Page 135 of When We Touch

Chapter 18

There was bedlam on the street.

The police had arrived, and their whistles were blowing. They were running around like chickens because they knew that they were looking for something amiss, but they didn’t know what they were looking for. The gunfire had ceased. Mireau had gotten into the de Burgh carriage with Arianna, and Cecilia was standing with her husband by the carriage door, and there was no sign of Maggie.

“What the hell is going on?” Justin demanded. “Where’s my sister?”

“Right behind us!” Mireau said. “But careful . . . the guards left at the outside are armed . . . Cecilia and Eustace were firing back and they might have taken them down, but . . .”

One of the police inspectors was there as well.

“Guards? For who? What is going on here?” he raged. “There will be pandemonium any second now, people spilling out on the streets, thinking we’ve got Jack the Ripper!”

Jamie caught hold of Cecilia’s shoulders. “Cecilia, who was in there, what is going on?”

“A fake spiritualist,” she gasped out. “Arianna . . . ran away, wound up kidnapped, really, and we brought laudanum to knock them all out and . . .”

He didn’t wait for any more but went streaking toward the house. A shot blazed, so close that for a moment, the buzzing sound cost him his hearing in his right ear. He heard the bullet embed in the fence post behind him.

There was a man half fallen against the front wall of the house. His smoking pistol was still raised, aimed at Jamie. His hand was shaking; he had a bullet wound in his shoulder.

Jamie instantly calculated the risks, and flew at the man, bringing him down. The gun fell with the man’s hand to his right side. Jamie rose, kicking the gun away, reaching for the injured man and dragging him up.

“Where’s the woman?” he demanded.

The fellow grinned eerily. Then slumped into a dead faint. Jamie realized that he was covered in blood.

He dropped the man and burst into the house. People were splayed about everywhere, so it seemed.

Justin came running in behind him. “Where is she? My sister?” He saw one of the fellows, prone of the floor, and tried to drag him up. “Where’s my sister?” he raged.

But the man couldn’t answer. He lolled in Justin’s hold. Disgusted, Justin dropped him.

By then, Jamie had made a cursory inspection around the small house. Everyone in it was out cold. There was no help to be had here.

Time, Jamie was certain, was of the essence. He ran to the carriage and dragged Mireau from it. “Maggie’s gone.”

“He came back, then, he’s got her,” Mireau said.

“Who?” Jamie raged.

“Alexander. Adrian Alexander. He’s calling himself Jeremiah Heath now.”

Justin burst forward, reaching for Mireau’s lapels in a fury. “You let her come here! Jesus, I should kill you here and now, on the spot—”

“Stop it!” Cecilia cried. “She forced him to keep silent. They had Arianna, don’t you see!”

Perhaps Justin didn’t. Jamie did.

He’d had his chance. When she’d come that morning. And when he had raged so . . .

She had decided on her course of action.

“Justin, take the north, I’ll head east. Mireau . . . you, go south, and Eustace, head down there in a westwardly fashion. Cecilia, tell the police what you can—get them moving as well. Then, take your coachman, please, get Arianna home, and get the doctor for her. Not Sir William Gull! Get Dr. Mayer, and stay with her, please! Stay at Moorhaven.”

Cecilia nodded, jumping into the carriage. She caught Jamie’s hand briefly. “It was the only way she thought that she could save Arianna!” she said softly.

“It doesn’t matter now! He has her—we have to find them.”