Page 81 of Lady Sophia's Lover
“Sophia,” he thundered, “if that is you, I’m going to beat you senseless.”
“Gentry is waiting with me,” came her voice again. “Don’t try to cross that wall!”
“I wasn’t planning to,” he retorted, struggling to contain his fury as he realized that she had disobeyed his request to stay safe. “Stay there.”
It seemed to take forever to make his way back through the prison. Ross moved in contained panic, running when possible, ignoring the screams and epithets that filled the air as he passed floor after floor. Finally he went out through the entrance and headed around the building in a full-tilt run. He saw a small crowd of onlookers, horse and foot patrols, and Sayer and Gee, all waiting at a respectful distance from his wife and her captive.
“Sir Ross,” Sayer said anxiously, “she got to him before any of us saw him—she told us to stay back here or—”
“Keep everyone away while I deal with this,” Ross snapped.
Obediently the runners steered the crowd back several more yards as Ross strode to his wife. Sophia’s face relaxed when she saw him, and she yielded the pistol to him without a murmur.
“Where did you get this?” he asked mildly, his voice strained with the effort to keep from bellowing.
“I took it from the footman,” Sophia said apologetically. “It wasn’t his fault, Ross. I’m sorry, but I heard the gaol-keeper tell Mr. Sayer that Gentry had escaped… and then they left, and I was looking through the carriage window, and I happened to see my brother on the rooftop—”
“Later,” Ross interrupted, yearning to apply his hand to her posterior until she howled. Instead he focused on solving the problem at hand.
He glanced at Gentry, who observed them with a sneer. “So this is how you take care of my sister?” Gentry demanded. “Well, she’s in good hands, isn’t she? Traipsing around Newgate at night with a pistol!”
“John,” Sophia protested. “He didn’t—”
Ross silenced her by placing a firm hand on the back of her neck. “You are fortunate that she stopped you,” he informed Gentry coldly.
“Oh, I’m a lucky bastard indeed,” Gentry muttered.
Ross stared at him speculatively, wondering if he was about to make a grave mistake, and knowing that he probably was. He had conceived of a plan that might save his brother-in-law’s neck and even benefit Bow Street, but it was an obvious gamble. There was an explosive mixture of elements in Gentry’s character—the brave thief-taker, the sinister underworld lord, the hero, the devil. Curiously, Gentry seemed caught in the middle, unable to decide what he was going to be. But if placed in the right hands, and molded by a will stronger than his own…
No one has ever given him an opportunity to change, Sophia had said.If he had just one chance at a different life…think of the kind of man he could become.
Ross was going to give him that chance, for Sophia’s sake. If he did not try to help her brother, it would be a permanent wedge between them. “I am going to make you an offer,” he told Gentry. “I advise you to consider it carefully.”
A cynical smile crossed the young man’s face. “This should be interesting.”
“You’re aware of the evidence against you. If I choose, I can make it disappear.”
Gentry stared at him with sudden alert interest, as he was entirely familiar with the process of deal-making. “What of the witness who is ready to testify?”
“I can also manage that.”
“How?”
“How I handle it is none of your business.” Ross did not glance at Sophia when he heard her sharply in-drawn breath. He sensed her astonishment that he would be willing to compromise his principles for her brother’s sake. In almost a dozen years in the judiciary, he had never done anything that could be considered corrupt. Manipulation of evidence and witnesses went completely against his nature. However, he swallowed down his scruples and continued grimly. “In return for my efforts, I want something from you.”
“Of course,” Gentry said sardonically. “That’s not hard to guess. You want me to leave the country and disappear.”
“No. I want you to become a runner.”
“What?” Gentry demanded.
“Ross?” Sophia asked at the same time.
Were Ross not so doggedly intent, he would have been amused by the blank looks in the identical pairs of blue eyes before him.
“Don’t play with me, Cannon,” Gentry said in annoyance. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll—”
“You call yourself a thief-taker,” Ross said. “Let’s see if you are man enough to do it by the rules. Without brutality or lies or false evidence.”
