“I did not see he was Mr. Swift,” she said slowly. “I said he resembled him. Mr. Swift has relations in Ireland, does he not? Cousins, if I recall correctly.”
“He has an aunt and uncle who hail from Dublin, but that does not mean a bloody thing.”
“Not on its own, it does not.” Her mind was whirling, churning, spinning faster as it made sense of what had been unfolding over the last few weeks. “But think of the coincidences, Lucien. Mr. Swift searched Griffin’s study and found the incriminating evidence. The man who shot at your carriage that day looked very similar to Mr. Swift. And Mr. Swift hates Griffin. I could see it in his eyes when he kicked him earlier.”
She had also seen, for that moment before he had hidden it, an ugliness deep inside him. Violet was certain she had hit upon something. That Mr. Swift was responsible for everything that had happened, or at least connected to it in some way.
Before Lucien could respond, the door opened, and the Duke of Carlisle, Mr. Ludlow, and Mr. O’Malley swept over the threshold. The three of them resembled nothing so much as an army about to storm the enemy’s battlements.
“Where is Strathmore?” Carlisle demanded.
“He is under arrest and on his way to London,” Lucien said coldly. “What the hell are you doing here, Carlisle? The League is no longer within your purview, if you will recall.”
“I remembered something about Mahoney’s source,” Mr. O’Malley said then, his brogue thick. “He was someone close to you, Your Grace.”
“Mr. Swift,” Violet said, filled with the sudden combination of relief and dread. Relief because she knew she was right, and horrible, soul-weakening dread because Swift had taken Griffin.
“It cannot be,” Lucien said, but his tone lacked the confidence it had possessed mere moments before.
“Mr. Swift has taken Strathmore,” she told Carlisle, desperation surging through her. “We have to find them before it is too late!”
Because if it was too late, and if her instincts were correct—
No, she could not even think it. Would not. She had to get to Griffin.
“If this Swift character is indeed The Gryphon, he is dangerous,” Carlisle cautioned. “You ought to remain here and await our return.”
“There is no way I am staying behind,” she said. “My husband needs me.”
Griffin’s chin was split open, and though the blood had ceased to pour from his wound as vigorously as it had initially, he was still bleeding. It was slowly, silently coursing down his throat, settling into his neck cloth.
The carriage jostled and he emitted an involuntary grunt of pain, bringing a satisfied smile to Swift, who sat opposite him, looking smug. Griffin was fairly certain the son-of-a-bitch had cracked a rib when he kicked him. And the sadistic bastard had been about to hoof him again before Violet’s intervention. There was no mistaking it, Swift took pleasure in Griffin’s pain.
“You’ve been a difficult bird to catch, Strathmore,” Swift said into the silence as their conveyance swayed over the country roads. “But now you’re about to be caged at last.”
Caged.
The word produced a visceral reaction in him. It took him back to Paris, to the dank hole where he had been kept, existing on slop water and roasted rats, the only meat to be had in the city as the siege had worn endlessly on. It took him to the cruel, cold rage on his captor’s faces. To the merciless slice of blades upon his flesh, hundreds of tiny scores that had been just enough to cause him suffering and make him bleed. To the glowing tips of pokers that had been laid in a fire before burning into his flesh.
He could still recall the scent of his own skin, melting.
He began to sweat, nausea churning in his stomach, his face throbbing where he had taken Arden’s blows, his ribs aching, each breath he took laborious. For the last fortnight, his impending imprisonment had loomed, but he had convinced himself he could find the evidence that would exonerate him. He had been so certain he could prove his own innocence.
That all he had needed was time.
He had been wrong, and the situation in which he now found himself, shackled and bound for London, presided over by bloody Swift, proved that amply.
“Go to hell, Swift,” he forced himself to say now. He would be damned if he would allow the smarmy bootlicker to see him laid low.
“I daresay you’ll go there first.” Triumph underscored Swift’s taunt. “How does it feel, Duke? Betrayed by yet another cunny. The first time was Paris, was it not? And all these years later, here you are again, once more about to go to prison because you wanted to bed a whore.”
Griffin didn’t even think. He forgot about his ribs. Forgot about pain. Forgot, even, that he wore manacles, until he shot from the bench and launched himself at Swift. The impediment of his chains quickly became a boon when he planted his fists on either side of the other man’s head, pressing the chain tight against his throat.
He would accept his fate. He would go to prison if he must. He would fight to prove his innocence one way or another. But he would not, by God, allow any man to disparage Violet. No one called his woman a whore and got away with it.
“You will apologize for calling my wife a whore, you bastard,” he growled.
Swift’s grin faded as he struggled for breath. “Get off me, Strathmore.”
“Apologize,” he gritted, refusing to relent.
The temptation was there, to press the chain tighter. To cut off Swift’s air entirely. But then he would be guilty of murder, in addition to facing the charges of treason he was wrongly about to face.
The barrel of a pistol was suddenly jammed into his sore ribs.
“Stand down, or I will shoot you,” Swift ordered.
Damn it, what the hell had he been thinking?
Of course Swift was armed. When he did not move with enough haste, Swift forced the pistol harder into his ribs. He choked out a breath.
And as the blinding white surge of pain rocked through him, realization came with it, sudden and hard. In the waistcoat pocket of the Home Office. Why the hell had he never realized sooner? Why had he never even considered it? He had been looking everywhere, but in the most obvious direction.
The weasel within the League ranks was looking him in the eye and cocking his pistol.
“It was you,” he growled. “You are the one who planted the papers in my study. You are the bastard who sold the League secrets to John Mahoney, are you not?”
“You are deranged, Strathmore.” Swift clenched his teeth, delivering another vicious prod to Griffin’s ribs with the barrel of his gun. “Now get the fuck off me and plant your arse on the bench, or I will blow a hole straight through you.”
Even though he had issued a denial, Griffin had not missed the slight flare of the other man’s nostrils when he had leveled his accusations. Nor had he missed the way his pupils had dilated, growing huge and black and endless as the night.
Bloody hell.
He was right about this. He knew it instinctively. Just as he knew he must do something. Take action.
“I should kill you,” he said, pressing the chains harder into Swift’s throat. Already, a red mark had formed, dull and angry, a horizontal line over his Adam’s apple.
“I will kill you first.”
“Tell me the truth,” he persisted. “Admit you are The Gryphon.”
“Very well,” he snarled. “I am The Gryphon. But it is too late for you to do a goddamn thing about it.”
Swift shoved at him then, in the same moment the carriage rounded a bend, and Griffin lost his balance. The force of the motion dislodged his chains from Swift’s throat.
Swift took advantage, bringing his knee into Griffin’s midsection. Griffin doubled over at the blow, tears stinging his eyes and blurring his vision. He swung his manacled wrists toward Swift’s arm, hitting him in the wrist and knocking the pistol from his grasp as his finger pressed the trigger.
A gunshot tore through the carriage roof, the pistol skittering beneath the
opposite bench. He and Swift moved in unison, scrambling for the weapon. They were in a battle of life and death now. There was one reason Swift had given him his confession, and one reason only: he intended to assure himself of Griffin’s silence by killing him.
The carriage slammed to a halt, sending them both flying. He was vaguely aware of the sound of hooves, of hollering beyond the carriage. He wrestled with Swift, weaker because of his injuries and at a disadvantage thanks to his restraints. The pistol was within his reach.
A feminine scream rent the air.
He would know that voice anywhere.
It was Violet’s.
All Swift required was Griffin’s second of distraction to pounce. He landed a blow to Griffin’s already bleeding chin, sending more blood spurting forth. And then he had the pistol back in hand, its barrel trained upon Griffin’s head.
Swift cocked it. “Don’t make a goddamn move.”
The carriage door burst open before he could speak another word.
Up ahead, the carriage carrying Griffin and Mr. Swift was stopped, the echo of the report of a pistol ringing in her ears. One shot. That was all. Ominous and loud and terrifying.
Griffin had not been armed. His wrists and ankles had been shackled. The likelihood he had been able to defend himself, the likelihood he had just been shot and wounded, or worse, hit her like a leaden weight.
A scream tore from her; part denial, part fear, part terrible despair.
Somehow, she was out of the carriage, her feet moving, racing. Moving toward him.
Griffin was not dead. He could not be. No, he was not dead. It was all she could think, again and again, her heart beating fast enough to take flight like the wings of a bird. Her mouth was dry. Horror churned through her.
“Violet!” her brother’s voice, desperate and sharp, reached her. He caught her around the waist, hauling her back. “You cannot go. It could be dangerous. If Strathmore is…you will not want to see.”
She trembled with such violence her teeth clacked together, and still, she clawed at Lucien’s hands, trying to escape his hold.
This was a nightmare.
A nightmare from which she would wake, warm and content in Griffin’s arms, and he would kiss her and tell her all was well. That was what she wished, at least. Oh, how she wished it.
“I am going to him and you cannot stop me,” she said.
Already, Carlisle, Ludlow, and O’Malley were racing toward the carriage. The driver had left his seat and stood off to the side, cowering in fear, concerned only for his own safety.
“Listen to me.” Lucien wrenched her to face him, his grip tight, his expression even more so, fraught with concern. “Promise me you will await me here. No good can come of you putting yourself in danger.”
“No,” she shook her head, more determined than ever. “I will not wait here. I need to be there for him.”
But Lucien was cut from the same cloth as she, and he would not relent. “Damn it, Lettie, I am losing precious time by tarrying with you. Promise me you will wait here.”
She knew she needed to get to Griffin. To be by his side. But she also knew her brother would not release her until she gave him her promise.
She swallowed. “Go. I will wait here.”
He gave her a jerky nod, then released her and spun away, sprinting to the stopped carriage. Violet waited for a beat to pass before gathering up her skirts and following. From her vantage point at the side of the carriage opposite its door, she could see nothing.
Lucien raced around the carriage, and she would have too, but instinct told her to slow down and to stop. She did when she was nearly abreast of the carriage, her heart thudding in her chest, in her ears, her breathing harsh from the combination of her fear and the distance she had run from the parked carriage.
Hesitantly, she worked her way around the back of the carriage.
And that was when she heard the Duke of Carlisle’s booming directive. “Put the gun down, Swift.”
“Step away!” ordered Mr. Swift from within the carriage, a clear note of desperation in his voice. “If you do not lower your weapons and stand down, I will shoot Strathmore in the head, here and now. The Duke of Arden has tasked me with sending this traitor to prison, and I will not stop until I do my duty.”
Her breath caught, and she swallowed back a strangled cry. Griffin was not dead, thank the Lord. But he was perhaps wounded, and Mr. Swift was armed, threatening to shoot him.
“He is The Gryphon.” Griffin’s voice rang out next. “He is the man responsible for selling League secrets to Mahoney and the Fenians.”
“Cease your lies.” There was the dead thud of something hard connecting with flesh and Griffin’s quiet grunt of pain.
Violet bit her lip to keep from crying out. Dear God, everything she had feared was true. And now the villain was holding Griffin captive.
“I have seen you before.” Another voice, this one tinged with an unmistakable Irish brogue, entered the conversation. “In Dublin. I saw you meeting with Mahoney. You are the cousin of Thomas Rourke.”
Thank heavens for Mr. O’Malley. Lucien had to believe in Griffin’s innocence now.
“I have never seen you before in my life,” Mr. Swift denied. But there was a new edge in his tone, fear mingling with the desperation.
“Swift, please lay down your weapon and step out of the carriage,” Lucien said now, calm and soothing, cajoling, almost. “There is no need for anyone to be harmed here this evening. Lower the gun and release Strathmore.”
“I am innocent, Arden,” Mr. Swift insisted. “You must believe me.”
“Drop your weapon,” Lucien prodded instead of answering.
“No,” Swift denied. “Drop all of yours. Each one of you.”
“Swift,” Lucien began.
“I said drop them!” he yelled. “Now!”
From the side of the carriage, Violet watched as four male hands placed their weapons upon the ground.
“Kick them away from you,” Swift ordered next.
They did. One of the pistols—she recognized it as Lucien’s—slid across the gravel of the road to within her reach. Holding her breath, Griffin’s shooting lesson of that morning still vivid in her mind, she slowly, soundlessly, knelt and took up the gun. She did as Griffin had shown her, making certain it was loaded and ready to shoot.
“Why did you do it, Swift?” Lucien asked, perhaps trying to distract the man.
She listened carefully, inching toward the corner of the carriage.
“I have debts,” Mr. Swift said then, sounding angry. “I could not escape them on the pittance I earn in the employ of the Home Office. Selling the secrets did not begin as my idea. My cousin Thomas came to me first with the suggestion. I had been initially opposed to it, but in the end, something had to be done.”
“Debts?” Ludlow’s voice emerged now at last. “Good God, man! Debts are no reason to turn traitor against your own country.”
“The secrets I sold were all small, but they fetched a high price. Mahoney was willing to pay well. His successor has not been nearly as generous, and I have been forced to seek other methods.”
“Methods like apprising the Fenians of my whereabouts and providing them with the descriptions of my carriages,” Lucien said. “It was you who organized the shooting of my carriage, was it not?”
“An excellent touch, that.” Swift sounded pleased with himself. “It is a pity Thomas was a poor shot, else he may have at least put the old crone out of her misery.”
He spoke of Aunt Hortense’s death with such casual indifference, it sent a shudder through her. This man was mad. He was mad, and he was going to kill, not just Griffin, but all the men gathered, if she did not act.
“Who is the new leader of the Fenians?” Carlisle demanded.
“I suppose I can tell you since none of you will live to see tomorrow. You there, driver! Come stand with these other fine gentlemen. I would hate to have to shoot you while you are running.”
“You have but a six shooter and one round is already gone,” Lucien said.
“My aim is excellent. Five bullets. One for each of you. All I n—”
Chains rustled. Another dull thud of something connecting with human flesh made her shudder. Fresh horror roiling through her, and she peered around the corner of the carriage to find Griffin and Mr. Swift engaged in a battle over possession of the gun.
Turning and wrestling, they moved until at last Violet felt certain she could take aim and shoot. Griffin and Mr. Swift were far enough apart, Griffin using the chain on his shackled wrists as a means of immobilizing Swift.
Now was her chance. She held her breath, raised the gun with two hands, and trained the bead upon Mr. Swift’s head, just as Griffin had taught her. Holding her breath, she squeezed the trigger, bracing for the recoil.
The sharp report of the pistol shocked even her. She hit her intended target, and Mr. Swift fell instantly to the road, a pool of blood spreading from his head. She had done it.
Dear, sweet God, she had done it. She swayed on her feet, her ears ringing. For a moment, she feared she would faint.
Ludlow acted first, springing into motion, rushing forward to kick away the pistol from Mr. Swift’s body.
“Lettie!”
“Your Grace!”
A shocked chorus of masculine voices pierced the haze surrounding her. She had eyes for only one man, and he was bloody and bruised, wrists and ankles shackled, but she had never seen a more beautiful sight.
“He is dead,” Ludlow pronounced of Mr. Swift.
Which meant she had just killed a man. But it also meant she had saved the lives of five others.
Lucien was at her side, plucking the gun from her numb fingers. “I told you not to follow me. But I am damned glad you did not heed me.”
“Vi!” Griffin cried out then.
“Go to him,” Lucien told her.
She did not hesitate. She ran to her husband, to the man she loved, and she threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck and inhaling deeply of his beloved scent. His throat was wet with blood and with her tears, and she was holding him so tightly she feared her arms would snap.
Dangerous Duke Page 27
