“I love you.” Once said, it could not be taken back. Andrew didn’t want to.
An answering warmth that had nothing to do with physical attraction entered Darius’s eyes. “I love you too. I’ve never been in love before, and it overwhelms me. I’m thinking properly now. I know what to do. Trust me.”
He turned abruptly as the footman opened the door and leaned in to pull down the steps. Did Darius’s words mean he had accepted what Andrew had told him?
At least he’d heard the words he’d been longing to hear. Afraid of telling him before then because he didn’t know how, he discovered that simply telling him was the right thing. Relief surged through him. Where they would go next he had no idea, but they would do it together. That made the inevitable trials ahead worth every drop of blood. The stairs to the imposing offices greeted him. Built in the baroque style, the columns framing the front door as grand as the gilded and marbled interior. He climbed the stairs and waited while Darius bowled past the man at the door and took the stairs. All Andrew could do was follow in his wake.
General Court’s office was situated on the second floor. The building had been designed to impress, with high ceilings and wide marble stairs. Both men scaled the heights with little effort, taking little notice of the imposing surroundings. Both reached the office without losing their breath. Or their determination, as Andrew saw when he exchanged a glance with Darius.
The man inside, sitting behind an elegant but imposing desk, glanced up at them, his face a picture of indifference. After Darius presented his card, he appeared more interested, and after bowing to Andrew’s noble companion, took the card inside the office.
He came back outside. “General Court will be with you shortly.”
After five minutes, Darius got on his feet. “We have no more time. Pray give the general our deepest condolences on the death of his son.”
“Wait!”
Andrew, also on his feet, watched the little play with amusement.
“I am sure the general will see you. Please, wait.”
“Tell him if he does not see us now, he will not see us at all,” Andrew said, taking his part in the little game.
Court intended to keep them waiting, a power game to show who was in charge here. He could not outrank Darius, but he could keep him waiting.
As they expected, the man emerged once more, and with his lips pursed, showed them into the general’s office.
General Court wore black, completely unrelieved black, down to his neckcloth. Privately Andrew considered his mourning wear somewhat aggressive, forcing awareness on anyone he met. He kept his face carefully neutral as he made his bow and received a perfunctory nod in return.
“We are sorry for the sad loss of your son,” Andrew said.
“That, from his murderer?” General Court thrust a shaking finger at Andrew. “You killed my son. I will have you arrested for it. I’ll lay charges.”
Fumbling behind him, he dragged a sword from its scabbard and thrust it at Andrew.
Darius pushed Andrew back and drew his own, the sickening slide of metal the only sound in the room. The men faced each other, only their breathing disturbing the tense hush. The general’s army saber easily outclassed Darius’s smaller weapon, but the men wielding them made up for that. Darius was in the pink of health, as Andrew had reason to know. The general was panting heavily already, his face flushed.
“You will not have me arrested,” Andrew said, dropping his voice into the silence. “Put your weapons away. General, you should know what happened. You sent me to Mother Fleming’s to find your son that day, did you not?”
The general spared him a glance. “I sent you to find the traitor. My son must have discovered him first. That was why he was there. That was why he went to Dover. Instead, you had the list which you intended to sell to the Italian. You are the traitor, sir.”
His plan had merit, but he was forgetting one thing. “When your son died, Lord Darius was present. So was his cousin Lord Ivan Rowley and two of Lord Darius’s footmen. They will attest that your son drew the weapon first, that in fact he held a pistol to my head and ordered me to give him the list. He clearly said he would kill me if I did not give it up. That was after he had killed Bartolini, claiming he had done it in self defense. He did not. Bartolini did not draw a weapon.”
The general sagged. Andrew could have spouted the plain facts until he was blue in the face, but he suspected they would not have had any effect. Not without Darius and Ivan’s presence at the scene. But without it, he would be lost.
“You are telling me you shot my son because he threatened you?”
Andrew was too old a hand to answer any kind of leading question. “I am saying that I believed your son when he said he would kill me if I did not give him the list. I believed him a traitor. Was I wrong?”
The general glared at Darius. “Would you prefer I asked you to name your friends?”
Darius made a little figure of eight with his sword. “If you call me out, I will meet you and kill you. Answer him.”
The fraught silence lasted an agonizing minute and then another. Nobody moved.
General Court closed his eyes, and his face seemed to fall in. Suddenly, the weight of his years fell on his shoulders. When he opened them again, his eyes appeared to have lost their brightness, and the lines on his face were graven deep. “No, you were not.”
He lowered his sword. Darius followed suit.
“You sent me to find the spy at Mother Fleming’s so you could put all the blame on his shoulders and protect your son from disclosure,” Andrew said. “Your son had purloined the list and offered it to the highest bidder. You knew that, did you not?”
The general turned around on the pretext of returning the sword to its elaborate sheath. He had the weapon propped against the wall, more a decoration than anything else, but he had demonstrated it was far from that. From the shallow dents in the sheath, Andrew suspected he’d carried it into battle. A memento of hard-won service to the Crown.
Although Andrew felt sorry for the man, he did not intend to allow him to push the blame on someone else, especially when that someone was him.