“You think you can walk away from this?” Julien barked. “You think either of you can expose what we’ve built? I won’t let you destroy everything Grandfather and I have tried to build. This ought to be my company.”
“Eventually the truth will come out,” Kitty said. “You cannot hide these sins forever. Why would you want to hurt your family in such a manner? Does Sebastian mean nothing to you?”
“I need no family, no mercy, and certainly no sanctimonious brother playing at righteousness,” Julien spat. His hand slipped inside his coat. The gleam of a second pistol flashed as he drew it and twisted toward Kitty.
I fumbled for mine as a ringing reverberated through my ears. But I was too slow. In that split second I saw his arm swing, the barrel rising toward her heart.
With a rush of instinct, I leapt in front of her and tugged my second pistol free just as the shot rang out.
Pain ripped through my side, heat blooming across my ribs. I staggered, the warehouse tilting. Kitty’s scream was the last thing I heard before the floor caught me.
Through blurred vision, I saw Lord Sinclair’s face twisted in horror—not at me, but at Julien.
Their eyes locked, decades of rot rising between them.
“Come to think of it,” Julien added, his expression dead, “I don’t need you either, Grandfather.”
“Foolish boy!” my grandfather roared. His arm snapped up, pistol aimed squarely at Julien.
Julien fired again, and the room exploded with sound—a blast reverberating as Lord Sinclair jerked, clutching his side. Almost in the same breath, my grandfather’s pistol answered. Gunsmoke thickened, sharp with the scent of metal.
Julien collapsed without a word, blood seeping into the wood. My grandfather swayed, his skin ashen, and then he slowly crumpled to the floor.
Two hands drew my face away from the fallen house of Sinclair and guided my gaze to the angelic image hovering over me. Kitty, biting her lip, her eyes shimmering.
“Foolish, beautiful man,” she whispered through tears as she cradled my head in her lap. “You would take a bullet for me.”
I wanted to speak—to tell her how much I loved her—but fiery pain cut into my ribs, stealing my breath, and my vision faded to black.
38:Kitty
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.
JOHN NEWTON
We had broken free of our families ... but oh, the cost.
Julien was dead. Sebastian’s wound, though grave, was not fatal. The bullet had passed cleanly through his side, missing the lung by Providence alone. For days he drifted between fever and lucidity, his strength returning by inches. I stayed beside him, changing bandages and reading aloud when he could not sleep.
Lord Sinclair, too, lay in a fevered state within his mansion, struck by another shot in the same exchange. The physicians said he would live, though the shock had aged him—and perhaps, at long last, chastened him.
News of the tragedy rippled through Calcutta and beyond, tarnishing both the Grenville and Sinclair names. How the papers would salivate over two houses brought to ruin amid such scandal.
Others rejoiced. Corruption had been removed from that dreadful warehouse at last.
Whatever fortune my grandfather hoarded in ledgers and estates, it no longer belonged to us. Sebastian left it all without hesitation, andI did not grieve its loss. We would begin again with only each other. The board of directors removed the Sinclairs from power, and Sebastian drafted letters to Mr. Wilberforce and anyone else who would listen.
Grandfather told the truth for once in his life. There were many other men just as corrupt within the East India Company.
No business should take hold of countries, bending the inhabitants to its rule, Sebastian told me during those days of convalescence.
This final cord snapping—our release from the Sinclairs and the East India Company—brought me the most freedom of all.
By the month’s end, Sebastian was strong enough to rise, though our trip to Hyderabad remained postponed. Yet even in his weakened state, he could not rest. Each morning I found him at his desk, pen scratching across the paper with steady determination.
One quiet morning, I stood at the veranda while he wrote, watching dawn unfurl over the gardens. Jasmine drifted on the air. The fading moon lingered in a sky washed pale with light.
“What will you say to the governor?” I asked, crossing the room.
