Page 49

She took it and descended, promising herself that no matter how long it took she would get to the bottom of this before the night was through.

Two steps from the carriage she heard it.

The sound of a gunshot and then a projectile hitting wood.

She walked faster as he slid his arm around her, ushering her into the front door quickly, nearly picking her up off the ground for the last two steps through the door.

A second later she heard it again only this time the bullet hit stone.

Or at least she was reasonably certain it was a bullet.

Gun shots. In St. James?! What on earth was happening?

She glanced at Leo to ask but he didn’t seem surprised. Instead his expression was grimly set.

“Was that gunfire?”

*

He didn’t respond to her question, he had too many of his own.

Instead he helped her remove her cape and handed it to the footman along with his coat.

It had to be a sharpshooter of some sort.

Where the hell had Harrison found a sharpshooter willing to take up this job?

How long had that man been there and who was he targeting? Was it him, or Regina? Or both?

The accusations she’d thrown in the carriage were eating at him like rust. He had never thought of leaving her to face the world alone.

His entire focus was on ensuring that they spent a long happy life together.

He thought she would be annoyed with his absence, not that she would take it as a betrayal or abandonment.

And now, because of fucking Locke, he was not only a liar but an incompetent fool who couldn’t protect her from anything, not bullets or hurtful words.

“Leo.” She held onto his arm, and he paused turning his head in her direction. “Was that gunfire?”

“No.” He couldn’t look at her. He was too angry.

Angry, ashamed and afraid. He had been so damn close to removing the danger Harrison presented but Locke had to show up.

He had made him a failure once again and there was nothing he could do about it.

Now Harrison was in the wind again and Leo didn’t have enough to locate him again.

How he would have to wait for him to move and hope to God that he was fast enough to counter anything he had in place. He was exposed and he didn’t like it.

Now, as if he didn’t have troubles enough, the man had some fucker shooting at him and Regina. Which meant his ability to keep the real horror of the truth from her was effectively null and void. There was no way she was mistaking that noise for anything else.

Her grip on his arm tightened. “Don’t lie to me about something so stupid Leopold, I am familiar enough with the sound.

” She’d never called him by his full name before.

Not outside of their wedding. He wasn’t sure he enjoyed it at all.

And he especially didn’t enjoy that this was the second time she had called him a liar and he still couldn’t argue against it.

“Then why are you asking?”

“I’m asking if that gunfire was meant for us or not.” She clarified, every word curt and clipped.

He couldn’t lie. Not again. But he didn’t want to tell her the truth. “Then why not ask that question instead?”

“I’m asking it now.”

His brain was going in every which direction, and she was staring at him with no patience left. This was the captain’s daughter, and she was out of goodwill which meant he was out of time. “Yes it was.”

That fear which their marriage had dispelled returned full force nearly displacing the ire in her eyes. “Someone is trying to kill you?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

Another question he didn’t want to answer. “Harrison.”

Her eyes grew wider. “Edward?”

“Yes.”

“How long, how long have you known?”

He forced himself to meet her eyes. “Since before we married.”

Her grip went slack, and her arm dropped to her side. “What?” She stared in shock. “This whole time? You’ve known he was out there gunning for you the whole time?”

“I knew he was angry and resentful, and more than capable of violence.”

She shook her head slowly. “Leo.”

Perhaps if he came out with everything there would be a way past this. “I’ve been looking into his record and whereabouts, to confirm my suspicions and establish a case to bring to Scotland Yard. He’s been here awhile, or rather he’s been out of the army for a while.”

“What does that have to do with any—”

“Your former fiancés.”

She froze, her big brown eyes flooding with horrified realization that made his heart ache. “What? He killed them? All of them?”

She had faced so much in her short life, he hated that she would have to suffer this as well. “Only the last two. He’s said some things that struck me as suspicious, so I’ve been looking into it.”

“Your friend. That Bolston fellow.”

“Bielson, yes. I’ve been handling it.”

“If you were handling it then why is he attacking us in the street?”

“Because he got away from me tonight,” he snapped.

It was already galling to have to admit his own failure.

She didn’t need to twist the knife. “Apparently certain people at Scotland Yard don’t think kindly of me especially now that I’ve taken this stupid fucking title.

I had him but they blew my cover, and I lost him.

I came from there to the dinner party because he told me he had someone watching you, but I didn’t know where. ”

She stared at him in silence, the gears in her head turning. “So you came running to make sure I hadn’t left?”

She had stopped shouting at least. Was that a sign that the worst had passed? Perhaps Bielson was right, all Leo had to do was tell her the truth.

“Yes.” He reached out and ran his hand over her arm. “I was trying to protect you.”

Her head tilted. “Keeping me ignorant of the danger we were both in was protecting me?”

Bielson was a bloody moron. “Devika.”

“No! How could you keep this from me? How could you lie?” She swatted his hand away and he took a step back. She was a short thing, but she could do real damage if provoked enough and he had no intention of wrestling his wife.

“I never lied to you about this.”

She squinted and he fought the urge to take a step backwards. “You let me believe all was well. If you knew he was in London we should never have returned here. But you agreed to all of it knowing I believed we were safe when you knew we weren’t.”

It was exactly what he had done but in his mind it didn’t sound so damming and stupid . He wasn’t used to feeling stupid. He didn’t like that either. “I wasn’t trying to lie to you.”

“I don’t care about your intentions. I don’t need you to coddle me as if I were a child.” She turned on her heel and started for the staircase.

“I know that,” he grumbled following after her.

“And what the devil do you mean you’ve been looking into it?

” She rounded on him, and he fell back a step.

“I hope you haven’t been sleuthing about London with—” she cut herself off and scoffed.

“Is that where you were tonight? What you’ve been doing all this time?

Leaving me to manage everything else on my own? ”

Perhaps a compliment? “You are better at all that other nonsense anyway.” The answering silence put him on his guard. He reconsidered what he had just said. Damn. “I didn’t mean—”

“All that other nonsense?” she repeated slowly.

“What I meant was that this is what I am good at. To each their own.”

“Each to their own strength, is that it? Is that the sort of husband you mean to be? Without so much as a ‘watch out for the rampaging murderer my dear’?”

“I didn’t mean—”

She shook her head, her mouth curling in a sneer of contempt. “I cannot. I cannot do this now.” She turned and walked away. Lifting her skirts with a delicate flick of her wrist as she started up the stairs.

He stood there watching her for a moment, his throat aching.

She hated him. She thought he was beneath her and to be fair he hadn’t put in a good showing so far as her husband, but it was beginning to wear on him that she wouldn’t acknowledge what he was trying to do, or how important his objective was.

He needed her to understand. He took a deep breath and followed her up the stairs.

“Rajani,” he called out.

She continued without a backward glance having clearly decided that he was a villain who had only considered his own selfish interests.

Which was the most infuriating thing. What right did she have to make him feel guilty about not attending a meal with the same pretentious people who had been sneering at her behind her back until now.

Who didn’t give a damn about her wellbeing.

As if he hadn’t been acting to protect them this whole time.

“Rajani.”

Nothing.

Fuck. He followed behind her. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” she sneered over her shoulder and his hands curled into a fist. The utter audacity of this woman. To mock him about this as if she wanted to fucking die before her time. The anger felt better, better than the guilt and shame at any rate.

“Thank you, it is much appreciated.”

“Oh I’m sorry, was that what I was meant to say?” she asked, as her lady’s maid began unlacing the back of her dress, sending nervous glances their way as her nimble fingers hurried to complete her task.

“I’m trying to speak to you.” He didn’t like arguing with their servant within earshot, but he wasn’t leaving either.

“Because you got caught?” she asked shrugging off her bodice and stepping out of her skirts.

“I—” His brain short circuited for a moment at the sight of her in her undergarments but she took that opportunity to light into him again.

“You know how terrified I’ve been about something happening to you. What it would mean for me to lose you so soon before—” she closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Before what? Before you secure your position with a baby?”