The Duke’s Perfect Wife

The hand that held it could not belong to Hart’s father. The old man would never have given Hart a healing swig of whiskey, especially none this good. This was the reserve stock, which only Mackenzies got to drink.

“Where the hell am I?”

“Underground,” a baritone voice said next to him. “In one of the middle-level interceptor sewers.”

“One of the what?”

“Middle-level interceptor…”

“I heard you the first time, Ian.” Hart knew it was his youngest brother with him in the dark. No other man would explain their precise location with such patience, prepared to repeat it until Hart understood.

Hart rubbed his aching head, finding something wet, which, judging from the pain, was blood. “The sewers, eh? Two Scotsmen left to die in the midst of English filth. I spent my first years as an MP on various committees on sewage. The Dung Committees, I always called them.”

Silence. Ian would have no idea what Hart was talking about, nor would he care.

“We need to get out of this place.” Hart reached out in the dark, found the warm solidity of his brother’s arm. “Before Father finds us.”

More silence. Ian touched Hart’s hand. “Father is dead.”

In a rush, Hart saw the shotgun again, heard the roar of it, saw his father crumple to the ground.

I shot him. I killed him.

Relief made his body light. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God.”

More memories came at him, especially that good, warm one that pushed its way up and spread through his heart. But with remembering came fear.

“Eleanor. Is she safe? Did you see? Ian, is she safe?”

“I don’t know.” Hart heard anguish in Ian’s usual monotone. “I saw the man put down the bomb. I tried to reach you to push you out of the way, then there was the hole, and we fell and fell. Beth was too far from the center of the blast, and so were Ainsley and Mac and Isabella. I think Eleanor was too.”

“You think she was?”

“You were closest. I had to reach you.”

Hart heard his panic. Ian could go into what he called muddles, where he’d either lash out or start to do one thing over and over, unable to stop. Even now, Hart felt Ian rocking back and forth as he tried to deal with his distress.

Hart reached up the best he could and put his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Ian, it’s all right. I’m alive. You’re alive. You were right. If you say Eleanor was too far back, she likely was.” He barked a laugh. “I wager you could calculate the exact trajectory and spread of the blast.”

“I’d need to know the weight and type of explosive.” Ian still rocked but it slowed. “From the smell, dynamite, a few sticks. The package he had was small.”

“We need to go back and get the bastard,” Hart said. “In case he has another stick.”

“He died,” Ian said. “He did not walk away from the bomb. He lit it and stayed with it.”

“Dear God, save us from madmen.” Hart scrambled to his hands and knees again and tried to get to his feet, swallowing a curse when his head cracked on a low, stone ceiling. He fell, his head spinning. It wouldn’t stop spinning.

Ian pushed Hart back down. “Five feet of clearance until we reach the storm platform.”

“How the devil do you know that?” Hart asked.

“I learned the schematics of the tunnels under London. Water pipes, storm drains, rivers, gas lines, the London Metropolitan…”

“Yes, yes, of course you did. The question is why.”

There was more silence as Ian considered. “To pass the time.”

He meant the time before he’d met Beth, when Ian’s life had been tedious.

“I’ll put myself into your hands, Ian. Where is this storm platform?”

Ian took Hart’s hand and pulled it in front of him to indicate direction. “That way.”

Hart rubbed his head where he’d smashed it against bricks. He still couldn’t make this dark world stop spinning. “All right. Lead me.”

They had to crawl. As soon as Hart began to move, bile rose in his throat, and dizziness threatened to cripple him.

Thankfully, after about ten yards or so, the tunnel rose a bit, and they could stand. Hart and Ian still had to bend their backs, the round ceiling low above them, but no more going on hands and knees.

Ian led Hart onward, Hart hanging on to the back of Ian’s coat as they splashed through icy water. Hart’s hands were cut and bleeding, and his head pounded like fury.

The only thing that kept Hart going was the image of Eleanor disappearing behind a cloud of rubble and dust. He had to find her, to make sure she was all right. That burning need propelled him onward.

Ian straightened to his full height in front of Hart, and a step later, Hart could too.

The echoes broadened, meaning that the ceiling had vaulted upward, and the air smelled almost fresh. A light, so faint as to be barely a light, came from Hart’s right. After the complete darkness of the tunnel, it seemed bright.

“Storm drain,” Ian said, gesturing to the light. “This one empties into the Fleet.”

The Fleet River had been covered, partly or completely, for centuries. It was mostly a sewer now, pouring into the Thames after heavy rains via drains like this one.

“How do we get out?” Hart asked. “The hell I’m going to float myself down the filthy Fleet and get stuck halfway in a storm grating.”

“Shafts go up to the streets,” Ian said. “But not here.”

Of course not. “Where, then?”

“Through the tunnels,” Ian said. “A mile, maybe more.”

Hart swallowed on dryness. Ian’s face was a pale smudge in the darkness, but Hart could see little beyond that. “Give me the flask again.”

Wordlessly Ian put the flask of whiskey into Hart’s hand, and Hart upended more single malt into his mouth. It was ambrosia, though he’d love a clear glass of water.

Hart gave the flask back to Ian, and Ian pocketed it without drinking. “This way,” he said.

Hart took two steps to follow him, then his legs buckled. He found himself on bare floor, retching again. His head was spinning like a gyroscope.

Ian was next to him. “In the explosion, something hit you in the head,” Ian said.

Hart gasped for breath. “Very perceptive of you, Ian.”

Ian went quiet, but Hart knew him well enough to know that thoughts were moving through Ian’s head at lightning speed while he tried to decide what to do.

“If we go slowly, I can make it,” Hart said.

“If we are too slow, we can’t outrun the water. Or the gasses.”

“I don’t see that we have a bloody choice.” Hart hung on to Ian as his younger brother leveraged Hart to his feet. The dizziness made everything go black for a moment. “Wait.”

Hart felt his feet leave the ground as Ian hoisted Hart onto his back. Without a word, they started moving, slowly, Hart hanging on as Ian carried him out.

He knew he’d never convince Ian to leave him behind and go for help. When Ian fixed on a course, all the reasoning in the world couldn’t move him. Just as well. Hart did not want to be down here alone, in any case.

The sudden echoing roar was their only warning. Rains north of the city had raised the level of the water, and now it poured into the round pipes, rising over the weirs, to flow through the storm drains and down into the rivers.

Ian yelled, his words incoherent, as he lifted Hart up and shoved him onto a tall slab of stone next to the weir. The rocks were slippery, and Hart scrambled to hold on and stay awake at the same time.

Water poured into the tunnel. In the faint light, soon obliterated by water, Hart saw his brother be swept from his feet and carried at breakneck speed away from him.

“Ian!” Hart screamed. “Ian!”

His words were lost in the water. For an age it pulsed through swirling waters in the darkness. Ian had been swept the other way, caught in a surge that went back into the round tunnels. But the tunnels were full to the