.
Memories played in William’s mind...
When Leah tripped outside the Runner’s station at him saying the word ‘vagabond’...
The ease with which she'd called him ‘Liam’...
Her reaction to him calling her a queen...
Those golden eyes...
How had he missed it?
William guarded the door and watched as Lorena’s formal butler headed in his direction. “What’s happening?” He looked beyond William and toward the dining room.
William stared at the butler and said, “I don’t know. What do you think is happening, Lorenzo?”
“I think you'd better…” Zed’s words trailed off with his anger. Then his eyes widened. “What did you call me?”
I have a sibling, but not a sister…
She was so clever. In a way, she’d said she had a brother without actually speaking the words. The word ‘brother’ alone would have worked as a trigger, leading William to imagine what that brother could have possibly looked like.
Do I need your permission to marry her?
Zed’s overprotectiveness now aligned with what he should have known all along.
He’s like a brother to me.
That’s because he was, in fact, her brother.
William could only stare at him. “How did you—”
“Die my hair?” Zed held his eyes, no longer denying the truth. “You simply mix every color together until none of them exist. It’s the same way you’d dye a garment.” He turned away. “I’ll be glad to go blond again. Repeatedly working to maintain the color was growing irritating. Can I enter the room now?”
“No.”
Zed looked at him again. “Is she with Julius?”
William nodded.
“Is she safe?”
“I would never do anything to harm her.” Didn’t he know that? “Why the secrecy? Why didn’t you two simply come out and say who you were?” William thought it a strange experience to stare at a boy he’d thought he’d known, now a stranger of a man. He didn’t know what to call him now. Lorenzo? Zed? He didn’t even know how to treat the man. He wasn’t really a servant. He was the grandson of a marquess. The son of a former magistrate and Spanish lady. He was also Julius’ heir until William’s friend married and had a son.
“We couldn’t say anything to anyone.”
“Why?” William asked.
Zed held his eyes. “Because you’re all murderers.”
William didn’t look away, though he felt the need to. This man’s father had died at their hands. “There was no other way.”
“I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you’d found Sarah Douglas before us, she’d have been buried days ago. And it doesn’t change the fact that you men still have a tendency for violence.”
He was right. “So, why stay around us? You got your hands dirty that night with Ben as well.” Zed had been the one to find Lorena and lay the kidnapper at Emmett’s feet like a bloody offering. Literally.
“I stay… stayed because Lorena would allow it and we both know how reckless the Spinsters can be with their safety.” He placed his hands in his pockets. “Leah… Natalia didn’t want you all to have to kill again. I was sent to see how Julius was faring and she came when the matter with Sarah grew out of control.”
“Yet Julius cut you off from your inheritance. That should have been reason enough to abandon us.”
You’re right.” Zed narrowed his eyes. “And had it not been for Natalia, I would have, but… when she loves, there is no stopping her.”
We were only children, but it was love in its own way.
She'd loved him.
It was hard to take that he’d managed to make the same extraordinary girl fall in love with him twice. Neither he, Julius, nor the others deserved her loyalty, yet she'd given it even when they stripped her of her pride.
“I need to speak with her,” Zed said, cutting into his thoughts. “I need to see if she’s all right.”
“I already told you—”
A scream from the other side of the door made them both freeze.
Zed’s eyes widened.
William turned to the door and, though it opened, his worst thoughts blinded him momentarily from the reality of the situation.
Then he saw it.
There was a body on the ground. Tally was safe. Julius was safe.
Who was the man?
Julius had a bloody knife in his hands and looked up at Zed and William. “He came after us.”
“Who is that?” Zed went over and looked at the man. Even now the blood was pooling on the carpet. A gun rested not far from his fingers.
“I have no clue who he is or how he got in,” Julius said. “But we need to check the rest of the house.”
“What did he want?” William asked. He reached Natalia’s side and took her into his arm. She was weeping gently, frightened in a place she should have felt safe. How dare he have come after his queen in his own home?
“He asked for Clara… and you. Revenge for the humiliation in the street that day,” Julius said, taking his own gun from his waist. He never went anywhere without it. Uncle Perry had warned him against it. “This might have to do with her husband.”
Zed stood up from the body, lifting the gun with him. “Do think there are more in the house? Could Mr. James have come himself?”
Julius’ eyes widened, and he turned to William. “We could be under attack. Go check the women. I’ll keep Tally safe.”
William hesitated and met Natalia’s eyes. She was trembling but nodded. “Go, I’m all right.”
William and Zed speed across the foyer. They found the Spinsters and Brotherhood in the sitting room. Everyone faced them.
Aaron straightened, the first to become alert. “What’s going on?”
“We might be under attack.” William went to the sideboard and opened the drawers. “Get the women behind the furniture. Quietly.”
There were movement and whimpers, but the noise soon faded.
“Details,” Morris demanded.
“There was a shooter in the dining room,” William said. “He’s looking for Clara.”
“This can’t be happening,” one of the women hissed.
Lorena said, “Please tell me this is all in jest?” And a second later, “Zed, why do you have a gun?”
“Quiet,” Emmett hissed.
Reaching back and up into a secret compartment, William grabbed two pistols. He tossed one to Morris and the other to Rollo, who was the next best shot after him, Morris, and Julius. Emmett, William knew, already carried a gun in his boot. Having Lorena for a wife required it.
The Duke of Cort checked the barrel as his Sophia looked at him in wonder from her position behind the pianoforte.
William turned to Zed and Morris. “Go find Clara.” To Calvin and Frank, he said, “I’ve two guns in my desk in the study.”
“Done.” Calin kissed Alice’s head but didn’t stop to talk, following Frank out the door.
Alice wrapped her arms around herself and motionlessly watched her husband leave. “Where are you going?” she eventually asked once her eyes rested on William.
“To find my family and make sure they’re safe.”
A shot rang somewhere in the house.
The woman screamed, but then were quieted by the men who were still present. William prayed the shot came from someone he knew.
Aaron asked, “What have you for me?”
William looked around the room. There was a sword on one wall and entwined axes on the other. William didn’t keep them around for simple decor. “Choose what you wish.”
Aaron nodded and moved in the direction that William suspected he would.
Slipping out the door, William made sure Aaron had the axes before he snuck away.
He needed to go upstairs, but doing such a thing would expose him, so he moved down the hall and peeked around the corner.
He watched as Calvin and Frank came out of the room. Both uninjured.
William stood and readied himself to throw a blade at the man who'd entered the hall from a room beyond the Lockwood brothers, but Calvin got to him first.
The shot hit him squarely in the chest and the intruder was down instantly.
They all moved and crouched by the body.
“It’s not Mr. James,” William said, taking the man’s gun and checking to see if his bullet remained. It did. He’d not shot yet, which meant the other gun that had rung through the house hadn’t belonged to him.
“How many are there?” Frank asked.
William shook his head. “Don’t know. Go find Clara. Get her with the others in the sitting room.”
Calvin was simply staring at the dead man and then he looked up. “I never thought I’d do that again.”
William grabbed his shoulder but didn’t have time to give him words of comfort. “I must find my family.”
He left Frank to deal with his sibling. After all, he was probably the most qualified at the end of the day.
William used the servants’ staircase and from the landing and could hear voices on the next floor. It was Naomi.
“I don’t know where she is.” The fear and tears he could hear coming from her filled William with rage.
He silently climbed the stairs and listened.
“You’re of little use to me then, love.”
William stood and shot with only a second to spare. Two more shots rang out from downstairs and far too close together for them not to have come from the same place.
Mr. James went down, and Naomi screamed as his blood splashed her face and gown.
It was his one shot.
He went to her immediately. “Is there anyone else up here?”
She was weeping but managed to get out, “I don’t know.”
William pocketed the gun and reached for the blade he kept in his boots. “Where is everyone?”
“In the sitting room.” Naomi took a deep breath. “I came out to find—”
There was movement.
William turned and readied his blade.
It was his father with a shotgun. Edmund lowered his weapon. “We’re in here.”
William took Naomi and went into the family sitting room. His grandmother and mother were there. Regina took one look at her daughter and looked ready to faint. Yet she found the strength to cross the room and take hold of her.
Edmund asked William. “Are the others all right?”
“Mostly, but we’re still looking for Clara.”
“Go,” his father said. “I’ll protect the family.”
William nodded, having no doubt his father would do exactly that. It took a strong man to take a Roma for a wife… and mother-in-law.
William made his way back to Natalia and Julius and found yet another body by Julius’ feet. He’d been the first shot.
Tally came to him. “Where’s Clara?”
“Here.” Frank and Calvin came into the dining room at that moment and pushed a weeping Clara inside.
“Clara.” Tally started toward her, but William kept her back.
“How did your husband find you?” William asked, though he suspected he already knew.
Clara was weeping. “I thought that if I told him I was leaving…” She cried louder and then said, “I’m so sorry.”
Natalia jerked, fighting to go to the woman, and William let her go.
Tally wrapped Clara in her arms. “It’s all right—”
“No, it’s not,” Julius said without mercy. “She put you in danger.”
His cousin looked at him. “But she—”
“No excuses,” William said. “She didn’t know the men had come. She put all the Spinsters in danger.”
Tally frowned and asked, “Where’s Zed?”
William turned to Frank and Calvin.
Calvin, who still looked slightly shocked, said, “In the kitchen with your cook. It was where we found Clara being taken out with another man. Zed shot him, but not before the man could shoot him. Frank took the final shot.”
Tally gasped. “My brother...”
William went to her and pulled her away from Clara to give her some needed comfort.
“He’s all right. It hit him in the shoulder,” Frank didn’t look pleased and then he looked confused. “Brother?”
Julius echoed that thought. “Brother? Zed is Lorenzo?”
That seemed to wake Calvin up. “What?”
William nodded. “Zedock Sudworth is Lorenzo Hext.”
Julius nodded. “My cousin has been right under my nose all this time?” His gaze moved to Clara. “And you almost got him killed.”
Clara winced. “I’m so sorry.”
“Take me to him,” Natalia demanded.
Julius started out the door. “This way.”
“We don’t know if we got them all,” Calvin said. “There could be others.”
Clara looked at the two bodies in the group. “Jasper only had five friends who’d have risked themselves this way.”
“How many are dead?” Julius asked.
“Five,” William said. “That leaves possibly one more.”
“What?” Clara’s eyes widened. “Where’s my husband?”
“Dead,” William told her mercilessly.
Clara crumbled to the ground and wept with great anguish for the man who’d taken no issue to lift his hand to her.
“I’m not waiting here,” Julius said. “I need to see Lorenzo.”
Yes,” Natalia agreed, though she looked as though part of her still wanted to comfort Clara.
William ushered her through the back door that led straight to the kitchen. “I’ll see about the last man.” To Julius, he said, “Protect her.”
Julius nodded and then took Natalia over to where Zed sat in a chair with a bleeding shoulder.
Zed’s eyes lifted and met William’s and he knew at that moment that Zed… Lorenzo… would be all right.
He found the last body in the front of the sitting room. The door was closed, blocking his view of the anyone inside. Morris stood guarding both the door and the body. “Aaron killed him with the axes. That’s why you didn’t hear him go down.”
“Then it’s done,” William said.
“Is it?” Morris lowered his voice. “The wives are scared. I don’t like the thought of Sophia fearing me.”
William didn’t want Tally fearing him either, but what could he say? “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Perhaps seeing what we’re willing to do to protect them will make them more cautious of their activities.” There had been far too many scandalous adventures and kidnappings amongst the Spinsters
Morris’ shoulders relaxed. “One could only hope.” Then he said, “I’ll get the others and we’ll move the bodies. I don’t want Sophia seeing any of this.”
William nodded. Tally had come to prevent bloodshed, yet it was exactly what she’d received at the end of the day, but William had been left without a choice. He’d kill a thousand men if he needed to.