If I Fall (44 page)

As the cold metal bored into her temple, Marcus hesitated a moment, seeming to try and figure out his options. But there were none, as he gave a short bow. “I was mistaken. It is at eleven.”

Georgina released Sarah, who stumbled back, her body stiff with fear.

“Well,” Georgina replied, “it’s about quarter to eleven now. I suppose in fifteen minutes we will see if you are correct.”

“Why … why do you need to know about the guard change?” Sarah asked carefully.

“Because it’s the time of day that the most people are outside and the least amount inside the Horse Guards,” Georgina replied. And then, when Sarah only blinked in answer, explained. “It’s when I’m going to make my escape, Sarah.”

“Escape to where?” Sarah asked. “You don’t think people will be looking for you, with the carnage left in your wake?”

Georgina shrugged. “They can look all they like; they won’t find anything. My bags are all packed, the servants taken care of. As well as Mr. Ashin Pha. All I had to do was wrap up this one loose end”— she indicated the body on the floor—“and I will disappear.”

“But people know you,” Sarah countered. “The Duke of Parford…” But Georgina just smiled pityingly at her.

“The Duke of Parford has no idea who I am, or that we have been occupying his house for the past months. All I had to do was get his secretary in India to write a letter to the
household staff, which the Duke signed—the old man is apparently so blind with age he’ll sign anything these days. And it was a tragic fact that the secretary died a few days later, robbed by ruffians in Bombay … a true pity. Especially for such a …
vigorous
young man.”

Georgina began pacing slightly, back and forth, but the gun remained trained upon them. “I will not be easy to find. I don’t think I’m spilling any true secrets when I say Georgina Thompson is not my real name. Nor is the Comte de Le Bon my real stepbrother. Our relationship was more … vigorous than that.” She shot the corpse a look of disgust. “Next time I’ll choose my scapegoats with greater scrutiny.”

“The Comte…” Marcus interjected. “He was not a part of your schemes?”

“Only as someone to give me cover enough to move within society without notice.” Georgina shrugged. Then her eyes narrowed. “If only he hadn’t gotten so greedy with the damned Holbein.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” Marcus said. He shot a look to Sarah.
Keep her talking
, the look said.
It will keep us alive
. “So this had absolutely nothing to do with the rumors of a Burmese war?”

“Oh no, Sir Worth, it had everything to do with those rumors.” Georgina stopped pacing, her eyes wide with astonishment. “After all, I started them.”

Marcus and Sarah exchanged a look. While Marcus seemed politely curious, Sarah was totally baffled. Which must have read on her face, because Georgina interjected in their silent conversation.

“Why don’t I start at the beginning?” she offered, with a quick glance to the watch pinned at her waist. “After all, we have the time.”

Jack leaped off the horse at the ivory mouth of the Horse Guards’ main entrance, heedless of the commotion he was causing.

“Whoa there! Halt!” two guardsmen called out to him. But Jack would not stop. He had to get inside. He knew, he
knew
that Sarah was in there, and who knows what Georgina had
done. But those two guardsmen caught up to him, as three others blocked his path.

“You can’t go in there, sir!” one guardsman said sternly, taking in Jack’s crazed appearance, his dirt and blood covered uniform.

“I have to see Sir Marcus Worth,” Jack said in a rush. “I’m Lieutenant Jackson Fletcher, and he’s in grave danger!”

“I don’t care if you’re the King hisself,” the guardsman replied, “no one sees Sir Worth without an appointment.”

Jack turned to him, wild-eyed. “Does that mean that no one has come to see him this morning? Two ladies didn’t come here?”

The guard opened his mouth, then closed it. “How did you know that?”

“She’s going to kill him! She’s going to kill all of them,” Jack replied in a rush, sounding mad, he knew, but unable to stop it. “You have to let me in, please.”

The guardsman hesitated—long, too long. Every second counted. Finally Jack couldn’t stand still any longer. “Oh, to hell with it,” he said, lowered his head, and pushed through the line of men blocking his path.

Not the best idea, it turned out.

All five of the well-trained guardsmen set upon him, tackling him to the ground, stopping him from getting any closer.

“Hold him,” the one guardsman said, then addressed one of Jack’s captors. “Go tell the officer on duty we have a vagrant overcome with madness. We’ll lock him in the lower holds.”

If he was locked in the lower holds, he would never get out and find Marcus and Sarah in time. Or the Comte for that matter—Marcus said he’d negotiated a stay in their luxurious attic, away from the riffraff…

The Comte was in the attic tower
…

Jack suddenly forced himself to his feet, the three men trying to hold him scrambled to take him back down. But Jack held up his hands in surrender.

“No need gentlemen, it’s a complete misunderstanding … I’ll be leaving,” Jack said, docile as a kitten. Then, before they could regroup, Jack fled from the main courtyard and into the crowds of people and carriages that moved along Whitehall.
When he felt he was at a safe enough distance, Jack looked over at the grand structure that was the Horse Guards.

There. The highest window, small and cramped against the roof of the furthest wing of Horse Guards. Was it his imagination, or did he see a flash of movement within?

That’s where they were. All he had to do was get there.

“What is it you have against the Burmese?” Marcus asked, as if he were at tea and doing nothing more than eliciting conversation.

“Absolutely nothing.” Georgina replied. “I’ve never even met a Burmese. I’m sure they are very nice when they conquer their neighbors and enslave the natives.”

“Your employers, then,” Marcus countered, to which Georgina smiled.

“My employers have no problem with Burma, either. Their problem is with the governor of India, and how he simply refuses to rise to the challenge the Burmese continually set forth. Since they were having so much trouble with the men put in charge of India, they decided to try and wage a war of opinion here in London.” Georgina shook her head. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wage a campaign of opinion?”

Marcus shook his head, but Sarah answered, “Actually, yes, I do.”

“I suppose you do,” Georgina conceded. “Making people think one way when they were previously thinking another—or worse yet, ignoring the issue—is exceedingly difficult. In between going to parties and whispering just how nervous my brother’s Burmese friend made me into the ears of people with influence, I’ve had to plant articles in the papers about Burmese atrocities, about how gruesomely they treat their slaves and prisoners, and how encroaching they have become on British settlements.”

“But how does the Comte—and Mr. Pha—come into play?” Marcus asked

“The Comte and I met in India,” Georgina offered. “He was the best confidence man I had ever seen. Had everyone
eating out of the palm of his hand simply because he had a title—that no one could source, of course—and spoke with authority. You would be amazed at how easily you can pass yourself off as something you’re not, as long as you say it with authority.”

“True,” Sarah acknowledged.

“Anyway, since he was running out of people in Bombay to take advantage of, I came up with a scheme that we would travel to England and live high here. I would be his stepsister, coming to London for her first Season, he my guardian. He, of course, knew nothing of why I really wished to come, or my employers. I’m the one that came up with that absurd story about Mr. Pha and Jean meeting in a Burmese prison. Which worked like a charm. It—along with being known friends of the Duke of Parford—gave us entrée in to all the fancy places he wished to go, and to all the people I needed to whisper to.”

“And it was convenient that you claimed Mr. Pha was Burmese—it gave you a dark-skinned man to place the blame on, should someone point in your direction for the murder of Lord Fieldstone.”

“That as well.” Georgina agreed. “Although, it wasn’t supposed to be Lord Fieldstone who died. Any man high up in parliament would have done well enough.”

“The death of a high-ranking member of society by a Burmese
dha
would have been enough to spur Britain into action against Burma itself,” Marcus filled in.

“I threw a few forged reports on his desk of Burmese atrocities, and waited for London to call on the governor of India to declare war. It was to be my coup de grace,” Georgina replied wistfully. “It was exceedingly distressing to have his death covered up—by you, I presume.”

“So why choose Fieldstone? Was he getting too close to discovering your Burmese schemes?”

“No, he was getting too close to discovering that the Comte was not what he seemed.” Georgina took the reticule that hung from her wrist and tossed it to Sarah. “Open it.”

She did. Inside were only a few coins and a letter. Opening it, she looked past the droplets of blood, gone brown with time, and read.

“It is a letter from Lord Fieldstone to the Duke of Parford,” Sarah told Marcus. “Not yet finished. Asking if he was aware that his Holbein painting had been sold, and ended up with the Historical Society.”

It was the letter they had been searching the house for, over the course of two days, Sarah thought, scanning the contents. But it did not indicate any nefariousness on behalf of a Burmese interest—instead, it was about the theft of a painting.

“It goes on to ask if he has confidence in the Comte de Le Bon, who he had let stay in his home.”

“Jean is—was—a greedy child,” Georgina explained. “While everyone in town was smiling at him and fawning over him”—she gave a pointed look to Sarah—“he and Pha were making money hand over fist, emptying out the contents of the Duke of Parford’s home. It made him happy.” She shrugged. “I told him that he could make a few coins off the lesser works in the house, and the contents of the attics and what not, but paintings like that would draw notice. But he wouldn’t listen, and one day I returned home to a false Holbein on the study’s wall. He tried to hide it from me, can you believe it?”

She laughed, coolly, placatingly. Which only made her seem all the more insane. “Really, Lord Fieldstone chose which gentleman I would kill for me. If he looked any closer at the Comte, he would begin to see me, and I could not have that.”

“Interestingly,” Marcus drawled, “if you had chosen any other man to kill, I would not have covered it up, nor would anyone have looked further into the Comte. Fieldstone had sent me to France the week before to look into the Comte’s background—although he would not tell me why. Those papers you threw on his desk misled me in the exact direction you wished me to avoid. And without that letter about the painting”—Marcus indicated the letter in Sarah’s hands—“I had to assume Fieldstone’s death was related to the Burmese issue, and the Comte connected to it.”

“It is very possible I miscalculated some things,” Georgina replied grudgingly. “You chief among them. And your friend, Lieutenant Fletcher. But never fear, Mrs. Hill will have tidied up that loose end by now.” She checked her pocket watch. “And it is just about time for me to finish up here. You’ll find, I do prefer things to close off neatly.”

Sarah’s heart began to pound at the mention of Jack’s name. “Mrs. Hill?” she asked, her voice coming out wobbly.

“Yes, she’s my protégée,” Georgina answered. “And very dedicated, too.”

They had sent Mrs. Hill after Jack. All this time, she had been standing here, stalling with some surprisingly candid conversation, waiting for Jack to arrive and save the day. And Mrs. Hill … Jack … oh God, the very thought brought palpitations to her chest.

Marcus, not noticing Sarah’s distress—or perhaps because of it—turned the conversation back to the unfolding mystery. “But why keep the letter? If found, it would have unraveled everything,” he said.

“I know why,” Sarah said, the voice coming from deep within her. “It gave her control.”