Page 192 of Courting the Wrong Duke

“No. I loved you.”

Isabella reached the keys and bent to retrieve them. The faint scrape of metal against stone seemed impossibly loud to William, though Algernon gave no indication that he had heard it.

“You all pitied me.”

William hardly dared breathe as Isabella straightened and began moving toward the cell. Only a few yards separated her from Edmund now. If he could keep Algernon talking for another few seconds, she might reach the door before he realized what was happening.

“You were my brother,” William said. “You still are.”

Algernon’s expression twisted. “Even now?”

The question caught William painfully off guard.

Then Rosalind drew a breath.

It was barely more than a whisper of sound, but William saw her gaze shift past Algernon and the sudden relief that crossed her face.

Algernon saw it too.

He turned, following her gaze, and everything that had been held so precariously in place shattered at once.

Isabella abandoned stealth and rushed toward the cell, but Algernon’s hand was already plunging beneath his coat.

William saw the pistol emerge.

“Algernon, no!”

The barrel swung toward the bars.

William threw himself at his brother just as the pistol fired, the deafening crack of the shot exploding through the cellar.

Chapter 28

Rosalind heard the shot before she understood what had happened.

The sound exploded through the cellar with such force that for one terrible instant there was nothing else. No voices. No movement. Only a high, piercing ringing inside her ears and the violent shudder of the floor beneath her feet.

Then something cracked overhead.

Rosalind threw up an arm as plaster and dust rained from the ceiling. A portion of the old surface broke loose near the stairs and struck the stones below, sending another cloud rolling through the cellar until the candlelight disappeared behind a pale haze.

Someone shouted but she could not tell who.

Her ears were still ringing so badly that every sound seemed distant and distorted, and for several seconds Rosalind could see almost nothing through the dust.

“Papa!”

She stumbled toward the cell, searching desperately through the haze until a figure moved behind the bars.

Her father.

He was still standing.

Relief nearly buckled her knees. Her father was alive.

Then, through the settling dust, she saw William lying several feet away from Algernon, one arm trapped beneath him and the other stretched awkwardly across the stone floor.

The relief vanished so quickly it left her breathless.