Honoria stood at the doorway draped in gingham and cream silk, her features almost serene in their perfection. Her beauty a beacon in the chaos of blood, bodies, and broken glass.
Prudence clawed at William’s arm, trying to warn her sister, to scream her name.
Honoria only shook her head. “William. Is all this really necessary? Could you not have just taken me with you today, instead?”
“Honoria,” he choked out, his hold slackening a little. “You came.”
“Of course I did,” she said with a coy roll of her eyes. “You’re my husband. Do you think I would have let you get away?”
The sound he made was pure anguish and abject joy.
It disgusted Pru, who couldn’t help but search the doorway for another shadow. For the man who could come put an end to the horror.
He was here. He’d already leveled the entire field. But…where was he now? What could he do?
“Go, Honoria,” Pru pleaded. “He’s mad.”
Her sister never broke eye contact with her husband. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. He always does, don’t you, husband?” She held a hand out, the elegant fingers steady and coaxing. “Now let us leave here, together.”
“The money,” he said, in the voice of a plaintive boy. “It’s not in the blasted crate it was supposed to be in. I haven’t found it yet.”
“Because I seized it last night.”
At the sound of Morley’s seemingly disembodied voice, William cocked the pistol at Prudence’s temple, drawing a shameful whimper from her.
No, Morley hadn’t seized the money. He’d been with her all night. Why was he lying? Why would he upset the man with the gun to her head?
“Don’t you dare, Inspector,” William crowed. “I’m taking the boat and crossing the channel. These two are my tickets out of Blighty, do you understand?”
“That is where you’re wrong,” said the shadows. “You’re not taking one more step.”
“Or what, eh? Do you want me to paint the floor with her brains?”
“William, no,” Honoria pleaded, her façade of composure cracking. “She’s pregnant. I know you wouldn’t kill a child.”
“It seems I picked the wrong sister,” a disgusted William hissed in her ear. “Honoria’s dry and barren as the Sahara, and frigid as the Arctic.”
“Only toward you,” she said in a voice gone flat as death. “I made certain your seed never took root, but none of my other lovers found me cold.”
William’s entire body tensed, and for a moment, Prudence knew it was over. Time slowed to a fraction of its pace, and the greatest regret she could muster in her last moment was that she wouldn’t get to see her beloved husband’s face before the end.
A tear escaped her as she squeezed her eyes shut.
He jerked, and a shot detonated, the pain lancing the side of her head with a searing agony she’d not expected to feel before the end. Another shot blasted. And another.
The weight of his arm around her throat immediately released and she screamed in a long breath.
I’m…alive, was her first thought. But the pain…had she even been shot?
More puzzled than shocked, Pru opened her eyes in time to witness the immediate aftermath.
William’s gun was no longer aimed at her head, but forward, before his hand went slack and the weapon clattered to the ground.
Honoria’s eyes swung to hers and they held for a moment as the only sound Prudence could hear was the air screaming with one insufferable monosyllabic note.
The pain was only in her ear, because the pistol had discharged next to it.
A starburst of red appeared on Honoria’s buttercream bodice right above her heart.
They both stared down at the bullet wound in her sister’s chest as William’s body slumped to the ground, a puddle of blood rushing beneath her boots.
Her husband had killed him, but not before William had taken a shot at his own wife.
Prudence’s scream echoed from far away as she launched herself forward, hoping to catch her sister before the woman’s buckling legs failed her.
Chapter 20
Dorian Blackwell swooped inside, catching Honoria in his arms as she slumped forward.
Prudence panicked at the dire look he gave her as he lifted Honoria with a grunt and swept her from the warehouse, out onto the planked unloading dock.
Prudence scrambled after them, daylight blinding her as she seized her sister’s hand and brought it to her cheek.
“Honoria! No. Oh, please. Can you hear me?” she cried as Blackwell gingerly settled her sister down flat on the planks of the dock and ripped her petticoats to create a bandage. He shoved it