“Step away. Daniel, take it. Sir Maurice is coming, I saw at least four motorcars. We don’t have long.”
“They’ll get you,” March said venomously as Daniel took the gun from his hand with extreme caution. “You’ll be found out. Sodomite.”
Curtis punched him, without warning, in the sweet spot under the chin, and watched him drop. He shrugged at Daniel’s look. “I don’t want him in the way. Come on.”
As they hurried through the young woods that Sir Hubert would never see grow, Curtis said, “How did you know?”
“It was glaringly obvious. You didn’t notice?”
“You made that happen on guesswork?”
“No,” said Daniel. “Yes. I did. I— Hell.” He spun away, doubling over, and retched, coughing and choking as he spat out thin watery vomit. “Shit. Oh shit.”
Curtis grabbed him, hands on slender shoulders as they heaved. “It’s all right. Shh. You’re safe.”
“They’re not.” Daniel wiped his mouth with the back of a shaking hand and straightened cautiously. “The devil. I call myself a pacifist. That was wholesale slaughter.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I made it happen. All of it. Even James, you wouldn’t have had to do that if—”
“I would. I promised myself the blighter some time ago.”
Daniel looked up at that. “Yes, you did, didn’t you? The soldier at work. I wish I had your singleness of purpose.”
“Those swine murdered my men at Jacobsdal. They all knew about the sabotage, the bodies in the sinkhole. The three of them can go straight to hell. And we have to get to the house.”
“Right,” said Daniel, and then, “I’m sorry, but you do realise we’ve lost.”
“We can try.”
“We can’t. You heard Armstrong. The photographs are already on their way to wherever it may be, we don’t know because I killed them. I’ve ruined you. I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Curtis grabbed him, pulling him close. Daniel dropped his head, not meeting his eyes.
“Look at me. It’s not your fault. Christ, man, you’ve done what you could.”
“To destroy your life.”
“No.” Curtis wrapped his arms round him, not caring if anyone might be there to see. It hardly mattered now. “There was nothing there to destroy.”
“Say that again from a gaol cell,” Daniel muttered into his chest.
“It won’t come to that. We may have to leave the country in a hurry, that’s all.”
Daniel looked up, his face drawn with pain, eyes glistening bright. “It’s not all. Your family. Your position.”
Curtis kissed him, gently but firmly. “You faced all that. So can I. No guilt, it doesn’t suit you.”
“It ought to.” Daniel pulled away and hurried on towards the house. “I have made such a damned mess of this. Vaizey’s going to murder me, and so he should.”
“Nonsense.”
“I’ve lost the evidence of who’s betraying their country, provided a trio of corpses to be explained away, and ruined his nephew. He’s going to murder me.”
Put like that, it did seem likely. “Come on,” Curtis said as they crunched up the gravel in front of the house, in step. “Let’s face this.”
Chapter Fifteen
The front door stood open. In the otherwise empty hallway, Lambdon lay unconscious on the floor with blood trickling sluggishly from a nasty wound in his scalp.
“What the—”
“Ssh.” Curtis frowned, looking around, then took a few long strides to the library door.
“Let me,” he mouthed, lifting his revolver and indicating the other man should stay behind him.
Daniel stepped back. Curtis took a breath, elbowed the door open, swung into the room and stopped dead, with the muzzle of a Holland and Holland shotgun pointing directly in his face.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Patricia Merton, lowering the gun. “You’ve been a while, I must say.”
Curtis stared at her. Then he stared at the other two occupants of the room: the servant Wesley, kneeling, face to the wall and hands behind back; and Fenella Carruth, holding a pretty little Colt ladies’ revolver with obvious competence. He gaped at her. She gave him a sparkling smile.
Beside him, Daniel made a strangled noise, and pointed at the open storeroom door. Curtis could see papers and photographs spilled on the floor.
“Are you after that business?” asked Pat, jerking her head. “It’s all perfectly safe, if that’s what you were wondering.”
Daniel bolted into the storeroom. Curtis managed, “How?”
“Well, we heard them,” Pat said.
“Plotting,” put in Fen with relish.
“Lots of tramping around this morning and a great deal of subdued shouting. It sounded very like something had gone wrong, so when the Armstrongs left, we thought we might take a look. And there were this precious fellow and the atrocious Mr. Lambdon lighting the fire and taking out piles of papers and photographs, which I realised must be all that nastiness you told me about. And I thought, well, I doubt Archie wants that destroyed before your friends arrive. So we asked them to stop.”