Chapter Fifty-One
The first thing Jack saw when she slowly opened her eyes was Tobias, and he looked more exhausted than she’d ever seen him.
“Where am I?” she asked, trying to sit but feeling a tightness on the left side of her stomach.
“Thank God you’re awake,” he said, leaning over and taking her hand in his before squeezing her fingers. “Get the doctor,” he hollered over to a doorway.
“Am I dreaming?” She blinked, realizing she was lying on a huge, four-poster bed in a ridiculously opulent room. But if she was dreaming, why would the side of her body hurt like it was on fire?
“No, you’re not dreaming,” Tobias replied with a smile. “Thank God you’re back with us.”
“What happened?” She struggled to sit up again.
“No, don’t try to get up,” he cautioned her. “You were stabbed, Jack.”
“I was?” And then suddenly, it all came back to her. Thomas, Mrs. Thompson—or rather, Lady Denton—and everything that had happened. She lay back down and closed her eyes, reminding herself she was safe now.
“Thankfully, though, the blade pierced the pack of cards in your pocket first, and only about an inch of the metal penetrated through into your body.” He pulled out her lucky pack of playing cards and she saw the dagger wound through the middle of them.
“The doctor said if the cards hadn’t been there, the blade would have led to severe internal bleeding and we would have lost you. ”
“They’re my lucky pack of cards,” she replied. “My father gave them to me, and I’ve always carried them with me since his death.”
“I believe he was watching over you,” Tobias said with a small smile.
The thought was a nice one, and perhaps he had been. “Where am I?”
“In my parents’ house,” Tobias replied. “It was the closest place to bring you after the doctor treated you.”
“Jack!” Cordy’s voice screamed from the door a second before she ran over to the side of the bed and nudged Tobias out of the way.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re all right. You worried us so much!
” She leaned down and very gently hugged Jack before pulling away and frowning.
“Don’t you dare scare us so much ever again! ”
Sera then pushed Cordy out of the way and gently hugged her too. “Absolutely don’t you dare scare us like that again!”
The doctor followed them in, and Jack recognized him as the countess’s doctor from the other night.
“All right, ladies, I do need to examine my patient,” the doctor said, and Cordy and Sera nodded.
“We’ll be just outside the room,” Sera said before she and Cordy left the room.
Tobias stood to leave too, but Jack reached out and grabbed his arm. “Please stay.” It was odd, but she felt safe with him there.
He nodded and sat back down as the doctor approached. She narrowed her eyes at him; her opinion of doctors was very low at the moment. “Are you really a doctor?”
The man smiled and nodded. “I am.”
“I’ve known him all my life, Jack. That, you can at least trust,” Tobias murmured.
Slowly, she nodded, and the doctor quickly examined her, checking her pulse, her eyes, and then her wound.
“Does that burn to the touch?” he asked, gently peeling back the bandage from around her waist and pressing his fingers close to the edge of the wound, which now had a few stitches in it.
“No. It’s tender, but it doesn’t burn,” she replied.
“Good.” He nodded and rebandaged up the wound. “Another day of rest should see you right to return to your residence.”
“‘Another day’? How long have I been here for?”
“Since yesterday,” Tobias replied as the doctor packed up his bag and then shook Tobias’s hand.
“I’ll return tomorrow and check on her, and then if all is fine, as I expect, you’ll be able to go home,” he said the last part to Jack before bowing and heading back out of the room.
“I can’t believe I’ve been out of it for that long,” Jack muttered.
“You scared the Devil out of us,” Tobias murmured as he came back around and sat down next to her, just as Cordy, Sera, and Sergeant Kellerman too came into the room.
“If you’re feeling up to it, do you feel like telling us what happened?” Tobias asked. “I’ve told everyone what happened after I went inside, but they’re all curious to hear what happened before that.”
Jack took in a deep breath and nodded, quickly telling them all that had happened prior to Tobias’s arrival.
After she’d finished, they all stayed silent for several minutes as they processed the information.
“Bloody hell, I trusted the doctor.” The sergeant swore, the betrayal in his eyes reflected in everyone’s gazes. “How could we not tell?”
“Because he was always a step ahead of us,” Tobias muttered, dragging his hand through his hair in a gesture Jack had come to know well. “And we nearly fell for him trying to frame Dr. Patterson being the Conjurer.”
“I can’t believe we trusted Mrs. Thompson, or rather Lady Denton, I suppose,” Cordy said, her eyes staring off into space before she turned and looked at Jack.
“How will we ever trust anyone again?” Sera asked.
It was what Jack had been thinking too. But then, she got angry.
She wasn’t going to let the Clorrens continue to dictate her life, most especially not now that they were dead.
“As difficult as it may be, we still must trust others, Sera. Thomas Clorren and his mother took nearly everything from me. But I’m not going to let them rob me of trusting people.
I’ve done that my whole life, always worried about people lurking in the shadows, but I’m done being scared and not trusting.
I will not give them that power over me anymore. ”
Slowly, Sera nodded. “You’re right.”
Jack nodded too. “We will move forward and not let them have any power over us. They don’t deserve anything from us, least of all that.
I let them take magic away from me when they took my father from me, and that would have been the last thing my father would have wanted.
So, I’m not going to continue hiding in the shadows. ”
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Sera asked, cocking a brow.
“That you’re going to do magic again?” Cordy gasped.
“How perfect, given all of the papers raved about your performance, though they were initially confused about your disappearance, but when we explained to them you were luring the Conjurer out from the shadows and using yourself as bait, why, all of London applauded your true bravery.”
“And given the Conjurer is dead,” Sera said, “all of London is praising you as their savior.”
“They’re also praising Sera’s and my involvement too,” Cordy added. “So we shall have to be a part of your act.”
“You’re going to do magic on stage?” Tobias asked.
“I’ve never felt as alive as I did when I was up on stage the other night,” Jack replied.
“So yes, I am going to do magic again. Not all the time, given I still have an investigation agency to run,” she quickly added.
“But the occasional performance? Why not? I might as well use the gift and skills my father gave me.”
Cordy clapped her hands in excitement. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” Then she paused and glanced to Jack. “Will you have time to do both magic and run the agency, though?”
“Where there is a will, there is a way, Cordy. And I will find a way.” Jack smiled over to her friend.
“Though the agency will take priority. After all, we can’t leave Scotland Yard to investigate everything, now can we?
Especially when they’re not very good at bending the rules like we are.
” She turned and glanced at Tobias, who was staring at her intently, before he exhaled.
“Fine. I admit, the rules sometimes, and I do stress the word sometimes, need to be bent,” Tobias said. “However, given we can’t bend the rules…” He motioned between the sergeant and himself. “We’ll probably need to keep the Hart Agency on as permanent consultants for special cases.”
A smile slowly spread across Jack’s mouth. “Hmm, a permanent consultant for the Yard? I think I can put my police prejudices aside to work with you, Inspector. And who knows? Perhaps I might even teach you to bend the rules a little too?”
“If anyone is worth bending the rules for, it’s you, Jaqueline Maguire. Though I need you for a lot more than just that,” he murmured, his eyes pinning hers with an intensity that she found enthralling yet slightly unnerving too. “But it’s a start in any event, and I’m a patient man.”
“You might have to be, Inspector.” Because a part of her still wasn’t sure she was ready to give her heart to anyone else.
Whether she’d ever be ready to do so. After her parents’ deaths and then Caleb’s betrayal, she’d firmly locked her heart away for good.
But as she lay there staring into Tobias’s eyes, a part of her knew that if anyone could breach her defenses, it was him.
“Oh, I will be patient, because you, my Jack of Hearts, are most certainly worth the wait.”
There was such an intensity in his words as he stared at her without blinking that Jack believed him. Wholeheartedly, without hesitation. And suddenly, a future with him in her life didn’t seem so far out of reach.
Perhaps it was finally time to step out of the shadows and regrets from her past and embrace her future. A future that clearly Tobias intended be part of.
Jack smiled, because for once she was looking forward to what lay ahead. Very much, indeed…