Page 86 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

“Then do not miss.”

Ahead, the black launch lay alongside the white yacht, fenders wedged between their hulls. A short gangway joined the two vessels.

Rosalynd stood at the foot of it, her wrists bound, a man gripping each arm.

“Take us alongside,” I said.

The engineer glanced at me.

“Ram her. Amidships. Put every man on that deck on his back.”

His hand came off the regulator.

“Your lady is standing on her, Guv’nor.”

I looked at Rosalynd. Bound. At the rail. With nothing between her and the river. For two seconds, perhaps three, I considered the odds that she would survive what I had just ordered. “Her quarter,” I said. “Glancing blow. Break the gangway and put us alongside.”

“That I’ll do.”

And then I climbed over the rail.

At the last possible moment, the boatman swung us toward the black launch. The engineer cut the steam.

We struck her after quarter at an angle.

Our bow scraped hard along her side. The fenders burst. Her rail went in a shower of splinters, and the force of the blow threw the launch violently sideways.

Men went down the length of the deck. A revolver skated across the boards and disappeared over the side.

The gangway twisted between the two vessels. One end tore free from the yacht and dropped into the water. The hulls pulled apart, then came together again, grinding against one another.

And then something else gave way.

The little boat hanging from the davits swung wildly. One of its ropes snapped. The boat dropped stern-first onto the deck.

The man who had been holding Rosalynd went down beneath it. Rosalynd did not.

She had thrown herself flat the instant the vessels struck. She rolled clear with her bound hands over her head, moving as though she had known exactly what was coming.

Because she had.

I looked back at Finch. “Stay here.”

“Your Grace⁠—”

“You have been shot. That is an order.”

His mouth shut.

The two launches ground together beneath me. I let go of the stay, caught what remained of the black launch’s rail, and hauled myself aboard.

The deck came up at me harder than I had allowed for and my knee took most of it. A pistol went off somewhere to my right. The ball went past my ear and into the yacht’s white side.

Finch came over behind me, landed badly, but stayed upright.

“Left of you!”

I turned with it. A man came out from the wheelhouse door at me with a revolver already up. I fired first. He sat down against the housing and did not get up.