Chapter 91 James
James
The pillow pressed down on his face, and though James tried to suck in a breath, no air came. He struggled and fought, trying to get out from under George, but the other man only leaned down harder.
He needed air. Desperately needed a breath, and James pulled at his restraints, feeling them move against the slickness of his bloodied wrists. But not enough to get free.
His heart beat frantically, his pulse a loud roar in his ears. He could not die. He could not die, because he’d promised Ahnna he’d fight for her. Promised he’d be at her side until his dying breath, and he refused to break that promise.
James slammed his knees up, catching George in the balls, but though the other man cried out, he didn’t let go.
“Why won’t you just die?” George hissed. “Why won’t you accept that no one wants you to live?”
“George?” A voice called. “Georgie, are you here? I hear banging. My goodness, why does it smell like spoiled milk? Have your servants abandoned you?”
Ginny.
George froze, then slowly lifted the cushion from James’s face. “I’m…I’m just busy with something, Virginia. What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”
He drew his knife and pressed the tip to James’s jugular, deep enough that it stung. “Stay silent, or you bleed out,” he whispered.
“Is there a woman in there with you? I heard you speaking to someone.”
“No!”
The door handle turned, and George shouted, “Ginny, you cannot come in here.”
“Why not?” James’s sister demanded. “Who is in there? What are you doing? If you have some hussy in there, I swear to God I will end our betrothal and have William banish you to the swamps.”
“There’s no woman!”
“Prove it!”
“There’s no woman in here! I swear it.”
James didn’t want Ginny caught up in this, but she was his only chance to save Ahnna, so he willed his sister to be true to her stubborn self.
“I’m coming in.”
The door flung open and Virginia appeared. She was dressed in black with a veil over her hair, her cane in one hand.
“There’s no one in here,” George repeated, his knife tip digging deeper into James’s skin. “If you go downstairs and wait, I’ll finish what I’m doing and take you to join Alexandra for the execution.”
James watched his sister’s face, seeing the focus in her features as she leaned into senses that had grown acute to compensate for her lack of sight. “George, do you know where my brother is?”
“With Lestara. Or at the execution. I don’t know.”
James felt blood dripping down his neck. Heard the faint splats as it hit the wooden floor beneath him.
“Not William. James. Do you know where James is?”
“What?” George said the word a touch too quickly. “Ginny, you know that Ahnna has confessed to his murder. But we’re still looking for his body.”
If it weren’t his wife and his life that were being discussed, James might have admired the genius with which Alexandra tied up loose ends.
“I find it hard to believe that Ahnna killed him.”
“Why? She’s a murderer, Ginny. You know what she did to your father.”
Ginny tilted her head, lips pursed the way they always did when she played cards with James and William, listening for tells. Her nostrils flared, scenting sweat and blood. “You are lying.”
“I’m not. I don’t know—”
“James?” Ginny interrupted. “Are you here?”
He didn’t dare move. Scarcely dared breathe, given that George’s hand was trembling.
A tear trickled down Ginny’s cheek. “Let James go, Georgie. If you love me at all, you will not harm my brother.”
“I can’t.” George’s voice was strangled. “It’s because I love you that I can’t let him go. There are things you are better off not knowing, Ginny, but I promise you that everything that I’ve done was to protect you from the worst of truths.”
“Which truth would that be?” she asked, taking a step closer. “That I’m a bastard? Let me guess, my mother enlisted you to aid her schemes because she feared for my future and reputation, is that right? What has she manipulated you into doing, Georgie? What else have you done?”
George didn’t answer, but his knife hand was shaking now.
“What else have you done?” She shouted the words, and George flinched, his blade digging deeper.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe my mother was guilty.
” Ginny took two steps closer. “It was that I didn’t understand how she could have done it.
She’s not strong. Not brave. And my father was a big man who knew how to defend himself.
It had to be someone else, and that someone else was you, wasn’t it?
” She drew in a shuddering breath. “You stabbed my father forty-seven times. You took him away from me, and now you aim to take my brother as well.”
“To protect you,” George whispered. “Edward was going to ruin you. Ruin us. Ruin everything. James intended the same!”
“How would it have ruined us?” She snuffled, wiping her nose with a gloved hand. “I would still have been me. Or am I to understand that your affection’s limit is my legitimacy? That I am not worthy of being your wife unless I am a princess?”
“Virginia, I love you!”
She sliced her hand through the air, cutting off further protest. “Prove it. Let James go. I can smell the blood and hear his breath, so don’t insult me with more lies.
Prove you love me and face all the consequences that your actions have netted, or kill us both, because I will not allow this to stand. Which will it be, George?”
James didn’t know what George would do, because it felt like the man he’d been friends with since they were children didn’t even exist. George had stabbed his father to death and betrayed James in every possible way.
What was it to him to add Virginia to his victims, since she’d made it clear she’d never forgive him?
“Choose!”
“That is no choice.” George’s voice was choked. “Because I will always choose to make you happy.”
He lowered the knife, and James immediately rolled away. A heartbeat later, Virginia was next to him, hands on his face and pulling loose the gag. With his next breath, he gasped out, “Ginny!”
“Oh, James.” Her tears struck his face as she bent to kiss his forehead. “It is good to hear your voice, but you must go. They are bringing Ahnna to the gallows where she intends to confess for all my mother’s crimes. They’re going to hang her.”
She was alive. Ahnna was still alive. There was still hope.
Virginia used George’s discarded knife to saw through the ropes binding his wrists.
James took the knife from her and freed his ankles, and then rose to his feet.
Virginia’s hand closed around his wrist. “You can’t kill Georgie.
He’s the one witness everyone in Harendell will believe, because in condemning my mother, he condemns himself.
And you will confess, won’t you, Georgie? You will do this for me?”
George didn’t answer, but he did withdraw his sword and hand it to James. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I…”
“Convince him to do the right thing, Ginny,” James said, and then he bolted through the door.
Please don’t let me be too late.