that?”
“I know.” Morgan’s hands tightened on his glass. “Which is why I’m terrified. Because she doesn’t have the sense to be as afraid as she should be.”
“Or she has more faith in you than you have in yourself.”
Morgan looked up sharply.
“She trusts you to protect her,” Ambrose said. “That’s why she can be brave. Because she knows you’ll be there if things go wrong.”
“And if I’m not fast enough? If I fail her?”
“Then you’ll have done everything you could. But Morgan, this constant catastrophizing… it’s not helping. You need to trust yourself the way she trusts you. I hate to see you this way, my friend.”
Morgan wanted to argue. But looking at his concerned face, he realized Ambrose was right. His anxiety wasn’t protecting Eliza, it was only making him less prepared.
“How do you do it?” Morgan asked quietly. “How do you live with loving someone so much that the thought of losing them is unbearable?”
“You don’t think about losing them. You focus on the present. On being the best version of yourself for them right now.” Ambrose smiled slightly. “And you trust that love is stronger than fear.”
Later that night, Morgan held Eliza in bed, his arms wrapped around her, his heart beating hard against her back.
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered into the darkness. “We could still call it off. Find another way.”
“There is no other way,” Eliza said gently. “You know that.”
“I could just kill him myself. Challenge him to a duel!”
“And hang for murder? No, Morgan. This is the right way. The only way.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his hand splayed over her stomach, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “For being impossible these past few days. For snapping at you, at the servants. For being so consumed by fear that I’ve been terrible company.”
“You haven’t been terrible. You’ve been terrified. There’s a difference.” She turned in his arms to face him. “But tomorrow, I need you present. Can you do that for me?”
He looked into her hazel eyes, seeing not fear but determination. Trust. Faith in him.
“Yes,” he said. “I can do that.”
“Good.” She kissed him softly. “Because this is going to work, Morgan. We’re going to get justice for Abigail. We’re going to stop Whitfield from ever hurting anyone again. And then we’re going to go home and live our lives without looking over our shoulders.”
She is right. I know she is right.
Yet the notion did not make it any easier to accept that tomorrow night, the woman he loved would deliberately walk into the lion’s den. And all he could do was watch and pray she made it out alive.
After they made sweet love to each other, tender and full and promising as the heavens themselves, Eliza drifted to sleep in his arms.