Page 70 of The Knight's Pledge
“That’s it, then,” Thomas said quietly. “He’ll have destroyed the packet for Caris Hargrave.”
“No,” Lucan mused, his mind racing. “No, I don’t think so, Thomas.”
“Neither do I,” Effie added. Everyone turned to her. “If he indeed was hired to steal the information, Caris wouldn’t trust him to dispose of it. She’d want it in herhands, first.”
“Yes,” Lucan said, low and emphatically. “She would want to see the charges that could be leveled against her, even in unsupported testimony, and come up with explanationsfor them all.”
“Thenshe will destroy the evidence,” Effie added.
Lucan nodded. Clever Effie Annesley. “I concur. Absolutely.”
“So, what you’re saying.” Bob leaned his elbows on the tabletop and held his palms apart, as if showcasing the ideas he was speaking aloud. “Some bloke hired by Caris has stolen the satchel to take it all the way back to London, where it’s actually the most dangerous to her? She’s mad to snoop through it all and then burn it orwhat have you?”
“Of course, we can’t really know until we return. But it’s precisely what she would do,” Effie said. “It’s why she was mad to know if I was truly dead. She wasn’t grieving for me all those years with her ridiculous farce of mourning, she wanted to be certain I would never talk about the things I knew. She’s not afraid of being caught. She never has been. She’s always been able to create some wild explanation that can’t be disproved. It’s as if she has a charm upon her.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Gorman interjected quietly. His question was spoken to the group, in a hypothetical tone, but Lucan noticed that he was looking directly at Lucan.
“I don’t accept that,” Lucan said with a shrug. “I’m not wrong.”
Dana spoke up meekly then. “But what if you are?”
“This is bollocks.” James Rose propped his boot heels up on the tabletop and leaned his shoulders back against the wall behind him. “What’s done is done. I say we leave Tommy at the Swan safely over the border and make a plan to rescue George. To hell with the rest of it. Let them all devour each other.”
“We’d never be able to breach Westminster unnoticed,” Lucan muttered crossly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” James gushed. “I should have been more clear; bywe, I didn’t meanyou.”
“Henry will never let us be, James,” Chumley argued. “He’d burn all the forest down to find us. The Warren would neveragain be safe.”
James shrugged. “So we move.”
“Move?” Gilboe’s nonexistenteyebrows rose.
“Why not?” Bob asked. “I think James’s plan is a good one. There’s plenty of work to be done near the Swan. More friends. More resources.”
“But it’s not our home,” Effie argued.
Kit Katey said the first words she’d spoken that morning, in her quiet, musical voice. “You mean it is not Northumberland.”
Silence filled the common room until Winnie rapped on the tabletop with her knuckles and then moved her hands in a swift stream of signs, pointing to Effie, then to Lucan in the midst of the silent monologue. Everyone then turned their gazed to Lucan. His stomach fellinto his boots.
“What did she say?”
Effie met his gaze. “She asked what would happen to you if we rescued George andthen escaped.”
“Who cares?” James muttered under his breath.
“I care,” Dana objected with a frown.
Lucan looked around at the band watching him. “Well, I’d lose my position and rank, obviously. I could never step foot in London again. My family lands would be forfeit.” He paused. “I suppose I would return to France.” He rallied his ire. “James’s plan still doesn’t account for Effie’s brothers—Thomas’s sons. Tavish and Lachlan would likely be returned to Scotland, although reluctantly, I’m sure. But Padraig…”
“Padraig,” Thomas echoed quietly, and Lucan could hear the fondness in the very name. “Padraig would have naught.”
“Nor Iris,” Lucan reminded them all.
“And Caris Hargrave would win,” Effie said darkly.
The room was silent again for a moment.
