Chapter 35

35

The townhouse was too damned quiet without her.

Julian prowled from room to empty room like a spectre, his footfalls muted on the plush carpets underfoot. He lingered in the doorway of Caroline’s art studio, gaze tracing over the half-finished canvases and abandoned brushes precisely as she had left them. As if she might reappear any moment to resume work.

Julian forced himself to turn away. Down the hall, his study beckoned, the chaotic mess of Kellerman’s cryptic letters and ledgers still awaited deciphering – an endless pile of frustration. Setting his jaw, Julian settled himself in the leather chair and tried again to wrest some semblance of meaning from the seemingly random figures and symbols.

Outside, the sunlight swept over the trees as Julian worked. He transcribed letter frequencies, scribbled calculations, searched for the patterns that came so easily to Caroline’s clever mind.

He tossed the pen down with a curse and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until bursts of light painted the insides of his lids. Bloody hell, he was exhausted. His mind was too wrung out for further progress deciphering Kellerman’s infuriating codes. The numbers and letters were beginning to swim.

The mantelpiece’s clock’s distant chime tore Julian from his spiralling thoughts. Half past noon already? He grimaced, rolling his stiff shoulders to work out the kinks.

“Your Grace?”

Julian glanced up. Percy hovered in the doorway, knuckles white around a silver tray. “A letter arrived, Your Grace. The lad ran off before I could ask who it was from.”

Dread trailed icy fingertips down Julian’s spine. Wordlessly, he accepted the folded foolscap. Percy slid back out and shut the study door with a hollow thud that echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Julian broke the plain wax seal and unfolded the letter crammed with rows of slanted script. No greeting, no signature, but he hardly needed either to identify the author.

When forced to decide between the woman you love and the country you serve, where would your loyalties lie? Two clocks now count down the hours. One life at the mercy of the rising tide, and the others at the clock attached to an infernal device. Choose, duke.

The country you serve – dear God, Parliament was in session.

And Caroline, at the mercy of the rising tide.

Julian’s jaw clenched against the panic threatening his composure. He grasped a pen and dipped it in ink, hand shaking. Threatening to snap the instrument in half as he jotted a note.

“Percy!” The shout seemed to ricochet through the halls. Julian grabbed his coat off the stand and strode from the study, crumpling the letter in his fist. He thrust it at the wide-eyed butler. “Have this sent to Mattias Wentworth immediately. Bring my carriage round.”

Outside, a chill rain misted the air. Julian descended the front steps swiftly and slipped into the waiting carriage.

“Where to, Your Grace?” the driver asked.

A warehouse at Wapping , Caroline had said.

“The docks at Wapping,” he bit out. “And hurry, damn you.”

The horses surged into motion as if sensing his urgency. Buildings blurred past the rain-streaked windows, ghostly shapes half glimpsed. Julian’s hand curled around the door handle, prepared to leap out when they arrived. He’d search every building himself if need be.

When the carriage finally juddered to a halt, Julian tore himself from the cab without waiting for the footman. The groan of ships and slap of water greeted him, tar and brine mingling with the metallic tang of blood from nearby slaughterhouses.

Think.

At the mercy of the rising tide.

Somewhere with access to the Thames.

Julian raced towards the warehouses near the Execution Dock, where the Admiralty courts sentenced pirates and mutineers to death – leaving them hanging until they had been submerged three times by the tide.

There – a building a stone’s throw from the dock, equipped with a private slip that flooded at high tide.

And the tide was nearly at its peak.