“My apologies.” He knew he was not as successful at keeping all his emotion, all of his disgust and fury, out of his voice when she looked at him as if he was some odd curiosity. “You must know you cannot win this. You kill me and you will hang.”
“It is a gamble but one I am willing to take. I have grown quite good at judging the odds.” She frowned as there was a soft noise out in the hall. “What was that?”
“I told you I had not come here alone.”
“Well, it does not matter as I can shoot you dead before anyone can get in here to stop me. I am actually a very good shot.”
Brant wanted to ask her if his father had really died of heart failure as they all thought when he noticed an all too familiar face appear over the edge of the windowsill behind his mother. His heart stopped in his chest for a moment and he had to fight hard to keep his fear for Olympia off his face. Not only had she risked herself climbing up the side of the house but she now risked being shot by his mother. If they got out of this alive, he was going to throttle her.
And then he knew. It was an incredibly awkward time to have his heart reveal a truth to him, one his mind had tried to ignore. He loved the woman now slinging one stocking-clad leg over the windowsill. Loved her more than his own life.
“Pleased to hear it. I would hate to have you wound me and leave me to suffer pain and possible infection.”
“You have developed a very sharp tongue. It is not becoming in a gentleman.”
He blinked and was not surprised to see Olympia pause in her stealthy entrance to stare at his mother in open-mouthed shock. Lady Mallam had sounded very much like some scolding mother for a moment. She was about to shoot him dead and she was concerned about how gentlemanly he was behaving? Brant wondered if he had been wrong in his assessment of her mental state.
Then the faintest sound of cloth tearing broke the silence. Brant cried out as his mother turned toward the sound. He lunged toward her but she fired her pistol before he could reach her. Olympia cried out and disappeared beneath the sill. Brant, not even considering the fact that he was giving his mother a chance to reload or rearm, raced toward the window. The sound of another shot halted him but he felt nothing. He looked behind him to see Pawl standing in the doorway. He then looked for his mother and saw her on the floor, one pistol by her feet and another held in her hand. She had been ready to shoot him again.
Brant went back to the window. He took a deep breath to steady himself. He dreaded seeing Olympia’s broken body on the ground.
“Is she dead?”
He jerked back a step with surprise. “Olympia?”
“Aye, and could you hurry and give me a hand up, please? I am not sure how much longer I can hold on and I am certain someone must have looked out their window by now.”
He leaned out the window and saw her hanging by her fingertips from the narrow edge just outside. Brant was so relieved to see her alive, he was shaking. He bent over, grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her in through the window. The minute her feet touched the ground he hugged her until a soft squeak from her told him he was hugging her too tightly.
“Your mother?” Olympia asked.
“Dead,” he replied and thought Olympia was looking a little pale.
“Not yet,” said Pawl from where he crouched by Lady Mallam, “but there is no saving her. Sorry, m’lord.”
“There is nothing you need to apologize for,” Brant said as he reluctantly released Olympia and went to kneel beside his mother.
Letitia Mallam, Countess of Fieldgate, was dying. He could see it in her eyes and in the way she was breathing. It would be hard on the younger Mallams but he suspected not all that hard. One thing it did do was give him the opportunity to hide all the crimes she had committed. He only had to come up with a very good reason why she had been shot in her house.
“I think her footman is the dead man I saw in the garden,” said Olympia as she hurriedly put down her skirts, knowing that she could not hide her own condition for too much longer.
“A lovers quarrel?” asked Pawl.
“Excellent,” agreed Brant, “and I know just the man to help us make that happen.” He looked toward the boys all gathered in the doorway. “Can one of you get Dobson for me?” he asked.
“I will,” said Abel and frowned at Olympia, “but . . .”