“Give me that.” Rupert groped for the gun, but Mr. Wilkins sidestepped him.
“Go and gather the remainder of our things. Anything of value we can load into the carriage.”
“What the devil are you—”
“It is finished. All of it.”
“I won’t walk away.”
“We have no choice.”
“The warehouse—”
“Will burn. Along with anything else we ever had in London.” Veins appeared on his forehead and his eyes turned glassy. “Heaven knows how many days we have left before we’re discovered. The letter has likely arrived. It is only a matter of time.”
“I want to do it.” Rupert nodded to the gun. “For what he did to Lucan.”
“No.” Mr. Wilkins motioned to the stairs. “You do as I say. If we leave the warehouse in flames, perhaps it will be longer before the bodies are exposed or…recognized.”
Rupert groaned blasphemies. He jerked his tailcoat from the floor and ran up the stairs, the creaking wood echoing in his absence.
Simon’s chest pulsed so hard it ached. “Let her go, Wilkins.”
“I wish I could.”
“She has nothing in this.”
“Everything now, I fear, sir.”
Sir.The mocking respect slapped Simon across the face. He glanced at Georgina.
Slumped against the beam, she wiped vomit from her mouth, hair in her eyes, breathing so fast he heard the uneven, choppy noises.
Part of his sanity unraveled. He saw Ruth. The shredded blue dress. The bloodless skin. “No.” Simon shook so hard his teeth rattled. “Wilkins, please. Let her go. Tell her where to find my children and let her go.”
“I did not wish for anyone to die. Least of all you.”
“You cannot—”
“A man is capable of anything, Master Fancourt.” Now more than the gun quaked. His lashes blinked too fast. His tongue slid back and forth over his lips, and his lanky stance wavered. “This is never what I wanted to happen. I did not wish to hurt your children, but I have nieces and nephews of my own. I had to think of them. You never knew what it meant to be without familial connections, without wealth you could run home to, but Roo and I have only ever had ourselves.” He sniffled. “Two years ago, my brother nearly lost the warehouse. The children would have been out in the streets.”
“You could have gone to my father. He would not have allowed that to happen.”
“Yes.” Mr. Wilkins stepped back and grinned, though the corners of his lips trembled and his eyes leaked tears. “I could have watched my brother trade his livelihood for a footman’s livery and watched the five little ones crowd into a Sowerby servant’s chamber.”
“So you slaughtered innocents instead.”
“Lucan—Phoebe’s brother—thought of it first. It seemed the right thing to do. Between the three of us men, with Lucan’s work in Newgate and Roo’s acquaintance with men at the docks and my connections through your Father, it was an easy way to set injustices right.”
“Injustices.” The word spewed like poison. “You deem setting murderers free justice?”
“The courts do not know everything.”
“But you do.”
“That man you killed. Brownlow. He was innocent. Patrick Brownlow murdered his own wife so he could be with another woman, then framed his brother. You did not know that, did you? We intervened. We saved his life.”
“For a price.”
