Love and Let Spy (Lord and Lady Spy) (34 page)

“Did you follow him?” Baron asked, coming into the room.

“Yes, but I lost him. When I realized he was gone, I doubled back. I returned to the house in time to witness the explosion.”

“Explosion?” Q asked.

“A rather large one,” Blue said. “The house burned to the ground—what was left of it. I did not see anyone escape.” He looked at Jane. “I’m sorry.”

But Jane was looking at Q. “Your pen,” she said to Q. “I dropped it in the pocket of his greatcoat. Could it do that much damage?”

Miss Qwillen shook her head. “Not by itself.”

A rumble of murmurs passed through the room as more and more agents filed inside. Jane spotted Lord Smythe, but he was without Saint this evening.

“Then how do you account for it?” M asked.

“There must have been other explosives present,” Q said. And then her eyes widened. “You do not think Foncé had been planning to use them to target the royal family?”

“Oh, he’d been planning to use them,” Blue said. “I’ll wager those were not the extent of his armory. He has more somewhere.”

“We will stop him before he has a chance to use them.” M came around his desk. “Reports! I want to know what you saw, what you heard, what you learned.”

Jane tried to concentrate on the reports of the other agents. She knew their information might be crucial, and now, more than ever before, she wanted to kill Foncé for what he’d done. But her mind kept drifting. She couldn’t stop thinking about Dominic—little things, like the way he tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow, the way he held a fork as though it was more of a weapon than an eating utensil, the way his dark eyes turned even darker when he looked at her. Her breath hitched, and she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up and into the eyes of Butterfly, Elinor Keating. “Stay strong, Bonde. Think about now. Think only of this moment. Later you can grieve.”

Jane nodded. The other agent was right. Later, Jane could fall apart, rail and weep and beat her breast. Right now she had a mission.

She took a deep breath and focused on Wolf’s report. When all of the agents had given an account, M sighed deeply. “We’re no closer than we were, but I’ll be damned if I sit around and wait for Foncé to blow something up before we act. We—”

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt.”

Everyone, M included, turned toward the door. “Mr. Felix,” M said impatiently. “Can it not wait?”

“I don’t think so, my lord. There’s a man here to see you with urgent news. He has an old password, so I haven’t let him in.”

M’s brow furrowed. “One of Foncé’s men?”

“I don’t think so,” Felix said. “I saw him with Miss Bonde before.”

Jane rose and cried out, “Dominic?”

Felix shook his head. “He said his name was Griffyn…”

Jane grabbed Felix’s arm. “Take me to him. Where is he?” But she didn’t wait for Felix to tell her. She ran for the Piccadilly entrance without another word. Behind her, she could hear the footsteps of the other agents echo in the stone corridor. They continued on when she reached the door, which she threw open.

Dominic Griffyn stepped into the opening. He was covered in black soot, a cut on his forehead bled, and his coat was in shreds, but he was alive. She fell into his embrace, meeting his ash-stained lips with her own. She did not care that he smelled of smoke and charred wood. She cared only that he was alive, that his arms wrapped around her, that he lifted her and pressed her tightly against him.

“No, don’t cry,” he whispered when he pulled back for a moment. Jane wasn’t even aware that she was crying. “I’m here.”

“But Blue…” She was sobbing too much to speak. Jane was also aware of others crowding around them, pulling Dominic inside, closing and bolting the door, but she wouldn’t leave his side. She wouldn’t be separated.

“We thought you were dead,” Baron said.

“Indeed, you look like a cat who’s just lost one of its nine lives. Perhaps two, at that,” Blue remarked.

“I’m not dead yet,” Dominic said, squeezing her waist with the arm he had wrapped around her. “But we haven’t any time to waste. I know where Foncé is going, and I know what he plans.”

***

Once he mentioned Foncé, Dominic was spared recounting the details as to how he’d survived the blast. He wasn’t entirely certain himself. One moment he had been backing up, the next he’d been hurtling through the air, shattered glass flying around him. When he opened his eyes and came to, he deduced that he must have been close enough to a window that he was thrown through when the glass shattered. He wasn’t entirely certain whether Tolbert had been thrown out as well, so he wasted no time putting distance between himself and the house. That proved to be a wise decision, as moments later, another explosion rocked the very ground under his feet.

Every single bone in his body ached, and his tongue was swollen and thick with the taste of soot. But he ignored the discomforts and made his way to Piccadilly. He received quite a few curious looks. It was but half past three, and he hoped most would take him for a chimney sweep, though he was a bit broad for that profession. No one stopped him, and now in Melbourne’s office with a glass of whiskey in his hand, he glanced at the bracket clock. It was almost four. He was running out of time.

“And that is all you know?” Melbourne asked. “Foncé said he planned to blow up Parliament.”

“Yes. He asked me to pen a note, which he wanted delivered to you, so that you might arrive in time to be caught in the explosion. If we go now, we might still be able to stop him.”

“We need a plan,” Lord Smythe argued. “Is he targeting the House of Commons or Lords? He cannot possibly have enough explosives to do away with the entire palace.”

“Considering he was targeting the Prince of Wales before, my guess is he will aim for the Court of Requests, where the House of Lords meets,” Blue said.

“I concur,” Melbourne said, “but we divide into groups. We want to cover all entrances and exits and every possibility.” Melbourne went on, but Dominic didn’t listen. Instead, he looked at Jane. She was looking at him. Her cheeks were streaked with soot where his hands had touched her. He should be ashamed to tarnish her beauty so, but he was curiously glad he’d marked her. She was his. She was the only thing he could think about when he’d realized Foncé intended to kill him—and would likely succeed. He wanted more time with Jane.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“
I
thought I was dead,” he murmured back. They were seated on a couch, crushed together, as four people were seated on the furnishing, which was meant for three. “But I’m alive, and I owe that to you.”

“I think you owe it to Q.”

“Yes, she deserves my thanks, but I don’t think I would have been desperate enough to use the quill if I hadn’t wanted to come back to you so badly. I kept thinking,
what
would
Bonde
do
?”

She laughed, which earned her a frown from the agents nearby. “And what was your answer?” she asked quietly.

“Bonde would do the most outrageous thing possible—blow herself up.”

“Well, yes, but I
am
a professional.”

“Of course.” He leaned forward and kissed her. There was a time when a kiss was foreign to him, when touching someone so freely was abhorrent. Now he could not get enough of kissing Jane, touching her.

“You’re safe here,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head. “Edgeberry and Lord Trewe are at Westminster tonight. I’ll not stay behind.”

The agents were rising, each with his mission. Dominic rose too. No one would argue if he went along. They had no more time for talk. Jane was the only one he expected to protest, but she merely nodded and said, “Stay close to me.”

He followed the other agents to a courtyard he hadn’t known existed. A dozen horses had been saddled and were waiting for riders. Jane waved away his help in mounting, and he chose a thoroughbred that looked fast and eager. As one, they rode out of the courtyard gates and into the city.

***

The sun was low in the sky, giving the horizon an eerie glow. Jane didn’t like it. She was not superstitious, but even she had to admit the look of fire in the sky was a bad omen. She understood the need for strategy. She understood the need for a master plan, but she worried they had talked too long. Were they already too late? Or were they riding straight into Foncé’s trap?

No one had suggested that possibility, though it had been on all of their minds. Perhaps Foncé was merely waiting for their arrival to light the fuse and send them all to the hereafter. The biting wind whipped through her hair as they drew closer to Whitehall. Jane was not afraid to die, but she desperately wanted to live. She’d never been afraid to die, but she’d also never before had a reason to live. She had to stop Foncé, or she would never know what her life with Dominic might have been.

Darkness was falling when she spotted the Palace of Westminster. The building was a mix of the old and the new, the architect James Wyatt’s stone additions clashing with the original medieval structure. Jane had been inside only a handful of times. Women were not allowed inside Parliament, and she had never seen the chambers. But she knew the building was a winding maze of staircases, old rooms, new chambers, and passageways leading nowhere.

Dominic arrived just ahead of her, and while Melbourne and several other agents explained the situation to the guards at the palace, Jane followed Wolf, Baron, Blue, and Butterfly into Westminster. Dominic was right behind her, but she could not worry about him at the moment. She had a single focus: destroying Foncé.

Still, she did not want to drag Dominic into something he could not handle. She paused in the entrance they’d chosen and looked back at him. “Are you certain you wish to go along? You could wait outside.”

“I’m going with you,” he said, his jaw set. “I know the dangers.”

“Don’t get in my way,” she said, realizing belatedly how the injunction sounded. But she did not have time to worry about offending him.

He grinned at her. “Don’t get in
my
way.” He gestured ahead of them where the other agents had started down the old stone steps and into the damp bowels of the building. It had been used in the sixteenth century as a royal residence. King Henry VIII had once lived here, but Jane doubted he’d ever ventured into this dank section. He and Anne Boleyn had probably confined their amorous embraces to the upper floors and courtyards. Only the most unfortunate or disfavored courtiers had ever been forced into this section of the palace.

The six of them moved silently. The palace had dozens of entrances and exits. Foncé might have used any of them. A quick consultation with Constantine, the master of the Dungeon, had produced an ancient drawing of the palace. The drawing was not detailed, but it appeared these steps led below the Court of Requests. Another group of agents was undoubtedly venturing beneath St. Stephen’s Chapel, where the House of Commons met. Melbourne, Moneypence, and Q were alerting the parliamentary members of the danger and urging them to vacate the building. Still, Jane could not suppress a shiver. If Foncé acted now, he would destroy not only all of Parliament, but the entirety of the Barbican as well.

At the bottom of the stairs, Wolf, who had been leading the group, paused. “The passageway splits here,” he whispered. “Baron, you and Lady Keating take that corridor. Blue and I will take this. Bonde, you and Griffyn take the third.”

Jane nodded and pulled her pistol from her boot. “Shoot to kill,” she told the other agents, who, likewise, had armed themselves. “Take no prisoners.”

“Agreed,” Baron said. “And God go with you.”

Jane motioned for Dominic to follow her, and they started down a dark, narrow passage. When the sounds of the other agents’ footfalls faded, she thought she could hear the scurrying of rats and other small creatures. She longed for a light, one simple candle, but she could not afford to do anything that might alert Foncé to their approach.

“The ground seems to slope downward,” Dominic murmured behind her. He was staying close, the heat of his body warming her back.

“Another set of steps,” she answered, slowing so she would not be taken off guard. When she felt the ground give away at her toe, she paused and pressed her back against the wall. “Are you still with me?” If he was half as terrified as she, his heart must be in his throat. She had learned long ago that she thrived on the fear, fed on it. To venture down this black stairwell was utterly terrifying. And exhilarating.

“I’m with you,” he said, his voice sounding steady. “I must be mad to follow you.”

“I’m quite mad to go,” she answered, taking his hand. It was cold and dry. “Ready?”

“Answer me this: Will we survive?”

“Doubtful.”

“In that case, I’d better tell you.” He yanked her around so she was crushed against him. He was so warm and solid, and his mouth was close to her ear when he whispered, “I love you.”

Her heart pounded for quite another reason now. “You must. After all, you’re following me into the depths of hell.”

“Jane…”

She smiled. “You know I love you too.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him gently. “If we survive, I’ll show you how much.”

“Incentive to live,” he murmured against her lips and then gently released her. If possible, it was harder to begin the descent down that blind staircase now than before. But she did so. She clenched her hands on the pistol and stepped into the void.