The Earl of Morrey (The League of Rogues #13) - Lauren Smith Page 0,76

toward the fire as he lay dying. Avery gasped in shock as Shengoe twitched, his half-glazed eyes still holding a faint light in them.

“Shengoe, my friend. I’m so sorry . . .” Avery rushed over and crouched down beside him, his throat closing as he struggled to calm himself.

His hand was stretched out, blood-coated fingertips pointed toward something on the floor. Words had been drawn, patterns, clearly by Shengoe with his own blood on the floor.

Whitehall will fall. The rest was too smeared to read clearly.

“What’s happening?” Avery asked Shengoe. As he listened for Shengoe to respond, he examined the man carefully, assessing his multiple wounds. There was nothing he could do to save him.

“King’s . . .speech . . .” Shengoe exhaled, his last breath trickling away in an eerie death rattle. Avery could have sworn Shengoe’s last word was “fox.” But what could that mean?

Whitehall will fall . . .King’s speech . . . Fox . . .

Although Whitehall was no longer used for the government, the name still stood for England’s ruling bodies. The warning suggested that the current government was in peril. The question was how. Whatever was being planned was but a week away. That was when the king would speak before Parliament, particularly before the House of Lords.

Avery could stop the king from speaking, but that meant the plotters would slink back to the shadows, and the next time they made their move they would have no warning. No, the risks were too great. He had to find a way now to stop this.

Avery closed Shengoe’s eyes with gentle reverence. The weight Avery carried upon his shoulders had grown tenfold.

The embers of the fire were still burning. They glowed a deep orange, and the white bits of charred wood were as pale as bone. Avery reached for the poker and stoked the fire, not even sure why he did except perhaps out of habit. A numbness swept through him as he felt the loss of his men so deeply that it almost killed him.

But the tragedy went much further than the death of his friends; it was the death of all he had worked toward as England’s chief spymaster. His reforms and ambitions for the Home Office had been undone in one fell swoop.

Hugo Waverly had to be laughing from his watery grave. While Waverly’s hubris and lust for revenge had cost him his life, it had not left the nation in so vulnerable a state as it was right now. The irony was, only Avery and the killers would know that. While his lesser spies and informants would all still be in place, these men had been the linchpins that held his newly remade network together. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he was going to rebuild now, or whom he could trust.

It was no wonder that Waverly had kept his men at arm’s length. Every man in this room tonight had been a friend, and they were all dead. And who else could he blame for it but himself?

Shengoe’s urgent message still echoed in Avery’s mind. He’d warned that Arthur Thistlewood was being coaxed into violent action by someone. Until now, Thistlewood and his men had been men of words and little more. Whoever had pushed them toward this had to be the one responsible for what had happened tonight. Avery had to protect Whitehall, or else his friends’ terrible sacrifice would have been for nothing.

He twisted the poker in the fire again. The reflection of the white marble fireplace was like polished glass. A shadow of movement flickered in that reflection. Avery had a second to spin around, raising the poker like a sword, ready to defend himself as a blade arced down toward him.

Sparks flew from the clash of metal and iron. A brutishly tall man with dark eyes glared at him from the other side of their crossed weapons. Avery leapt back, swinging the poker at the man’s chest. The man barely dodged out of the way before he swung his sword again.

Like a man possessed, Avery battled him until the old fire poker broke beneath the other man’s onslaught. Before the man could regain his footing, Avery shoved one of the bookcases over so that it came crashing down on top of him. The man cried out as the heavy oak shelves filled with books crushed him.

Panting hard, Avery approached the man who lay half-buried and moaning in agony. By the way his face was turning reddish-blue, Avery