Chapter Forty-four

Carberry Street, near the Thames, London

Saturday night

He leaned in, kissed her cheek. "Be careful, Mum, it's a nasty night."

"You know I'm always careful. Just an angry rain god, nothing I can't manage," she said.

"Ring me when you're safe at home."

"Of course." She drove away from the elegant, prestigious building, the Corinthian, built in the 1920s, its flats high ceilinged and spacious, modernized yet again six years before. She'd rented Tommy a lovely end flat on the sixth floor. He deserved it, because he was clean now and ready to lead the life he was meant to lead before he became an addict. Millicent drove into London at least twice a week to see him since he still couldn't come home; his father didn't allow it. She knew Elizabeth had given him money before she'd left England so unexpectedly, but Millicent still supplemented his allowance. She hadn't discussed it with her husband, nor did she tell him where she went when she was driving to London. She knew he was well aware she was visiting Tommy, but he'd never said a word to her about it. It was easier that way.

She thought of her husband—Sebastian, such a romantic name, she'd always thought—how he'd charmed her, seduced her. She'd been wildly in love within days of their meeting at the French ambassador's party, a charming Frenchman with bad teeth whose name she couldn't remember.

Just beyond Baggley-Cliff, she turned the Bentley onto a two-lane country road. She was nearly home, only another kilometer.

She slowed, turned onto a short, paved drive, and stopped in front of elaborate iron gates with a giant D scrolled across the top that had been there for three centuries. Her home stood on a small rise in the distance, past an ancient drive lined on both sides with lime and ash trees, a few oaks sprinkled in over the centuries. When she'd first come to Darlington Hall as a new bride, she'd felt it welcoming her, and that had never stopped. The Hall was part of her, and she loved it as much as her husband. Lights shone from the large windows like beacons. Benbett, the Palmer butler for thirty years, always left those lights on for her until she was safely home. Would Sebastian be up, waiting for her? Probably not. She doubted he was even there. Millicent sighed, stopped the Bentley, and pressed the gate button on her key fob.

The mammoth old gates slowly began to open inward.

All she heard was the beating hammers swung over and over by the men dressed in black, no faces, just black masks, and the sound of the alarm, until a police car's distinctive siren sounded in the distance. The hammering stopped; the men whirled around, raced back to the van, and threw themselves into the back. Another man, the driver, backed up and screeched away before the side doors had even slammed shut.

What would have happened if the alarm hadn't sounded in the police station?