Chapter 37

37

Julian bent his head against the chill as he carried Caroline’s limp body from the warehouse, her sodden gown wetting his coat. She remained still in his arms save for small puffs of breath that ghosted from her parted lips.

“I’ll have you home,” he urged, quickening his pace towards the waiting carriage. “I know you must be freezing.”

The driver flinched at their bedraggled state but wisely held his tongue as Julian bundled Caroline inside. As soon as he had tucked his coat around her shivering frame, Julian rapped sharply on the roof overhead. The carriage jolted forward, wheels sloshing through abandoned puddles.

“Linnie?” When her dazed eyes found his, Julian risked a faint smile. “There’s my ferocious wife. Back from the brink and itching for a fight, I’ve no doubt.”

“After this…” she mumbled into his chest.

“Yes?”

“I’m not leaving bed for a month.” She burrowed closer against him, soaking his shirt. “And I want chocolate. As much as you can get me.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “As you command, my duchess. A month in bed and all the chocolate you can drink.”

The carriage rumbled through fog-smothered streets. Julian cradled Caroline tighter, wrapping both arms around her trembling body.

Julian bowed his head, pressing his cheek to her tangled blonde curls. Salt and rust clung to the silken strands. His throat constricted at the memory of the iron tomb swaying in the current. The black water already lapping at her chin when he’d plunged his hand through the hatch. She’d managed to get it open. If he hadn’t been there in time to pull her up—

You survived this, he silently told her. So you can survive what comes next.

What came next. The thought chilled Julian more than the icy rain pelting the carriage windows. He had left her once already. Left his wife broken because duty demanded it.

He stared down at her face, searching for answers in the smudged hollows beneath her eyes.

Her lashes fluttered open. “If you stay with me when others are in danger, I will throw all your belongings into the Thames myself. I know extracting me from a watery grave wasn’t all Kellerman had planned for you.”

Julian swallowed. “I won’t leave you.”

Not like before.

Not after Grace. Not after Tristan.

“We aren’t the same as we were then,” she said. “Understand me?”

Julian only brushed his lips over Caroline’s brow. Through the fog’s dark maw, Stafford House emerged. As the coach rolled to a jarring halt, Julian’s grip tightened on her.

“Go.” Her nails dug into his wrist. “Don’t make me argue with you about this when I’ve only just escaped drowning, you insufferable oaf.” She sounded utterly exhausted.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

“I know.” She clutched a fistful of his shirt. “Now go .”

With utmost care, Julian eased open the door and handed Caroline down to the waiting footman below.

“Take the duchess upstairs, put her in a warm bath.” He relinquished her limp body reluctantly to the man’s steady grip. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The man nodded, face grim. “Consider it done, Your Grace.”

As the man bore Caroline up the front steps, some primal part of Julian snarled in protest. Wrong, wrong. She belonged with him.

But she’d asked him to go.

Somehow, he composed himself enough to give the coachman a terse order. “To Parliament.”

Soon, the looming edifice of the Palace of Westminster came into view. Inside, Julian strode past empty benches and dark alcoves, following the growing sounds towards their source. There, in the oldest part of the labyrinthine building, he found Wentworth and his agents.

“Any sign of Kellerman?” Julian asked without preamble.

Wentworth’s mouth flattened. “No. I received your letter and had already started evacuating when I got here, thanks to Pritchard conveniently recalling the plans after some persuasive questioning that may or may not have left him without some non-vital appendages. But finding a needle of a bomb in a haystack this size is near impossible.”

Julian forced aside emotion and sifted his memory. Through the stacks of papers and scrawled missives littering his desk, inked visions of chaos and retribution. He sought one thread among the tangle. “He had times in his notes. Storage in Wapping for supplies.”

Renovations , Caroline had mentioned when she noted the pattern. Timings Kellerman would have used to bring the parts for his explosives inside – using the construction as a front to smuggle in his supplies.

“The north wing repairs,” Julian said. “Where they’ve torn up the original foundation.”

Wentworth’s eyes sharpened. He was already moving, falling into step behind Julian. “With me, lads,” he shouted to his men, voice booming off the rafters. “And bring lanterns unless you fancy getting buried in the dark if this place blows.”

They plunged through pools of lamplight and shadows, footsteps echoing off stone. Soon, they had descended a winding stair to an arched passageway lined with dusty crates and tools. Iron nails studded the low ceiling. The raw dirt floor had been churned to mud beneath countless workmen’s boots.

At Wentworth’s signal, the men fanned out. They advanced slowly, searching the cramped cavity’s nooks and crevices. Seeking any wires or levers hinting at a deadly purpose. But the crowded space appeared mundane and harmless – just an abandoned worksite beneath London’s skin like countless others.

Wentworth turned down a narrow side passage, crouching under crumbling timbers. Julian followed close behind, pulse thundering.

There. His boot scuffed something smooth and metal hidden in the mud.

Julian froze. Dread congealed in his chest as the lantern illuminated the object. A copper coil attached to a tidy line of explosives. The device Kellerman had smuggled inside brick by innocuous brick.

Wentworth went still, body coiled taut as a spring. His harsh exhalation was the only sound beyond their hushed breaths. Grim purpose hardened his features to granite. With his free hand, Wentworth gestured down the left fork. Towards a faint rim of light outlining a doorway just visible around a gentle curve.

Towards their prey. Waiting to spring his trap and bury them all.

They closed the distance. Pressed themselves to either side of the arched entrance. Inside came the scrape of a match, blooming to a dim glow. The shuffle of boots over dirt as a figure moved within the small chamber.

Wentworth’s knuckles whitened on his pistol grip. Eyes meeting Julian’s, he held up three fingers. Then two. One.

Now.

Wentworth tore inside, weapon levelled at the room’s lone occupant. Behind him, Julian followed on the balls of his feet, coiled to strike.

At their sudden entrance, the man spun around. Recognition blazed in his eyes. Before Kellerman could lunge for his fallen lantern, Wentworth pulled the trigger. The report was deafening in the cramped space.

Kellerman crumpled to the ground, his forehead splashed with blood from the bullet that ripped through his head.

Julian glanced at Wentworth. “I suppose that’s one way to deal with the problem,” he said.

“Certainly the easiest way, given that he probably had a grand villain’s speech all prepared about righting wrongs and toppling empires or God knows what nonsense.” Wentworth wiped his sleeve across his face, leaving rusty smudges. “Go home, duke. Kiss your wife, have a rest. The lads and I will wrap up this mess.”

*

By the time Julian arrived home, the light had faded from the sky. He took the stairs to the bedchamber, each footfall resonating through his weary bones. Inside, the lamps had been dimmed to a weak glow.

His breath stalled at the sight of Caroline tucked into mounds of blankets. Dark smudges of exhaustion still marred her face, but her skin had colour now. She looked impossibly small and fragile in the massive bed. Self-recrimination lashed Julian once more. He’d left her—

“What’s that look for?”

Her hoarse voice fractured his grim thoughts. Julian glanced down to find one pale blue eye cracked open, fixing him with her familiar assessing stare.

“You’re awake,” he managed unevenly.

“Astute observation.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Now, come here and let me look at you. I want to ensure you’re not concealing some grievous injury that will make me furious later.”

Despite himself, Julian laughed.

He eased down to perch on the bed’s edge. Her gentle hands came up, tracing his features as if needing the tactile confirmation he was whole and unharmed. Her touch loosed something inside Julian’s chest.

“Kellerman?” she asked.

“Dead.” He turned his face into her palm, breathing her in. Her wrists were bandaged from where the rope had rubbed her raw.

“Good.”

“I’m sorry I left you.” His voice fractured around the edges. “Christ, I’m so sorry.”

Her blue eyes held his. “I told you we’re not the same as we were eight years ago. Now come here.”

Julian got into bed beside her. When Caroline’s nails scratched the nape of his neck, he exhaled low and slow. Let her touch begin unravelling the cold dread still coiled inside him. With each tender pass of her fingers through his hair, the knots loosened their hold.

“You made me a promise,” she whispered to him.

“Did I?”

“Yes.” Her lips lingered along his temple. “No leaving bed for a month. And I want enough chocolate to drown an elephant.”