Page 79 of Love Unraveled
Gaston had beenready to fire. His hand trembled slightly at his knowing he could have hurt Sophie, but he kept his gun raised anyway. The duke, standing behind Sophie, had a grip on her arm, and from this angle, Gaston could see the gun. He glanced at Laurence and down at Sophie’s waist with a slight movement of his head, relieved when he could see Laurence understood the danger Sophie was in.
Gaston quickly inventoried Sophie. Her hair was in disarray, her clothing disheveled, dried blood staining her white gown. She should be terrified, but if she was, she didn’t show it. Behind a pair of spectacles, her dark eyes were steady. His brave Sophie. He wanted to roar and charge, but he stood still, willing his hand to stop shaking.
The duke looked from Gaston to Laurence and back again, his customary disdainful arrogance unchanged. He appeared none the worse for wear, except his eyes were rheumy and red-rimmed.
“I should have killed you while I had the chance.” The duke shook his head as though Gaston was a minor nuisance and not a genuine threat. “Where’s Drake?”
“He’s dead,” Gaston said, which he assumed was entirely untrue. They’d left Drake under the supervision of the doctor but not before finding out the duke had been selling information to the French and was part of the plot to kill Liverpool. Worse, the aim was to create total chaos and the collapse of confidence in Britain, and to that end, the duke had been given another assignment—to assassinate the prince regent. High treason. If the duke realized they were aware of that, he would have nothing to lose. There would be no saving Sophie.
“Incompetent as always,” the duke muttered. His eyes darted toward Laurence. “Who are you?”
“Put the gun down, Your Grace, and we’ll talk about who I am.”
The duke snorted, and Sophie winced as he wedged the gun more securely. “Quite the opposite, my boy. You put the gun down. Both of you. Then perhaps we’ll talk.”
Gaston would take no chances with Sophie. He lowered his gun, and he was relieved to see Laurence do the same.
“I said, down,” the duke snapped, and Sophie flinched again.
They both set their weapons on the landing.
“Back up. Down a step.”
They tried to separate, each taking one of the two sets of sweeping stairs on either side of the landing entrance.
“You take me for a fool? The same side.” The duke shuffled forward with Sophie, both still out of arm’s reach, and kicked each gun off the landing to the ground below.
“Now we’re going on a little adventure. Back down slowly. One suspicious move and you can say goodbye to the countess.”
It seemed ages before Gaston’s foot hit the ground, his mind racing, trying to analyze the best way to disarm the duke without harming Sophie. The duke was tall and clearly strong. Sophie valiantly tried to trip and make him lose his grip, but he had no apparent issue holding firm.
“To the carriage. Backward. Slowly.”
They shuffled back toward the carriage, stopping when they were in the ring of lights of the oil lamps sitting on the ground. The duke tsk-tsked, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have done that to Spencer. Now one of you will have to do his work. Or I can let the countess get her pretty little hands dirty.”
“I’ll do it,” Gaston said, perplexed that the duke continued to think there was truly a buried box.
“I thought you might. We don’t need him.” The duke looked at Laurence, then back at Gaston. “Get rid of him.”
Sophie’s eyes grew wide, and Laurence said nothing.
Gaston’s head hummed, his gash pounding with his heartbeat. “I will not,” he said calmly. “You can try to kill us all, but you won’t succeed. Besides, where would that leave you financially?”
“Don’t have the stomach for it, boy?” The duke shook his head in disgust. “Frenchmen,” he said and spit to the side. “Knock him out. I don’t care. But do it well, or we’ll test your little theory of how many I can kill. I know for certain I can kill one.” He set his chin on Sophie’s shoulder and grinned, and Gaston knew why the duke was willing to go on this insane goose chase. Because he was an insane goose.Mon Dieu! It made his behavior too unpredictable. Gaston looked at Laurence apologetically.
Laurence held his stare and shrugged. “Do what you must.”
Gaston grabbed the shovel lying beside the coachman. “Turn around.” Laurence slowly turned his back to Gaston, and Gaston raised the shovel. He paused with it raised high, not wanting to do an innocent man harm, debating the wisdom of heading into the woods with a madman.
“Do it!” the duke shrieked in a high-pitched voice, and still Gaston hesitated, calculating whether he could swing around and move the few feet quickly enough to hit the duke with the shovel. But what if it landed on Sophie’s head instead?
He caught the duke’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and a shot rang out. But it wasn’t Laurence who screamed in pain. Gaston swung around as the duke stumbled backward, holding his bloodied hand. Gaston lunged forward and pulled Sophie away, and Laurence pounced like a cat on top of the duke.
Gaston embraced Sophie against his chest, holding her firmly, although he himself was unsteady with relief coursing through him. The duke moaned, rolling his head side to side.
“It’s about time,” Laurence said, still pinning the duke to the ground.
A man walked from the shadows, and Gaston had difficulty making sense of any of it.
