meticulous research on the location to anticipate every eventuality. If only they’d had time to visit this meeting site, to assess all the exits and entrances, to find the places of elevation and blind corners. If only she’d learned how to shoot a pistol or wield a knife.
The coach rattled over Kew Bridge and rocked to a stop. Alex’s dark shape appeared at the window. “This is where we leave you.”
Emmy managed to nod, even though she felt almost nauseous with nerves. He nudged his mount closer and reached his gloved hand through the open window to stroke her cheek.
“It’ll be all right, Emmy. Trust me.”
She allowed herself the brief indulgence of pressing her cheek into his palm, then pulled away. She refused to think that this might be the last time she ever spoke to him. “Go.”
A few minutes later the coachman angled the vehicle through an arched red brick entrance, and they started down a tree-flanked lane. Emmy peered through the darkness. After half a mile or so, they pulled over and she looped Brutus’s leash around her wrist and jumped down from the carriage, then turned and hefted the tin.
The coachman pointed through the trees to where the partly constructed battlements of a great stone edifice gleamed pale in the moonlight. “’Is lordship told me not to get too close. But don’t you worry none, milady. ’E’ll ’ave yer back, all right and tight.” He saluted her with a finger to his cap.
Emmy started down the dark lane. The trees arched overhead, their branches dark and menacing, and she tried to regulate her breathing. Just a nice walk in the moonlight, that’s all. Brutus tugged at the leash, eager to investigate everything, snuffling in the shifting undergrowth. A gust of wind brought the distinctive smell of the river to her nose, and she realized they weren’t far from the Thames. She spied the silver-grey sliver of water between the trees.
The main building came into view: white stone crenelated walls, round turrets, and small windows in the Gothic style. In the moonlight, it looked like a medieval ruin, a folly, but Emmy knew it was in the process of being built, not falling down.
King George’s “new palace” had been featured in the newspapers for years. Still unfinished more than a decade after construction had begun due to the king’s many bouts of madness, it was a constant source of derision, outrage, and scorn. Its detractors decried it as ruinously expensive, ugly, and tasteless. A monument to folly and unfinished dreams. A prime example of the foolishness and profligacy of the monarchy. One politician had even likened it to the Bastille.
Building work had clearly been at a standstill for some time. Brambles and weeds had overgrown the joists that protruded from the unfinished walls. Emmy shivered, hating the place with an instinctive dread. Danton had chosen his meeting place well; there were a hundred places he could be hiding, dead ends and shadowy corners. He could be watching her even now.
Brutus let out an excited bark. Nose to the ground, he tugged her down a path that led through the trees toward the river, a muddy track obviously once used by the workmen. Emmy almost turned her ankle in one of the wheelbarrow ruts before she hauled him to a stop.
She glanced around, her heart thumping against her breastbone as she tried to decipher the dark shapes in the darkness. Every rustle of leaf, every snap of a twig, made her want to scream. Was Danton lurking in the shadows? Did he have a gun trained on her even now? She clutched the metal box tighter to her stomach, almost numb with terror. What was to stop him shooting her and taking the jewels from her corpse?
She clenched her jaw. No. He would want to be certain she had the jewels before killing her. And Alex was somewhere out there too. She tried to guess where he might be hiding but could see nothing.
Her heart leapt as the undergrowth rustled and Danton’s squat figure materialized from the shadows.
“Miss Danvers,” he called out, his tone genial, as if they’d just met on the street and not in some terrifyingly isolated piece of woodland. “I’m glad you came.” He took a step forward and glared at Brutus. “But not alone, I see.”
“Brutus needed some air.” The dog gave a short, unfriendly bark and strained at the leash. Emmy wrapped it around her wrist and clutched the heavy tin box in front