Page 121 of Thief of the Ton
“I-I don’t wish to harm anyone,” she said. “I only want the clock—please.”
“Please?” Walton said. “Oh, he’ssopolite! Go on, then, you bastard—shoot me, if you dare.”
A third man stepped out of the carriage, and Lavinia let out a cry as she recognized his tall, lean shape.
Peregrine…
She curled her fingers around the reins, and Samson shifted beneath her, as if he sensed her distress.
“Drop your weapon,” Peregrine said, the deep, warm voice she loved now cold and hard. “Do it now, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
Shaking, she tightened her grip on the pistol.
“Isaiddrop your weapon!” he roared.
What a fool she’d been! Not only had she walked into a trap, but she’d placed her head inside the noose.
Walton let out another laugh. “Coward!” he taunted her. “You’re not man enough to shoot me—you don’t have the balls.”
“That’s enough, Father!” Peregrine cried.
“Ha!” Walton barked. “You’re just as bad.” He turned to Lavinia. “You’re a fool to risk your neck for a worthless trinket, all for the sake of a whore! Lily de Grande let me fuck her—did you know that?”
Mama…
Hatred coursed through her—hatred for the man who’d ruined Papa, then attempted to desecrate her mother’s memory—and she curled her forefinger around the trigger.
But she couldn’t do it. Better if he lived out the rest of his life in bitterness, his own evil eating away at him from within like a canker.
She shook her head and lowered the pistol.
A flash flared in front of her, followed by a loud crack. An explosion of pain tore through her shoulder. Her fingers twitched, and the pistol in her hand jerked upward as it fired, emitting a puff of blue smoke. Pain radiated from her arm until her whole body resonated with it.
Houseman had shot her.
Clutching the reins in one hand, her father’s pistol in the other, she glanced up. Houseman stood by the carriage, a smile of satisfaction on his lips, holding his spent pistol as the final vestiges of smoke emanated from the end of the barrel. Beside him, Walton stared at her, his face white with fury. He jabbed a finger in her direction. “You…murdering bastard!”
She glanced toward the footman’s post at the rear of the carriage.
But the post was empty. Instead, on the ground beside the carriage was the prone body of a man wearing a footman’s livery.
Cold fingers clawed at her stomach, and she leaned forward and retched.
Walton threw the clock to the ground and sprang forward. “I’ll have you for that, you bastard!”
The instinct to flee took over, and she sat up and clawed at the reins. Her heart racing, she turned Samson in a tight circle, then spurred him on, urging him into a gallop.
Only when she’d reached home did she slow him to a trot and dare look behind. But there was no sign of pursuit.
She slid off Samson’s back, turning her ankle as she landed, then led the horse into his stall. Biting her tongue to stem the pain in her arm, she fumbled at the straps on the saddle and removed it. Then she limped toward the cottage and slipped inside.
There was no sound, other than the faint snoring from the Bates’s bedchamber at the back of the cottage. Feeling her way in the dark, Lavinia tiptoed through the parlor until her fingers met the squat, solid shape of the decanter. Then she climbed the staircase, taking care to miss the creaky step at the turn.
She paused at the top of the stairs, and the image threatened to engulf her, swelling with intensity like a great tide—a man in a footman’s livery, lying on the roadside…
No—do not think of it!
She pushed open the door to her chamber, wincing at the creak of wood. Once inside, she checked that the curtains were drawn, then struck a flint and lit a candle. She peeled off her garments, and her stomach churned at the metallic stench of blood. Then she inspected her arm in the flickering candlelight. A shallow groove ran along the muscle of her shoulder, glistening with thick red moisture, but there was no sign of the lead ball. She reached for the decanter and soaked her shirt in brandy. Then she pressed it against the wound. She let out a low moan at the sharp sting that sliced through her flesh like a knife. But, at length, the pain subsided. Then she tore a strip from the shirt and wound it around her arm, securing it with a knot. While she worked, she focused her attention on the sounds outside. But the night was quiet, as if a shroud had descended over the world.
