Page 65 of King's Man

“Be damned to justice,” Farris crowed. “MacLeod’s so pleased I had the wretch locked up that he’s signing our contract today. His lordship’s muskets will reach Boston, Congress will be nicely distracted from meddling in the African trade. And I, gentlemen, will be all the richer for it. Calls for a toast, eh? Where’s the bloody brandy?”

Nate said nothing. It took all his concentration to keep from screaming. Horror pressed in from every side, worse in each direction he looked. Taylor was dead, his killer would go unpunished. And Sam sat in jail, facing the gallows for MacLeod’s crime.Christ. He thought he might vomit.

But then a worse realization struck.

This was his fault.

Because of course Talmach had uncovered Sam's past; Talmach uncoveredeverything. And Nate had been an arrogant, selfish damned fool to think he could hide the truth from him. What the devil had he been thinking letting Sam get involved with this business in the first place? He should have warned him off from the start, protected him from Talmach's notice. Because when Talmach said he’d had Sam traced last night, he meant he’d had Nate followed.

He meant Nate had led Talmach straight to Sam.

“Dear God.” He hadn’t meant to speak, hadn’t meant to curl forward in his seat.

“God’s balls, Tanner.” Farris paused in the act of pouring brandy. “If you’re going to shoot the bloody cat, at least have the decency to do it outside.”

Outside, yes. Nate lurched to his feet, pressing a hand to his stomach. He didn’t have to feign illness. Talmach raised one dark eyebrow, his look a silent warning. Well, he could take his warning to the devil. “Please excuse me, Mr. Farris.” Nate backed toward the door. “Forgive me.”

Farris ignored him, grinning as he lifted his brandy in salute, knocking his glass against Talmach’s. “To trouble and opportunity, sir. Long may they reign.”

Nate fled. He stumbled along the docks, blind to where he was going, his thoughts running in ghastly circles. Sam would hang. Dear God, Sam woulddie. He put out a hand, clutched blindly at a railing as he bent double, his hollow stomach emptying bile into the dirt.

Sam would hang. His beautiful, beautiful boy would hang like a criminal. A sob choked his throat and he went to his knees, still clutching the railing. He had no hope. Who would take Sam’s word over MacLeod’s? Who would believe him? Nobody.

Sam would hang.

And it would be all Nate’s fault.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The holding room at the back of the Brown Bear was empty aside from the vagrant snoring in the opposite corner and stinking of gin and piss.

Sam sat slumped on a wooden bench, leaning his back against cold stone, with his eyes fixed on the room’s high window. It looked out over nothing but soot-black brickwork, a heavy iron bar bolted across its cracked glass, but it was all that told Sam that he wasn’t back in Simsbury Mine, thrown down into that dark, dank pit.

Forsaken.

He lost track of time. But he’d been there long enough for dawn to come and go. The city clocks had been chiming two when Groves turned the key in the lock, and Sam had heard nothing from him since.

A small mercy.

He wondered why he wasn’t more afraid. Death scared him — he knew it did — yet he didn’t feel frightened. He didn’t feel much of anything. A great deadening fog sat between him and the world. He knew the terror was out there, but he couldn’t touch it or see it or feel it. He supposed the numbness was something to welcome; the fog would lift soon enough.

More time passed.

And then the door opened, creaking on heavy hinges. An unfamiliar man appeared. “Oi, Hutchinson,” the Bow Street officer said, “you’ve a visitor.”

An unmanning bolt of hope pierced his stupor: Nate?

It wasn’t Nate. But it was at least a friendly face. Sam got stiffly to his feet. “Cole.” His rusty voice scratched his throat and he coughed to clear it. “Fancy meeting you here…”

Cole rolled his eyes and sat down on the bench, flicking out the tails of his coat. “Groves told me he’d brought you in, but I had to see for myself. Even by his low standards, this is ridiculous.”

Against all odds Sam found a shadow of a smile as he lowered himself back to the bench. His jaw throbbed where Groves had struck him. “What did he tell you?”

“That a peer of the realm has laid evidence against you.” He sighed and studied Sam’s bruised face. “They’re saying you’ll hang for murder.”

His stomach coiled around a nub of anger — the only kernel of life left in him. “It’s a lie. MacLeod killed Taylor himself. I saw him do it. He was raging like a madman. And he’d have shot me, too, if Nate —”

He didn’t finish the thought.

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