The tone of those last words sent a shudder down her spine, but, raising her head high, she stepped into the room and halted.
By the shaft of light cast by the lantern behind her and the weaker glow coming from a lamp on a tallboy beside the door, she saw a bed, but it was empty. She looked further
and saw a chair set deeper in the room, to one side of the bed, but she couldn’t see James anywhere. Then she realized there were ropes lying discarded about the chair—
Hard fingers gripped her arm and yanked her sideways—behind the door.
James! Her heart leapt even while he bundled her behind him, into the lee of the door, and swung to face the murderer in her stead.
Only to get the lantern flashed in his face.
The full light of the lantern in his eyes made James instinctively recoil and raise an arm to shield his eyes.
Realizing he’d lost the advantage, he cursed. Lowering his arm, he tried to see, but the light was so bright that he wasn’t even sure exactly where the villain was standing.
Then, ominously, the lantern beam slowly lowered, falling from his face to center on his body.
“Step back, Glossup, or I’ll shoot you now. In front of your bride-to-be.”
James finally managed to focus—and discovered that, yes, the villain now held a pistol aimed directly at his heart.
But . . . thinking furiously, James held his ground. “Me getting shot in the chest won’t fit with your plan. How will your story run if I have a hole in my chest, instead of the side of my head? Not many men commit suicide by shooting themselves in the heart.”
Silence held for a moment, then the murderer replied, amusement and more lacing his words, “That won’t discomfit me in the least. I’ll just turn my story around the other way. You beat Miss Cynster nearly unconscious, and in desperation she grabs the pistol and shoots you in the chest, then, in despair, she shoots herself. It’s all one to me—who gets shot in the head and who in the heart.” The murderer’s voice strengthened. “So why don’t you just step back toward the chair—now.”
James hesitated.
Stunned by the murderer’s intentions, made even more nauseating by being stated aloud, Henrietta clapped a hand over her lips, smothering her spontaneous rebuttal. She could see James thinking, trying to decide what he should do; the noble idiot would sacrifice himself for her, and then where would she be?
Living out the rest of her life alone.
She had to make her next words sound believable. Gulping in a breath, she discovered she didn’t have to try all that hard to make her voice quaver. “James, please . . . do as he says.”
His gaze flicked to her; she opened her eyes wide at him and showed him the pistol she’d pulled free of her reticule.
Understanding held James motionless for a second, then the murderer drawled, “Do as she says, Glossup, and who knows? After I tie you up again, I might let you have one last kiss.”
Henrietta was perfectly certain she could not hate a man more. Settling her weight evenly, she grasped the pistol in both hands, simultaneously making her voice weak and wavery. “Please, James, do what he says. I don’t want him to shoot you—and perhaps he’ll change his mind. We really don’t know who he is, so perhaps he’ll believe us and let us go . . .” She ended with a passable sob.
James met her eyes, then, his lips a thin line, looked back at the murderer and took one step back.
“That’s right.” The murderer was gloating. “Keep going.”
James moved slowly, backing one defined step at a time; Henrietta realized he was keeping his gaze locked with the murderer’s, and his slow, deliberate—clearly reluctant—retreat was keeping the murderer focused on him.
Step by step, James retreated, and, step by step, the murderer came further into the room.
At last, he cleared the open door; his gaze still on James, the villain reached back and caught the edge of the door with the hand holding the lantern and pushed it closed.
He was standing precisely where Henrietta was aiming.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she pulled the trigger.
Two shots roared out, one immediately following the other, the combined sounds deafening in the enclosed space.
On a gasp, Henrietta opened her eyes. Heart thudding, she slowly lowered her pistol. As the echoes of the shots faded, she saw the lantern on the floor near her feet—and the murderer sprawled awkwardly across the floor, his upper back against the tallboy, one hand clamped to a massive hole in one shoulder.
“James?” She couldn’t see him. Panic surged.