In a few brief words, Christian told them.
“We can catch him, or come very close.” Tristan caught Christian’s eyes. “With God’s help, close enough to save her.”
“He’s got what sounds like nearly an hour’s head start,” Justin pointed out.
“True, but he’s new to the area. I’m not.” Tristan smiled intently. “There’s shortcuts he won’t know about—with luck we can make up half an hour just getting out of town.” He glanced at Christian. “We need curricles and fast horses. I’m close enough to fetch mine.”
Justin slanted a glance at Dalziel. “I can get mine.”
Dalziel nodded. “Go. I’ll travel with Dearne.”
“We’ll meet back here—at the corner,” Christian declared.
They scattered, Tony striding off with Tristan, Justin disappearing along Curzon Street with Barton trotting at his heels, Dalziel accompanying Christian back to Grosvenor Square.
She was alone—but this time Christian would come for her.
Letitia lay on her side on the seat of Swithin’s carriage and kept her eyes closed. The horrible stuff he’d used to drug her had left her nauseated, but the sensation was slowly ebbing.
Her faculties were slowly returning.
They were traveling southward; the direction from which sunlight fell through the carriage windows told her that. She recalled hearing that Swithin had a country house in Surrey; presumably he was taking her there.
Or perhaps he intended putting her on a boat to who knew where?
A possibility, but she didn’t think it likely.
She thought he meant to kill her; how, she didn’t know, exactly where, she didn’t know, but if his aim was to halt the sale of the company without saying anything—without letting anyone who knew of his descent into poverty live…then he was going to have to kill her.
Telling her he’d killed Randall, telling her why, even if it didn’t make all that much sense to her, showed very clearly what he planned for her.
Therefore her only goal until this was over was to avoid being killed.
She had to slow him down until Christian came.
Her confidence that he would was, somewhat to her surprise, rock solid. Unshakable, unwavering. He might not have come to save her years ago, but then he hadn’t known she’d needed saving. This time he would know; this time he would come.
She examined that certainty and what fed it. In her heart, locked away though it was, she no longer doubted his devotion to her. Circumstances or fate might part them, yes, but he never would.
And nor would she.
But she hadn’t yet told him that. Hadn’t found the courage or the moment…No. In light of her heart’s certainty, given her predicament, she might as well be brutally honest—she hadn’t found the backbone to set aside her pride, to relinquish the one prop she’d had left to her and openly embrace him and their love again.
To, in the eyes of their world, claim it, and him, for her own again.
Damn!
Pride had twisted Swithin into a murderer. She wasn’t, she vowed, going to let that less than admirable trait deprive her of the one thing she most wanted in life—Christian, and through him, the resurrection of their dreams.
She wasn’t going to die, and she wasn’t going to let pride retain any further hold on her.
And she certainly wasn’t going to let a sad case like Swithin take their future—the future they’d waited twelve long years for—from them.
Determined, she carefully cracked open her lids and peered through her lashes. Swithin sat dozing on the opposite seat.
Very carefully, she straightened her legs, seeking to ease her cramped muscles. Only to detect, then confirm, that he’d hobbled her. Her ankles weren’t lashed tight, but they were joined—she could part them only a few inches, not even a foot.
Faintly horrified, she tried to move her hands—and discovered her wrists were tied together. Without moving too much, she squinted down at the knots—and cursed long and vividly, if silently.