Page 105 of A Treacherous Trade
“I’m s-sorry you didn’t get them back.” I couldn’t seem to get warm, even as close to their bodies as I sat.
“It’s all right. I have them all memorized anyhow.”
It was possibly the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.
Just as it was becoming too cold to speak, our throats too dry to swallow, a cacophony reached us through the door.
By the time we’d helped each other to stand, a body came crashing through the door and landed hard on the ground.
Someone screamed in shock. I’d like think it wasn’t me.
Especially because Croft stepped over the threshold and gave Butler one more punishing blow with his baton before tossing him to the ground with a satisfied grunt.
It was too dark to see his face, as he was backlit by lanterns and the torches of the police who swarmed in behind him to clasp Butler in irons. It wasn’t hard to imagine his expression, however, as menace rolled from him in palpable waves.
“Grayson!” Amelia flung herself into his open arms, and he folded them around her.
I felt his eyes on me, and I’d admit I drank in the sight of his shadow, unable to remember when I’d been so happy to see any person in my entire life.
“My God, you’re cold,” he said, around rapid breaths born of exertion. “There’s a fire lit out here.”
It’d taken four strong men to heft Butler to his feet and drag him out onto the streets as Croft hauled his sister out of the room and to the hearth.
Huddling around the blaze, none of us dared to touch the furniture some of the officers had drawn closer for us to rest upon. We knew what had occurred on the soft surfaces in this infernal place.
Water was brought, and Croft made certain we sipped when we would have gulped, hovering like a large, intimidating mother hen.
“It was Bea, too,” Amelia croaked after a few sips. “She killed—”
He held up a hand. “The moment I saw Butler guarding the door, I knew. Though Charles Hartigan is spilling his guts, so we would have found out either way. Beatrice Chamberlain is being arrested as we speak. This lot will hang.”
“Your hand,” I said, noting his right knuckles and palm had been dressed with a thin, clean bandage.
Amelia reached out to inspect both of his hands. “What happened? Are you all right?” The left knuckles were split and swollen enough to cause concern, but apparently not enough to bandage.
Croft looked at me, at the split in my lip and the sling of petticoats we’d crafted for my shoulder. His gaze was unnervingly dark even as a strange lift tugged at the corner of his hard mouth. “The interrogation of your attacker, Benjamin Hornby, went longer than expected,” he said. “But I got what I wanted.”
I felt like I’d swallowed glass as I inspected his knuckles again. Those gashes could have been caused by teeth. By bone.
“Why did you come back here?” I asked, turning my face to the flames. “Hartigan had been released.”
“You have Dr. Phillips to thank for that,” he answered. “Sent me a missive full of garbled jargon and chemical components responsible for Jane Sheffield’s death, and what they were used for. The third one down was photography development. And then, I just knew… I knew you were here.”
I’d have to thank Dr. Phillips properly. God bless his diligent mind.
We thanked Croft, all of us, rather effusively. Amelia kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair, and, for once, he didn’t grimace at the affection. “I told them you’d find us,” Amelia said smugly. “They didn’t believe me, but they don’t know you.”
“I’d tear this city apart to find you.”
He’d replied to her, but I looked up to find his verdant gaze already upon me.
“Pardon my intrusion, ladies.” A wiry detective with an impressive grey mustache bowed to us as if presenting himself to a bevy of noblewomen. “I’ve a coach with warm stones and piles of blankets waiting to take you from here, if you’d follow this constable.”
Indira stumbled after the young bobby, but Amelia clung to her brother for a moment longer, regarding the man with a look I couldn’t identify.
“Amelia,” Croft murmured. “This is Detective Inspector Martin Thackery… my superior. He’ll take you to Scotland Yard, where I’ll meet you. I promise you’re safe with him.”
Amelia slipped her hand into Detective Inspector Thackery’s, and I thought I saw the blue of his eyes melt into pools of gentility. He had a kind face for one dedicated to such a vocation of violence.
