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Artemis immediately stilled.
“Artemis!” Phoebe shouted, standing arms outstretched. Her face was white and Artemis knew she would be completely blind in the dark.
“Go toward the voices, darling,” Artemis said, but before she could say anything more she was pulled roughly through the bushes.
He set a fast pace, nearly running toward the docks. They emerged to find a scene of chaos. Gentlemen and ladies were standing on the dock, screaming for the boats, some piling into already full barges. Footmen ran back and forth, while others were clearly still trying to keep up the futile bucket brigade to put out the fire. Artemis saw Hero, Miss Picklewood, and Isabel, and breathed a sigh of relief that they had escaped.
Lord Noakes shoved to the front of the docks and pointed his pistol to a gentleman about to hand a lady into a boat. “Move aside.”
“Are you insane?” sputtered the gentleman.
Lord Noakes grinned. “Probably.”
The gentleman’s eyes widened as his lady shrieked.
“Get in,” Lord Noakes ordered Artemis.
Gingerly she got into the boat. The boatman was watching, wide-eyed.
Lord Noakes descended and pointed his pistol at Artemis’s head. “Head for Wapping,” he told the boatman.
They were pulling into the river when a shout came from the dock. Maximus was there and by his side was Phoebe. Artemis smiled, her sight blurring. At least Phoebe was safe.
Maximus shouted obscenities at a boatman. She’d never seen him so angry. He had a pistol pointed at the boat they were in, but since Lord Noakes had made sure to sit Artemis in front of him, Maximus couldn’t fire without fear of hitting her.
“Do you think it’s driving him mad?” Lord Noakes asked with clear amusement. “To’ve spent his entire adult life hunting me, to come so close to catching me, and then to see me simply sail away?” He chuckled in her ear. “I should’ve killed him that night along with the duchess and duke, but he was hiding, see. Like a little rabbit. The great Duke of Wakefield. Oh, you needn’t shiver, my dear.” He stroked a hand over her arm because she had indeed shuddered. “There’s no need to be afraid, for I doubt I’ll hurt you. Much.”
“You,” Artemis said very quietly through gritted teeth, “are a loathsome man who will never be even one-hundredth the man Maximus is, and besides that, you don’t know me at all.”
And so saying she dived over the side of the boat and into the black waters of the Thames.
THE MOMENT ARTEMIS’S body disappeared under the murky waters of the Thames all thought stopped for Maximus. He was aware in a dim sort of way of shouts, of the fire still raging behind him, of his sisters screaming, and the boat carrying Noakes away, but that was all at the back of his mind.
He dropped the pistol he held. He reached into his coat pocket for the dagger he’d taken off Old Scratch and placed it between his teeth. He tore off his coat and shoes.
Then he dived into the Thames.
A small, calm voice at the back of his brain was counting off the seconds since she’d disappeared, was pointing out that she hadn’t resurfaced, and was calculating how fast the river was moving.
He struck out, heading to a spot a little downstream from where she’d gone in.
A shot rang out, followed closely by another.
He dove into darkness.
At arm’s length he couldn’t see his hand. He felt about frantically. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
His lungs began spasming.
He kicked to the surface and drew his lips back from his teeth clenched around the dagger to gasp.
He dived again.
Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
His eyes stung.
