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She lowered her arm but didn’t acknowledge the question. Her eyes were fixed on the two people sprawled on the ground.
Going over to Boucher, he nudged her over so that she lay faceup. Her hands were twitching, and her mouth was moving, but nothing issued forth save a thin, pink-tinged froth of spittle. He’d shot her in the chest. Pierced lung. Already lost a lot of blood from the gut wound. She won’t survive. Good.
He moved to her fallen man. His glassy, lifeless stare and the crimson bloom spreading across his torso told Will Jacqueline’s shot had been true. Leaving them, he hurried over to her. “Are you hurt?” he repeated. He grasped her by the shoulders and looked her up and down, searching.
“I’m uninjured,” she at last replied, her voice shaking. “He must have lost aim when she fell against him.”
“Thank God for that,” he gasped. He would have pulled her into his arms, but a scraping, gurgling noise drew their attention. Boucher had rolled onto her side and was facing them, her hand outstretched toward a knife that lay on the ground about a foot away.
It must have fallen during the confrontation. He could hardly believe the dying woman was struggling to reach it.
Jacqueline turned from him and walked over to Boucher. “Long have I waited for this moment,” he heard her murmur as she knelt beside her fallen enemy. “I’ve dreamed of it, imagined it in moments of solitude. I thought it would satisfy me to watch you die, and I admit to being comforted by the certainty that you will never again trouble me or my girls. But I’m surprised to also find myself feeling pity. I want to continue hating you, but I cannot.”
Boucher’s eyes burned with undisguised rage and loathing. Her mouth opened, but all that came out was a wet, strangled cough. Again, she clawed at the knife.
Jacqueline picked it up and tossed it out of her reach. With that same hand, she then gently brushed the straggling locks of graying hair back from Boucher’s brow. “I feel such pity for you. No one who has ever been loved or treated with tenderness could do what you did to me and the others, especially the children.”
To Will’s amazement, he saw tears glistening on his beloved’s cheek. He knew what Jacqueline had endured because of this remorseless creature. How can she shed tears for this monster? Such was his dismay that he had to bite his tongue to keep silent. This was her moment in which to try to find some peace.
“I cannot, however, find it in myself to forgive you,” continued Jacqueline softly. “I’m only human, and I suffered greatly because of your evil. Therefore, I will ask God to place His forgiveness for you within
my heart.”
This was too much for Boucher. Her feeble efforts to rise intensified, and she began to cough again. The action finally cleared enough of the bloody fluid from her lungs to allow for speech. “I don’t want your forgiveness or your pity,” she wheezed spitefully. “I want—” Another fit of coughing again stole speech.
Will prayed she wouldn’t find it again and somehow wound Jacqueline any further. Reaching down, he put a hand on his beloved’s shoulder. “Don’t be bothered. She’s unworthy of your pity.”
Jacqueline rose beside him and stared down at their enemy. “On the contrary, of all the people I have ever known, she is perhaps the worthiest of it. Whatever was done to her, it extinguished all the light in her soul, and with it, all capacity for love. She can only feel hate and see darkness. To live in such a world must be a torment beyond all imagining. So yes, I pity her. She is more broken than I ever was.”
Turning from Boucher, she met his eyes even as the woman’s exertions ceased and silence fell in the alley. “She will trouble me no more. Come, let us go and see to the others and have your arm looked at.”
Before they’d taken two steps, before he could even begin to explain to her that everything he’d said had been part of the ruse, shouts echoed up the alley along with the sound of many footsteps approaching, and then they were surrounded.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It’s over. They are gone. Both Fairford and Boucher are truly gone, and I am free.
A strange sort of numbness spread throughout Jacqueline’s limbs as men swarmed around them. She stood, frozen, as Will answered their rapid-fire questions and directed them on to the two bodies. At last, only one remained to press them.
It took what seemed an age to connect her thoughts with her tongue. “I’m perfectly well, my lord,” she finally responded to Tavistoke’s increasingly urgent inquiries regarding her health. “Monsieur Danbury, however, has been injured.”
“It’s nothing,” insisted Will. “It’s hardly even bleeding.” He peered at Tavistoke. “So you’re the real Archangel. A pleasure to meet you, now that I know your true purpose.”
“Likewise, Mr. Danbury,” said Tavistoke, glancing at her as he emphasized Will’s true surname.
“My apologies for the deception,” said Will, his face coloring. “I hope you’ll understand why it was necessary.”
A faint smile twitched the corners of Tavistoke’s mouth. “I understand a good man was led to investigate our school due to an egregious falsehood. I’m grateful you remained after discovering the truth of the matter. Had you not, this day might have ended in tragedy.”
Beside her, Will relaxed. “How is it that Gonson’s people are here and not Loxdon’s men?” He gestured to those who were now wrapping Boucher and her accomplice in sheets. “I thought they were to be stationed around The Dove’s Nest.”
“They were,” answered Tavistoke. “Once Loxdon’s men secured the school, he and I rode to The Dove’s Nest by a faster route in the hope of arriving before you. It was a lucky thing we did, or we’d not have intersected the carriage after it turned north. As soon as we saw where it was headed, I sent Loxdon to fetch help. Come.” He held out his hand. “Sir Gonson is waiting with the others.”
The color bled from Will’s face, leaving it ashen. “He’s here?”
Tavistoke nodded. “Loxdon found him at The Nest. According to him, as soon as Gonson was informed of Boucher’s trickery, he ordered half his men to accompany him back here while the rest commenced the raid. Loxdon said he insisted on coming.”
“A criminal like Boucher, he’d want to be present when she was caught,” murmured Will. He nodded at those passing with the sheet-wrapped bodies of Boucher and her accomplice. “I’m afraid he’s due for a disappointment.”
