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Samantha grabbed his sleeve. “You can’t go there alone.”
He pressed her hand. “I’ll get Logan first. If Baines is home, we’ll send you word. If he’s not, we’ll meet you back at the house. I’ll rustle up Kade and Grandda, too. We’re going to need all hands on deck for this one.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
The thought of anything happening to him was too much to bear.
“Och, I’m a Kendrick,” he said. “We’re all but indestructible, ye ken.”
“Well, I’m a Kendrick now, too, and I still want you to be careful.”
“We’llallbe careful.”
He grabbed her cloak from its hook and flung it around her shoulders. Then he took her hand and led her out the door, with Donny following close behind.
“This needs to end,” Samantha said, more to herself than to him. “Once and for all.”
“Aye,” Braden grimly replied. “It ends tonight.”
CHAPTER27
Braden kept his arm around Samantha as the carriage rattled around the corner, once more going over everything in his head. They’d spent the last few hours planning for a raid on the Hanging Judge—hopefully with help from the police, if Haxton cooperated.
Baines was already in the wind. Braden and Logan had tried to track him down at both his office and home, only to be informed by the man’s butler that his master had gone out of town for several days. Logan had then made a quick foray to Old Town to get a report from his men watching the Hanging Judge before meeting up with Braden and Samantha at their townhouse.
Now, their best hope was getting to Haxton before he could also flee the scene.
Kade, who was sitting next to Logan, rechecked his pistol before slipping it back into his pocket. “Your men were absolutely certain they’d not seen Baines go into the tavern today?”
“No, just Girvin and Felicity,” Logan replied.
Girvin had arrived by carriage at the Hanging Judge, shortly after she would have left the orphanage, accompanied by a girl dressed in a gray cloak and bonnet. That news had assuaged Samantha’s fear that Girvin would transport Felicity out of the city and beyond their reach.
“That’s not to say that Baines might not have slipped in another way,” Logan added. “There might be an entry that we don’t know about, given that Old Town is a rabbit warren. This bloody fog isn’t helping either.”
Edinburgh’s infamous haar had descended a few hours ago and covered the city in a dense blanket of mist. But at least it might allow them to get closer to the Hanging Judge undetected.
“How many guards do they have stationed outside the tavern?” Samantha asked.
“Stevens counted three. That’s why I told Max to stay with him. I didn’t want him out there by himself.”
“They’ll know we’re coming for them,” Samantha grimly said. “They’ll be prepared.”
Braden took her gloved hand and held it in his lap. She clutched his tightly, as if it were a lifeline in stormy seas.
“We’ll be better prepared,” Braden said. “By the way, that was good thinking to send Donny on ahead to back up Stevens and Max. Nothing will get past those three.”
“I couldn’t stop him,” she ruefully replied. “He barely paused to change clothes and arm himself before he was out the door. I hope he’s all right.”
“Donny will be fine. He showed no signs of a concussion.”
Actually Braden wasn’t entirely sure about that, but the last thing Samantha needed was another cause for anxiety.
“And speaking of trying to stop someone,” he said to Kade. “I’m guessing that Angus wasn’t best pleased when you decided he should stay home at Heriot Row.”
Kade snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. But he’s getting too old for this kind of work. It’s too dangerous for him.”
Logan twisted around to stare at his younger brother. “I hope you didn’t tell him that.”
