into Prudence’s hands and guided her to press down on the bullet wound with brutal pressure.
“Keep this here,” he ordered before he surged to his feet and left them. “Don’t move.”
Pru couldn’t imagine how terrible the pain of a bullet was, but Honoria’s eyes merely fluttered, her features draining from pale to a ghostly shade.
“Don’t go. Don’t go,” Pru pleaded with her sister. “Not when you’re finally safe. Finally rid of him.”
Honoria’s dark eyes opened and caught hers for a moment, flooded with some awful emotion she couldn’t identify. Her lips moved, but the pressure and ringing in Prudence’s ears still impeded her from hearing such breathy tones.
“I can’t hear you. Dammit. I can’t hear you,” she lamented.
Honoria’s bloodless lips moved more deliberately, her porcelain features pinched with pain. “I’m sorry. I should have told you…I…was afraid…”
“Shh. Shh. Shh.” Prudence wanted to smooth her hair, but she dared not let up on the pressure of her wound. “Honoria, I didn’t know what he was. What he was doing to you. No wonder you strayed. I’m not angry about George. Please don’t blame yourself. Just—Just be well.”
“I love you,” her sister murmured through her tears, and Prudence was glad to note enough of her hearing had returned that she could make out the words. “We don’t say any of that, do we? We Goodes. But I do. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Pru said, tears leaking from the tip of her nose. “I will for a long time so don’t start saying that like you mean goodbye.”
“You are a wonderful sister. And I…I’m not…”
Prudence looked up at the almost-deserted docks, noting some brave souls began to push themselves away from the places behind which they’d taken shelter. “Send for an ambulance!” she shrieked at them.
“I’ve done one better,” Dorian said, leading men back toward them. They set down two poles and spread a canvas material between them, presumably erecting a makeshift stretcher. “There’s a sawbones not two streets over I’ve used for a decade to dig bullets out of men who don’t want questions asked at hospitals.”
“Absolutely not!”
Despite her near-hysteria, his features softened as he regarded her. “Lady Morley, I’ve seen a lot of wounds like this. It’s unlikely to be fatal if we get her immediate care and cleaning. Allow me to—”
“I will allow you nothing,” she threw her body over her sister’s, bracing her weight on her hands. “You will get an ambulance and she will be taken to a hospital, not some underworld sawbones. I’ll not have it!”
Blackwell made a sound of impatient consternation. “Where is your husband, I wonder?”
“He was supposed to wait for us.” The man she recognized as Millie LeCour’s husband, Argent, peered into the doorway and took stock of the significant carnage inside. “He didn’t leave aught for us to do but clean up the corpses.” If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he sounded plaintive.
As if he were looking forward to the violence.
“I suggest you get to it then.” A voice from above drew their notice, and they all looked to the roof of the warehouse where Morley stood against the slate grey sky.
Of course. He hadn’t been shooting in through the windows. At least not the ones on the ground floor. He’d somehow scaled the building to the second or third floors and shot down through the smaller portals above. He’d have had to navigate the sharp angle of the roof and steady himself on precarious perches to shoot from such angles at such distances into the dimness.
His skill was nothing short of miraculous.
Morley dropped his rifle down to Argent, and then deftly levered himself over the edge of the roof, controlling his drop with only the strength of his arms until his feet were far enough from the ground to drop into a crouch.
He scanned the area, his gaze skipping right over Prudence as he stood and adjusted his cravat that had gone only slightly askew through the entire ordeal.
“Morley,” Blackwell held up his hands helplessly, though he was no longer armed. “You know Conleith; he’s more than an adequate surgeon.”
“Titus Conleith?” Morley’s sharp jaw hitched as he stalked toward them with the predatory grace of a jungle cat. “That Irish devil dug more bullets out of more soldiers than any man alive. He could do it blindfolded.”
Prudence didn’t budge, something inside her had snapped. “This is no battlefield surgeon’s tent,” she hissed. “This is my sister and—”
“Titus Conleith?” Honoria astonished them all by breathing out the name in