Chapter 18 #2
“Stop.” He paused her words with a thumb to her lips.
“Listen to me. You are my treasure.” The words emerged raw, broken.
“Do you understand? You.” He tipped his head toward Zahra.
“And our family. You are more important to me than anything in this world. More than Havensbrooke, more than any jewels, more than anything that ever was or could be in this life.”
Fresh tears glimmered in those cobalt eyes as she stared back at him. “I just thought, if I could only—”
“I don’t care.” The words burst out, fierce and ragged.
“I don’t care about jewels. I don’t care about your father’s debts.
Those are his failures, not yours. You have nothing to make up for.
Nothing to prove.” His voice hushed to a whisper.
“I nearly lost you just now. Nearly watched you disappear under those rocks. And every jewel in England isn’t worth one moment with you, Grace. Not one.”
“Oh …” New tear trails made their way down her cheeks, and she smiled through them.
“That was the most romantic thing you’ve ever said, my dear Frederick.
” She blinked, adding a little sniffle. “And … you have me.” She gestured toward her growing stomach.
“All of me.” Then she sobered. “And I promise I’ll try to be more sensible in the future.
If I hadn’t promised Pennington I would help him, I could have escaped long before—”
His chuckle cut off her sentence. “Blast your tender heart.” He pressed another kiss to her forehead. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything because it has loved me so well.”
Then he pressed another kiss to her lips and placed one on Zahra’s head. The girl’s smile brightened as she looked from him to Grace. He breathed out a long sigh, gratitude nearly encouraging his own tears.
“Now,” Frederick said, standing and bringing Grace with him. “Where is Private Pennington, I wonder?”
“He ran past me, Papa,” Zahra answered, waving toward the open door. “And outside.”
Ah well, there was a good chance they wouldn’t be seeing him again.
“How very sad,” Grace said, dusting at her sleeves, “to have made all these plans not only to fail but to nearly get himself and someone else killed in the process. I imagine he feels dreadfully guilty, wherever he is.”
Frederick wasn’t ready to dole out understanding and compassion just yet. He was still imagining finding Grace pale and broken beneath a pile of rubble.
“We need to get you back to the house.” He glanced down at Zahra. “Both of you.”
But Grace had stopped looking at him. Instead, she had her hand in the pocket of her gown. “Wait,” she whispered, her gaze suddenly wide. “When I was reaching for the treasure, something fell out. I grabbed it just before you came.”
She drew out her hand and uncurled her fingers.
Frederick gently took the lantern from Zahra and brought it closer.
Resting in Grace’s palm lay three pieces of jewelry. All exquisite. Certainly expensive.
“Frederick …” she breathed.
A pair of what looked like sapphire earrings, each shaped like a collection of three teardrops. Three sapphires for each ear, each the size of a fingertip. And then a ring with a massive diamond.
“The Astley family jewels,” he said quietly.
“Or at least a few of them,” she responded. She smiled up at him, that familiar—and somewhat terrifying—light returning to her eyes. “Which means we now have our own buried treasure nearly in our back garden to discover someday.”
He closed her fingers around the gems and steered her toward the door. “Someday far into the future.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be lovely to have the entire set to show your mother? And then to pass down to our family?” Her enthusiasm was already building.
He nudged Grace toward the door, gesturing for Zahra to join them before his wife got any ridiculous notions of continuing a treasure hunt.
As they exited the chapel, Frederick wrapped an arm around Grace’s waist and pulled her close, lowering his voice to her ear.
“If you even think about going after the family treasure for the next four months, I will personally lock you in the safest, most boring room in Havensbrooke until the baby is born.”
Grace laughed despite herself. “You wouldn’t.”
He narrowed his eyes, though he couldn’t keep his lips from quirking. “Try me.”
And with that, he brought Zahra between them, Grace holding one of her hands, him the other, as they started back toward the house.
God only knew what they’d find when they got there.
Hopefully, none of the other staff or patients had been impacted by spies or thieves.
Prayerfully, Miss Montgomery would stop the other spy, and Blake wouldn’t die trying to save her.
He released a long sigh. The lights of Havensbrooke glimmered in the distance, its turrets and ramparts silhouetted in the glow of the moon. Even with all the madness of his life, his love, and his family …
There was no place like home.
Evie had changed into her black trousers and sweater, the uniform of her trade and far more practical than a housemaid’s skirts for the confrontation ahead.
Rivers was an operative.
Likely trained for combat.
But unlike Blake, Rivers was a complete unknown. Her fighting style. Her abilities. Her weaknesses.
If there was a confrontation, which Evie felt certain of, she needed to be at her best.
And most alert.
She’d arrived at the west wing gallery, which led to the lone exit from that side of the house. Carefully moved from shadow to shadow among the abandoned rooms, keeping her attention focused on that door.
Waiting.
Ears alert for the faintest sound. The softest hint.
The abandoned corridor was darker than the rest of Havensbrooke, the electric lights never installed in this unused section. Moonlight streamed through tall windows, painting silver rectangles across dusty floorboards. It was the perfect place for someone to slip away unnoticed.
The perfect place to catch them doing it.
Yet the quiet held its own warning. Shifted with a sudden … presence.
Had Evie unknowingly transformed from huntress … to hunted?
Her hand went to her knife concealed at her wrist.
And then she saw it. One unmoving silhouette by the window. The shape of a woman. Spectral in its stance.
For only a second, Evie’s blood ran cold.
“I was wondering when I’d see you again, Miss Gale.” Rivers’ voice was pleasant, almost cheerful. “Or should I say … Miss Montgomery?”
A flicker of light revealed a cigarette, illuminating the woman’s face for only a moment. The same helpful smile Rivers had worn in the hospital wards flashed alive, but her eyes? They were calculating. Narrowed.
A predator’s gaze.
Evie stilled against the look. Against this woman’s attempt at intimidation.
The satchel waited at her side. Likely with the information Evie needed, but the best choice would be to take Rivers alive. Drain every bit of information from her to help the cause. To save lives.
“I’m not letting you leave this room alive,” Evie said quietly.
A small chuckle floated through the moonlit space.
“How quaint, from the woman who might be a bit out of practice.” Rivers’ lips curled.
“You disappeared, I hear. Left the service.” She blew out a long stream of smoke.
“Couldn’t handle the dirtiest truths of the job when they hit … too close to the heart?”
Evie drew a step closer, her attention cataloguing every detail of the woman. The shadow of a gun waited at one hip, where Evie’s own waited. She likely had a knife too, like Evie. Probably more than one.
No knowing what else.
“Your brother told me so much about you,” Rivers continued, moving away from the window with casual confidence. “Did you know he kept a journal? Detailed notes about his fellow agents. Their strengths.” Her smile sharpened. “Their weaknesses.”
Evie circled nearer, keeping her back to the wall, her attention riveted on Rivers but her ears alert to any other sounds.
Any accomplices she hadn’t accounted for.
“Said you were brilliant but soft. That you’d sacrifice the mission for sentiment every time.
But you proved him wrong, didn’t you?” Rivers’ voice took a dark turn as she tilted her head, studying Evie with disturbing intensity.
“Tell me, did he beg? When the water was closing over his head, when he realized his own sister—his twin—had chosen duty over family?”
Evie’s jaw tightened. “Put. The satchel. Down.”
“You know, I could have left already.” She blew out another stream of smoke.
“Escaped. But you’ve gotten beneath my skin.
” She shook her head in an almost pitying way.
“Taken my information, destroyed one of my greatest creations when you killed your brother. And after all this time together, I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. ”
So Rivers had been waiting. To kill her. “So you want a fight?”
“Or to see you retreat.” Her smile turned feline. “Your choice, but I do want to see if your heart is as soft as your brother declared, whether inside or outside of your body.”
No doubt Rivers’ superiors would have found her choice unsavory. Staying to nurse a grudge instead of escaping with the intel.
But the look in Rivers’ eyes proved the woman didn’t care.
The faintest fear quivered through Evie’s middle. She hadn’t been in active combat for months. She practiced. Kept up her skills. But there was a distinct difference between a self-imposed exercise regime and the rush of someone actually trying to kill you.
The combat was different.
She drew in a breath. Everything was different.
“Let me pass,” Rivers said simply, dropping her cigarette to the floor and crushing it beneath her heel with exaggerated force. “And I won’t kill you.”
Evie gave her head a shake. “That’s not up for negotiation.”
“Ah well, I’ll take the fight then.”
Evie moved first.
She crossed the space between them in two strides, her knife already drawn. But Rivers was ready—had been ready. She dodged left, and Evie’s blade whistled through empty air.