Page 27

"I have been watching the wrong front," Xavier said, voice tight with self-reproach. "Too much attention to matters abroad. And now, a rat has made its nest in my walls, fouling my shelter."

Peregrine’s fingers stopped biting into her side. "So it seems," he murmured.

"These few," Xavier continued, nudging one of the sprawled bodies with the toe of his boot, "sought to claim the bounty on Her Grace. You should take her home."

His tone had softened, but it was not warm.

"There are weapons of every sort," he added as he turned. "But it seems coin is our adversary’s preference."

Then he inclined his head in a brief, almost mocking bow, and turned on his heel, vanishing into the trees without another word. The gloom swallowed him whole.

Charity clutched Perry's coat, scarcely believing it was over. They were both alive. Somehow, against all odds, they were both still alive.

Peregrine turned to her, taking her trembling hand in his. "Come now, we must go."

Charity nodded silently, taking only a single step. A sharp pain lanced up her leg from the ankle she had twisted earlier. As she faltered, Peregrine caught her, sweeping her up without hesitation.

“Put your arms about my neck,” he told her, striding towards the entrance to Vauxhall.

After that, neither dared speak. The urgency of their escape quickened his steps and sharpened every sound in the dark. Charity’s heart thudded against her ribs, and she kept casting glances over his shoulder, half-expecting more figures to emerge from the shadows.

At last, the welcome sight of the gates came into view. Only a handful of stragglers remained, but no one she recognised, thank God. Most of the ton had already departed .

Perry seemed to have the same thought. “Keep your head down. The carriage is close.”

Though it was only a short distance, Charity let out a soft breath of relief when she saw it: his carriage, lanterns burning like beacons in the dark. Hodges and the footmen leapt down the moment they saw Peregrine carrying her, hurrying forward to assist.

“I’ve got her,” Peregrine said, his arms tightening around her. Jack opened the door for him, and Peregrine lifted her in, all but bundling her into the safety of the carriage.

Climbing in after her, he took the opposite bench and lifted her foot, running his hands carefully over her ankle. And as the carriage lurched into motion, Charity bit her lip and struggled not to unravel.

Could fate not let them even have just one perfect night?

“Am I hurting you?” he asked her softly, mistaking the cause of her stiff silence. And she saw something there, then, that she had never seen so clearly on his face before. Not when he usually clothed himself in mockery and charm.

There was a naked vulnerability. She turned her face away, feeling shame at seeing it exposed, as if she were a peeper. “No, Perry,” she said, feeling bitter. “Not you.”

Peregrine let her leg slide down to rest upon the floor, and then he let his face rest in his hands instead, breathing steadily.

He is blaming himself . The thought compelled her to move, crossing to the other bench.

She pulled on his shoulder, forcing him to return upright. And then she wrapped her arms around his neck again, this time to offer him comfort instead of taking it. “I am all right,” she whispered, kissing his brow as if he were a bruised child. “You protected me, just as you said you would.”

His breath shuddered against her neck, and he wrapped his hands around her waist. For a moment, he clung to her fiercely. But then he transferred her gently back to the far bench and pulled the curtains shut completely.

Charity swallowed, feeling the hurt of it even as she understood why he did it.

He was trying to build the wall between them again, to keep the boundaries that others would enforce.

The veils began to fall over his eyes once more, and a part of her hated herself for saying nothing to try to stop it.

“Xavier is not my mother’s man. I would stake my life on it,” he said distantly, and Charity could barely make out the movement of his arm as he raked his fingers over his forelock, pinning it back. “I suppose I staked both of our lives on it.”

“Don’t hog all the blame,” she told him tartly, trying to lift his mood. “I should like some for myself. Well if there is one boon from this, it is that we are only stuck guessing from among Chandros, Pembroke, and Goldbourne now. Do you think he might be trustworthy enough to help us?”

Peregrine shook his head firmly. “I would not dare to. But I think Xavier may have trusted us. At least, he trusted us enough to provide us with one other clue.”

Reviewing her memory, Charity was dismayed by how badly her wits had been scattered by the attack. “I am afraid I did not understand it.”

“For days, I have been wracking my brain, trying to make sense of the pieces. There is a line that can be traced, from my mother to you and myself, to Selina, the Crown, and even to Sidmouth. But I could not connect Cavendish and the riot unless one dismissed him as only a victim of convenience—the easiest way to get to the others.”

“But, would that not be true?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “It would, and perhaps that should have been enough. But—have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue? It is like that. I have been so certain there was something else. Something I couldn’t see.

Eldon was the same. It did not quite make sense.

Not until Xavier said that he thought our foe was using money as his weapon. ”

“The paid rioters. The printed bills,” Charity began, her forehead creasing. “My bounty.”

“The people who worked for my mother, disappearing,” he added. “Whoever does this has access to their own money, or my mother’s funds.”

“Like a banker?”

“Or someone like Lord Pembroke. With a generous old income, and money from industrialists besides,” he agreed.

“Would Duke Chandros not have the money?”

“He might have access to my mother’s funds,” Peregrine admitted after a moment to consider. “But Chandros consorts with mostly military men. He is the Order’s strategist, and he would never encounter someone like Mr Cameron as easily as Lord Pembroke, who works with the tradesmen.”

“That seems to make sense then. It would be hard to imagine that a man I have met could be that callous to murder us, but…”

She imagined his lip was curled now, because she could hear the amused resignation in his voice when he answered. “But you have met my mother.”