Page 114 of His Wife, the Spy
“A mine is never empty, Abel,” Kit said. “You know that. And you also know that death adds legitimacy to any strike and urgency to any negotiations. Are you certain Spencer means to keep this bloodless?”
Collins blinked at them.
How long will it take Stapleton and Travis to get up the stairs? How will I know when they are there?
“He’s not a man to trust, Abel.” Kit sounded calm, but his hands were shaking.
“Says the man who wants to stretch my neck for murder.” Collins lifted Annabel’s chin to a height that made Jasper lose his breath.
Something in her fist caught the light, like jewels under a chandelier in a ballroom. That made no sense. The only jewels she kept at home were her wedding ring and her hatpin.
“Dear God,” Lawrence muttered. “She wouldn’t.”
She would, if pressed. The only option was to keep everyone, including Annabel, calm.
“I want to see you get a fair trial for something everyone in Cardiff believes you did, given the stories we’ve heard.” Jasper spoke to Collins but focused on his wife, willing her to wait. “Spencer will weave a tale that lays everything at your feet.”
“Either path, I hang.” Collins used his body and the pressure from his cane to steer Annabel toward the stairs. “So you and the bastard earl are going to let me out of this house and out of London, and I’ll leave her ladyship at the Welsh border.”
“Or you can tell the prime minister about Spencer’s plan to create a coal shortage and hold the country hostage.”
Collins paused halfway down the stairs. “You have been busy.”
I have a brilliant wife.
Jasper kept his face to Collins, using the turn of the stairs to move closer, even by the smallest step. This situation was deteriorating. “There are alternatives to hanging.”
He was certain he was wrong. He hoped he was lying to the man. What was more, he hoped Collins didn’t know he was lying.
The man’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and his eyes hardened. His knuckles grew white.
And then he was screaming and shoving Annabel away, reaching for both his arm and his foot at the same time. Annabelwas a waterfall of blue muslin tumbling down the stairs. The crack as she struck the banister echoed through Jasper.
The hatpin was still vibrating in Collins’s shoulder as he raised his cane and roared, signaling a charge down the stairs. Stapleton and Travis came into the upstairs hallway, weapons at their shoulders. Lawrence and Frederick raised their guns from below.
Jasper rushed to Annabel’s side. On his knees, he put his arm up to block the blow, should it arrive.
“Alive!” Kit shouted as he put himself between their private army and the man they’d hunted for months. “We need him alive.”
There was a thunder of steps and shouts on the stairs. Collins thudded against the plaster more than once, spewing profanity. Jasper didn’t care about any of it.
Annabel wasn’t moving.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Annabel sat onthe front row of the gallery, her hands clutching her reticule to keep them from reaching for her throbbing head. The rail was the only thing blocking her view of the chamber below.
Reginald Spencer was being led away. His wife and daughter had stayed in Bath.
“Will he go to the same prison as…the other man?” Claudette asked. She flatly refused to say Abel Collins’s name.
“Likely not. He’ll have better food and fewer rats.” Below them, Jasper was deep in discussion with Drake Fletcher. “But he’ll be there longer.”
Is he searching for a new man of business? A proper one?Annabel bit her cheek to quell her smile.Properwould make Jocelyn laugh.
“Though I went to war with Gareth, I never considered myself a warrior, never thought of myself as hostile.” Claudette drew a deep breath. “I am most definitely hostile.”
Annabel’s neck was still stiff from her tumble down the stairs. “I’ll go with you to the hanging.”
