“It is not fashionable, but Frank is bringing a cart round. Nkiruka, will you get the door?” He was sticky with sweat. “And Muse, pull up your cloth. The smoke is very bad.”
Jane pulled up the cloth as Nkiruka opened the door. Vincent swung, turning to smoothly guide Jane’s legs through. He stepped on to the back veranda, still looking back into the house to make sure her head did not hit the frame.
Mr. Pridmore stood in the yard.
Jane stiffened in Vincent’s arms. “Put me down.”
“What—? Oh, rot!”
“Told you I’d smoke him out. Clever, keeping him at Frank’s. Didn’t think his lordship would stoop to staying in slave quarters.” Pridmore smiled rakishly. “Mighty glad to see me, too. Be interesting to see what happens when people hear how you kept him prisoner.”
“You have my father, which is what you wanted, and there is a fire that threatens all of us, so this is not the time for discussion.”
“From what I hear, your brother is more tractable. Pity that I’ll have to tell your father you died in the fire.” Mr. Pridmore produced a pair of duelling pistols from behind his back. “Real mother-of-pearl inlay. A present from Mrs. Pridmore. She said all real gentlemen should have a set.”
Vincent put Jane down and stepped in front of her. “Then let us handle this like gentlemen. I see you brought two pistols.”
Nkiruka stood just inside the door, holding it open. She beckoned to Jane, eyes wide over her mask. Jane shook her head, though she was not sure what she could do.
“I wasn’t thinking to duel you.” Pridmore raised one of the pistols and aimed it at Vincent.
“You know he wants my wife alive.”
“He did say that.”
Vincent walked down the stairs, curving his steps away from Jane and Nkiruka. “And I will wager that until he is certain it is a boy child, he does not want me dead, only disabled.”
“No … that’s my own addition to his plan.” He cocked the pistol. “I’ll tell him you threatened me.”
In desperation, Jane clutched her stomach and let out a shriek that would do her mother proud. “The baby!”
Pridmore glanced at her. As he did, Vincent darted to the right and vanished.
The pistol’s shot cracked the night. Jane grasped the rail for support. Vincent had woven a Sphère Obscurcie, but he could not have gone far holding the weave. There was no way to tell if the shot had hit him so long as he was hidden in glamour.
Clearly shaken, Pridmore took a step back, lowering the pistol now that its single shot was spent. He raised the other pistol and held it at ready. “Where are you, Hamilton?”
In the distance, flames crackled and wood popped. Jane’s own ragged breathing caught without feigning as another bearing pain wrapped around her. She kept her eyes on the yard, waiting for Vincent to reappear.
He popped into sight ten feet to the left of where he had been, moving at a run towards Pridmore. The move to the right must have been a feint. Pridmore cursed and swung to aim at him, but Vincent vanished again. Pridmore darted away and turned his loaded pistol on Jane. “Stop! Or I shoot your wife.”
Behind Jane, a brief flurry of movement caught her attention. She looked back, hoping that Vincent had somehow made his way behind her. Frank stood in the hall with Nkiruka, heads bent together in furious conference.
Vincent’s voice pulled her attention back to the yard. “At forty feet? With that trinket? Expensive, yes, but unless I miss my guess, it is of Spanish manufacture, and notoriously inaccurate.” He reappeared only fifteen feet from Pridmore.
Frank stepped on to the veranda with Nkiruka right at his back. He slowly raised a hunting rifle to his shoulder. “Whereas, you have seen me bring down geese with this. I have two shots to your one and—let me be clear—a very, very strong desire to see you dead. You have until the count of three to put down the pistol.”
Nkiruka’s head was bent. She panted while her hands worked swiftly in front of her.
“One.”
Pridmore turned the pistol back to Vincent. “You really think you can hit me first?”
“Two.”
The pistol jumped in Pridmore’s hand with a flash, a finger of fire pointing straight at Vincent. Almost simultaneously, the shotgun cracked, sound exploding in Jane’s ears.
Pridmore threw his pistols down and ran for the safe house.
Jane did not care for that. Vincent had vanished again. She had just started down the stairs when her husband reappeared twenty feet to the right of where he had been standing. He was breathing hard enough to stir the damp cloth wrapped around his head. Otherwise, he appeared untouched.
Springing forward, Vincent took her by the shoulders and looked her over. “Muse. Tell me that shriek was a pretence.”
“It was.” Though the pains were coming with concerning regularity. “A distraction seemed necessary. Now, tell me that you were not shot.”