Page 86 of The Wayward Duke
Her lashes fluttered open. “If you stay with me when others are in danger, I will throw all your belongings into the Thames myself. I know extracting me from a watery grave wasn’t all Kellerman had planned for you.”
Julian swallowed. “I won’t leave you.”
Not like before.
Not after Grace. Not after Tristan.
“We aren’t the same as we were then,” she said. “Understand me?”
Julian only brushed his lips over Caroline’s brow. Through the fog’s dark maw, Stafford House emerged. As the coach rolled to a jarring halt, Julian’s grip tightened on her.
“Go.” Her nails dug into his wrist. “Don’t make me argue with you about this when I’ve only just escaped drowning, you insufferable oaf.” She sounded utterly exhausted.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.
“I know.” She clutched a fistful of his shirt. “Nowgo.”
With utmost care, Julian eased open the door and handed Caroline down to the waiting footman below.
“Take the duchess upstairs, put her in a warm bath.” He relinquished her limp body reluctantly to the man’s steady grip. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The man nodded, face grim. “Consider it done, Your Grace.”
As the man bore Caroline up the front steps, some primal part of Julian snarled in protest. Wrong, wrong. She belonged with him.
But she’d asked him to go.
Somehow, he composed himself enough to give the coachman a terse order. “To Parliament.”
Soon, the looming edifice of the Palace of Westminster came into view. Inside, Julian strode past empty benches and dark alcoves, following the growing sounds towards their source. There, in the oldest part of the labyrinthine building, he found Wentworth and his agents.
“Any sign of Kellerman?” Julian asked without preamble.
Wentworth’s mouth flattened. “No. I received your letter and had already started evacuating when I got here, thanks to Pritchard conveniently recalling the plans after some persuasive questioning that may or may not have left him without some non-vital appendages. But finding a needle of a bomb in a haystack this size is near impossible.”
Julian forced aside emotion and sifted his memory. Through the stacks of papers and scrawled missives littering his desk, inked visions of chaos and retribution. He sought one thread among the tangle. “He had times in his notes. Storage in Wapping for supplies.”
Renovations, Caroline had mentioned when she noted the pattern. Timings Kellerman would have used to bring the parts for his explosives inside – using the construction as a front to smuggle in his supplies.
“The north wing repairs,” Julian said. “Where they’ve torn up the original foundation.”
Wentworth’s eyes sharpened. He was already moving, falling into step behind Julian. “With me, lads,” he shouted to his men, voice booming off the rafters. “And bring lanterns unless you fancy getting buried in the dark if this place blows.”
They plunged through pools of lamplight and shadows, footsteps echoing off stone. Soon, they had descended a winding stair to an arched passageway lined with dusty crates and tools. Iron nails studded the low ceiling. The raw dirt floor had been churned to mud beneath countless workmen’s boots.
At Wentworth’s signal, the men fanned out. They advanced slowly, searching the cramped cavity’s nooks and crevices. Seeking any wires or levers hinting at a deadly purpose. But the crowded space appeared mundane and harmless – just an abandoned worksite beneath London’s skin like countless others.
Wentworth turned down a narrow side passage, crouching under crumbling timbers. Julian followed close behind, pulse thundering.
There. His boot scuffed something smooth and metal hidden in the mud.
Julian froze. Dread congealed in his chest as the lantern illuminated the object. A copper coil attached to a tidy line of explosives. The device Kellerman had smuggled inside brick by innocuous brick.
Wentworth went still, body coiled taut as a spring. His harsh exhalation was the only sound beyond their hushed breaths. Grim purpose hardened his features to granite. With his free hand, Wentworth gestured down the left fork. Towards a faint rim of light outlining a doorway just visible around a gentle curve.
Towards their prey. Waiting to spring his trap and bury them all.
They closed the distance. Pressed themselves to either side of the arched entrance. Inside came the scrape of a match, blooming to a dim glow. The shuffle of boots over dirt as a figure moved within the small chamber.
