Page 93 of A Little Bit Dangerous
They all came to a halt behind the makeshift stage.
Isabella gripped the wine bottle. She peered through a narrow gap in the curtain and assessed the scene.
“Lower your weapon, Lawton.” Mr Daventry’s voice echoed through the elegant ballroom. “Don’t bank on me tiring. I can keep a straight aim all night.”
“Take me down, and I’ll take you all with me.”
Mr Daventry laughed. “You’ll die now or on the scaffold. Everyone here will testify against you or risk being charged with a crime. The Home Secretary is on his way. I have the place surrounded. Your men have the option to lower their weapons and save their necks.”
Isabella searched the throng.
She found Christian standing firm with his pistol pointed at her father. If only Mr Daventry hadn’t asked him to help at the museum. He would be at the club, out of harm’s way, not embroiled in this godforsaken mess.
Please don’t fire, my love!
“Don’t listen to him,” her father sneered. “We can save ourselves if we shoot them.” He spoke to a man in the crowd. “Lord Bardsley, do you want your wife to know you came to purchase a woman for your own amusement? If we take these men out, no one need know your sordid secret.”
“Does Lord Bardsley want to die?” Aaron Chance said coldly. “Does he want me to hound his son to the grave, strip him of his assets to pay for his father’s mistake? You’ve no chance of killing us all. Surrender. It’s the only option.”
“Never!” her father spat.
Afraid time had run out, Isabella stepped from behind the curtain. She held the wine bottle behind her back, her hands shaking so violently she would probably miss the target.
“There’s another option,” she said, catching her father off guard.
“Isabella?”
“Don’t shoot!” Christian cried—she would know his voice anywhere. “Don’t hurt her. For God’s sake, lower your weapons.”
“It’s too late, Father.” She saw the conte’s lifeless body lying facedown on the stage, a rush of relief calming her momentarily. Her gaze moved to the dead man in the aisle. A man who bore a remarkable likeness to Mr Griffin. “I shall persuade them to let you go free. I’ll go with you if you leave now.”
She considered her options as she edged closer.
One could not murder a man and live to tell the tale.
“As if I would trust you,” her father scoffed. “You’re as wicked as your mother.” As expected, he aimed his pistol at her heart. “Foolish girl. What do you have behind your back, Isabella?”
“Wine, Father.” With slow, measured movements she showed him the bottle, though her heartbeat thundered in her throat. “It’s one of the conte’s finest vintages. We can drink it together once we’re away from here. If you take me as a hostage, Christian will let us leave. If you want to live, it’s your only choice.”
She prayed he didn’t see Ethel and Mr Sloane pointing their pistols through the curtain. Prayed she wouldn’t get hit by a stray shot.
Her father sneered. “Why the hell would I want to leave with you? I couldn’t stand you as a girl. The woman is equally loathsome.”
The cruel words failed to penetrate her armour.
Then a strange bird call echoed through the ballroom.
Mr Daventry recognised the sound immediately and waved for his men to lower their weapons. Her father’s men looked at the ceiling, her cue to hurl the bottle at her father’s head.
Isabella launched the bottle and threw herself onto the floor. She hit the stage with a thud, knocking the air from her lungs. It hurt to draw breath.
She didn’t know if the bottle had hit her father. She didn’t know who fired the two shots. But the wooden boards shook beneath her as a body hit the stage.
The smell of sulphur assaulted the air.
Then her world went black.
ChapterTwenty
