Page 79 of A Courtship of Conspiracies
The lantern flickered.
“Release. My. Wife,” he said, each word cut from restraint.
It was no lie. No frantic claim made only to save her. Kate was his wife. His partner. His future. The one vow he would never regret. And this man, whoever he was, would not take her from him.
The assailant tightened his arm across Kate’s shoulders, his pistol angled against her side, his face shrouded in darkness. Kate made a furious sound behind the gag. Rage coiled in James’s chest until he could scarcely breathe.
“Your wife? Interesting development,” the voice in the shadows drawled.
The assailant’s voice struck him with a terrible, sickening familiarity, but James’s mind refused to place it.
No.
“I would have expected you to choose any weapon other than a pistol to rescue someone who mattered so much to you,” the voice mocked.
The words turned familiarity into dread. James knew that voice. He had trusted it.
It could not be. It was impossible.
The flame guttered as the man inched forward, his weapon trained on Kate. The light caught the line of his jaw, the old scar near his temple, the smile James had not seen in months.
“Henry.”
James could not move. Every muscle locked, and his mind refused what he saw. Sound fell out of the room—the scrape of Kate’s breath behind the gag, the wind rattling the window shutters, even the blood pounding in his ears. Grief had made a ghost of Henry for months, but this was no ghost before him. This was Henry, alive and smiling, a pistol aimed at Kate.
Henry’s smile turned cruel. “You always were quick.”
“I saw your blood on the stones of the bridge.”
“Did you? Or did you see only what I wanted you to see? A gunshot, a paid witness, a coat left behind.” Henry gave a small shrug. “You trusted the performance. Then you supplied the guilt. The Thames did the rest for me, though it left me with a little memento.”
Henry’s weight shifted, revealing the slight favor he gave one leg. His deception had left its mark.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath James, every certainty of the last months coming apart at once. His hand went to his coat pocket. The token seemed to burn against his chest, its familiar shape suddenly wrong. He had carried it like a talisman. A promise. A reminder that Henry deserved justice.
And Henry had been alive all along.
James’s voice came out low and uneven. “You let me mourn you.”
“You thought my absence a tragedy,” Henry said. “I made it an opportunity.”
Rage broke through his shock. “So you betrayed your duty as an agent? For what? To run errands for the Arcadian Circle?”
“Errands?” Henry laughed and shook his head. “Oh, James.”
James went rigid as the pieces slid into place. All this time, the name he had been chasing had belonged to the man he had mourned.
“You’re The Sentinel.”
“Bravo. I knew I shouldn’t underestimate you.” Pride flashed across Henry’s face. “The Circle has hundreds who believe in its cause, but there are only twelve of us to lead it. Twelve who understand what England can, and must, become.”
James knew where to wound him, to unsettle him. “They made you one of the twelve? Or do they only let you believe it?”
“I earned my place.” Henry’s voice hardened. “Westmarch sent me to investigate them. To expose them. Instead, I listened.”
“They told you only what you wanted to hear.”
“They saw the decay in this country for what it was,” Henry insisted. “The old order rewards complacent fools, while men of ability are expected to wait politely for scraps. Arcadia offered power to those with the courage to take it.”
