Chapter 17
Blake had donned his black wool suit.
Double-breasted. Comfortable. Classic.
Much more suited to his usual style.
And perfect for blending into the darkness of the surrounding forest. Besides, it helped camouflage his guns too. Both of them.
Clever that.
He’d long since left the scattered—and mercifully few—search parties behind. The ruins were too dark and deep in the forest for any of the usual men to venture here at night. Outside the family, few even knew about the ruins.
Unless, of course, someone had a specific purpose for being there.
And from what he’d gathered only a few days before, someone had found a very specific purpose. He’d bet his Chelsea boots Smith was that someone.
The ruins loomed ahead, broken gray walls silhouetted against the moonlit sky like jagged teeth. Three stories of crumbling stone—a testament to centuries of grandeur reduced to romantic decay. Precisely the sort of place poets waxed eloquent about and spies used for clandestine meetings.
Blake preferred the former use, personally. Poetry rarely involved people trying to kill others.
Though admittedly, some of Byron’s romantic entanglements came close.
He paused at the forest’s edge, scanning for movement within the darkened windows, listening for voices within the abandoned halls.
There.
A flicker of light inside. Not a lantern, but something smaller. A shielded torch, perhaps?
Carefully, he circled the eastern side of the ruins. No sign of anyone outside keeping watch. Ah, they wanted this to be a very intimate meeting.
Fewer people, fewer possibilities for mistakes.
Highly confidential.
Hmm … Germany must have sent one of their favorites to meet Smith.
It was a good thing Blake had worn one of his nicest suits.
On the far side of the ruins, the forest grew closest to the walls, one tree near brushing against the aged stone. A glassless window gaped open on the upper floor.
Perfect.
If he climbed the nearest tree, he could transfer to the trellis and reach the window. The upper floor had a hole large enough to peer down into the gallery below—right where the two men appeared to be.
How tidy.
Which always made him a little nervous.
He scaled the lovely oak rather quickly, his shoulder giving a slight protest but nothing of consequence.
With nearly soundless movements, and a moment where he thought he might take on the flight patterns of a wingless bird, he transferred from the tree to the trellis.
It groaned under his weight but held. Barely.
Blake froze entirely, listening.
But the voices below didn’t seem to notice.
Their low rumbles continued, punctuated by the occasional scrape of boot on stone.
With another look around, he transitioned from the trellis to the window, its ledge narrower than he’d thought …
but he’d worked with worse. He pulled himself through and into what had been a sitting room a century ago.
Broken furniture. Scattered stones. A few decorative pillars reaching from floor to ceiling. And … was that a rope already tied to one of them?
How peculiar.
Blake’s brow rose. Wait a moment.
Could that possibly be the same rope Grace had used nearly two years ago to “rescue” Freddie when he’d been taken by Celia Blackmore Percy’s henchmen? Blake pondered the idea for a moment—the sheer improbability of it—until the sound of voices, clearer now, drew him forward.
Directly ahead, a gaping hole in the floor opened onto the gallery below, giving him perfect visual access. He crawled to the edge, following the line of the rope as it dropped through the hole into the room beneath.
Smith stood in the center of the ruined gallery, still in his hospital blues but moving with none of the hesitation or pain he’d shown at Havensbrooke.
His posture was straight, his gait fluid—every inch a trained operative rather than a wounded soldier—and he had a leather satchel slung over his shoulder.
He was a brawny fellow too, shoulders the size of the tree Blake had just ascended, which meant he’d hopefully be slow. Or at the very least, Blake needed to be faster than him, because a facer from one of those meat cleavers he called hands and Blake might see stars for weeks.
Beside him stood a man in his mid-forties wearing civilian clothes. Dark hair, angular features, and a distinctive scar cutting through his upper lip.
Blake stifled an undignified groan. He knew that face from intelligence reports.
Klaus Weber. One of Rook’s most trusted lieutenants. The Handler himself.
Jackpot.
“Angel insists she has it all under control,” Smith replied, his voice tight. Ah, the conversation must not have been going well for the man.
“She’s planted enough evidence on Wilson to—”
“Angel.” Weber spat the code name like a curse, pulling a cigarette from his coat and lighting it with sharp, angry movements. “She’s careless. Takes too long. Too many risks. This entire situation should have been handled weeks ago.”
Angel? Rivers.
Blake’s hand moved slowly toward the revolver at his back, careful not to make a sound, as he surveyed his options. Two targets. One rope. A fifteen-foot drop onto the stone floor. He needed to take one—preferably both—alive.
Weber, especially. The intelligence he carried could save thousands of lives.
“That housemaid slowed things down,” Smith said defensively. “The one called Helen Gale. Angel says she’s Montgomery and thinks she’s working with someone inside.”
Evie. Blake’s chest constricted.
“She should have been eliminated weeks ago.” Weber took a deep draw from his cigarette, the tip glowing bright orange in the darkness before fading. His German accent was barely detectable beneath perfect English. “You’ve both failed.”
“We haven’t failed,” Smith protested. “I’ve already provided you with valuable intelligence, and Angel has more.
She’s set a trap tonight.” His voice gained confidence.
“The Montgomery woman will walk right into it when she comes for the wireless equipment. She’ll never leave that room alive.
” He checked his pocket watch with obvious satisfaction.
“In fact, it should be happening right about now.”
No.
Every instinct screamed at Blake to leave, to run back to the house, to reach Evie before—
But Weber was still talking, and Blake forced himself to listen, to gather every scrap of intelligence even as his heart hammered against his ribs. Evie knew how to handle herself. She was as good as him, if not better.
Smith patted the satchel at his side before removing it and placing it on a table in the center of the room. “This intelligence alone will compromise three operations. The troop movements near Loos, the supply routes through Calais, the artillery positions at Vimy Ridge—”
Blake couldn’t wait. Wouldn’t wait.
Once the satchel exchanged hands, Weber would leave.
Perhaps kill Smith first.
Now was the time to move.
He gathered the rope, tested his grip one final time, and thought through the mechanics. Swing out, use momentum to carry across the space, disable Smith while firing at Weber, land in a controlled roll.
Simple. Clean. Efficient.
Grace had accomplished this maneuver in a dress and pantaloons, without any combat training whatsoever, and somehow survived.
Blake was a trained intelligence officer with years of field experience.
How hard can it be?
He took three steps back from the edge.
One breath to steady himself. Two to calculate trajectory.
Then launched through the hole.
The initial swing was perfect—exactly as he’d calculated. The arc carried him across the gallery with satisfying speed, the rope singing through his gloved hands. Moonlight streamed through the broken roof, painting everything in silver and shadow.
He fired mid-swing.
Weber dove sideways with impressive reflexes. The bullet sparked off stone where the villain’s head had been a heartbeat before. The satchel flew from Smith’s hands as he shifted to avoid Blake, documents scattering across the floor like startled birds.
Truly, he wished Evie could see him. He’d never felt so heroic in his life.
And then physics and reality collided with Blake’s calculations in a most unfortunate manner.
The rope twisted slightly. His body spun in the opposite direction. The unpredictable moonlight made depth perception a nightmare. And somewhere in the chaos of motion and momentum, Blake had the distinctly unhappy realization that rope swings were absolutely mad.
Grace must have the luck of ten Irishmen to have survived this.
But training took over. Blake adjusted mid-swing, used the spin to his advantage, and brought his boots up just as he reached Smith’s position.
The impact was immensely satisfying.
His boots connected with Smith’s chest with enough force to lift the man off his feet, sending Smith flying backward—arms windmilling—before crashing into the stone wall. The lamp he’d been holding shattered, plunging half the room into darkness.
Blake released the rope, attempting a controlled landing, but the stone floor came up faster than anticipated. He hit hard, the impact jarring through his legs and spine. He rolled with the landing, came up in a crouch with his gun trained on—
Weber had recovered his stance and weapon.
Blast.
Quite literally, as they fired simultaneously.
The bullet whispered past Blake’s ear, so close it left his skin burning. His own shot went wide as he threw himself sideways behind a fallen column.
“Falcon.” Weber’s voice held grim recognition as he stepped into a patch of moonlight. “I should have known you’d interfere. You have a terrible habit of surviving things that should kill you.”
Blake grinned from his hiding spot. “You know what they say about a bad penny and all that.” He checked his ammunition. Four shots left before he’d need to retrieve his other gun.
He spun from the column, firing, but Weber was ready.
The shots cracked through the empty hall.