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Andrew roared, his composure snapping as Mrs. Wark’s and Douglas’s laughter echoed off the loading dock’s walls.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE CAB SHUDDERED to a halt in front of a warehouse that looked all but abandoned. This time, it was Gillie who jumped down first.
“Wait for us, Mr. Noble, if you will!” Gillie shouted up. Then she pointed to a set of fresh wheel marks in the soft mud. “Look!”
Lavinia scrambled down after her and peered at the marks. A carriage had been here very recently and, when she looked a few feet away, she could see a set of drag marks big enough to be made by a man’s body.
Her heart hitched, and she balled her fists up. “They’re here.”
Gillie nodded and began hiking up her skirts. She reached under and unstrapped a small gun that could’ve fit into a lady’s reticule before handing it to Lavinia. “Draw back the hammer. Point. Shoot.”
Lavinia’s blood roared in her ears as she took the gun from the young lady. “Won’t you need it?”
Gillie grinned, yanking free a larger revolver. “I’ll be fine.”
“What do we do?” asked Lavinia.
“Try to find a back way in. Shoot anyone who tries to run out when the bullets start flying.”
“Where will you be?” asked Lavinia.
“Up,” said Gillie, pointing. “Most of these warehouses have beams. I’ll position myself high so I can get a clear line of sight and see if I can pick them off. If it’s safe for the prince.”
“And Andrew.”
Gillie’s mouth flattened. “You should prepare yourself. Just in case.”
She shook her head. “I can’t think anything but that he’s alive.”
Gillie paused. “You love him?”
Lavinia spread her hands wide. “I always have.” She’d never stop, no matter how hard she’d tried to suppress it over the years. She should’ve known it would never work. They’d grown together like two trees, twining until it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began.
“Then I’m sorry. I may have had something to do with your fight,” said Gillie.
“You might’ve been the catalyst but you weren’t the cause. Now, shall we find him?”
Gillie nodded and cocked her gun. “Stay alive.”
With those reassuring words ringing in her ears, Lavinia set off to find a side way into the building.
Her breath was short and her hands were shaking when she edged open a door and slipped inside. She wasn’t the brave sort who could face down gunmen with nothing more than a smirk, but her bravery manifested in other ways. It was in the way she’d chosen to carve out her own life for herself after seeing how horribly wrong it had all gone when someone else had chosen for her. It was in the way she’d faced down Wark every month. It was in the fierce protectiveness she felt for the girls she employed in her shop. Now she had to harness that strength to save Andrew.
Please let him be alive. Please let him be alive. The soundless words formed on her lips as she mouthed them over and over.
Inside the warehouse, she found she’d slipped into some sort of side room where they stored huge balls of yarn, the raw materials Wark’s business depended on and that Douglas clearly hadn’t seen fit to remove yet. All the better for her. The clutter would give her something to hide behind.
Moving carefully, she wound her way around the stacks of wool to the closer of the two doors in the room. Putting her ear to it, she could hear voices but couldn’t tell how close they were.
It wasn’t worth the risk. If she was captured now, Gillie would have two people to save with very little time to position herself up high as she’d said.
Lavinia picked her way along to the other door and listened there. Nothing. Pushing gently, she managed to edge it open without a sound and carefully poked her head around. It was a wide, empty corridor with a dim light through another passageway visible at the end.
Slowly, she crept toward the light. If she was right about what she’d seen of the configuration of the building, she was nearing the back. Right where Gillie wanted her to be.
When she reached the open doorway, she hung back in the shadows for a moment to catch her breath. She was just checking her grip on the gun when the rattle of chains snapped her chin up. Edging a little closer, she could barely see the outline of a figure. A man’s hands were strung up over his head from a huge chain. He twisted a little, and it was everything Lavinia could do not to gasp at the sight of Andrew, his hair tousled and his right cheek caked with mud. He’d caught a blow across his brow bone, and she could see blood drying in rivulets down his face. One of his eyes looked as though it was swelling shut.
