Idly, she rose and ambled over to the window to lean out, looking up and down the sidewalk. Two men in the park across the street came to attention, watching her closely. Another guard standing near the front door glanced up, grimacing. The window might as well have had bars.
A scratching sound startled her. She jerked, gasping, but it was nothing more than a breeze coming through the window and skimming across the tabletop stacked with clipped newspapers. Her breathing eased, and she rubbed her arms against a slight chill. Rats. The memories of them crawling and nibbling all over her wouldn’t leave her alone.
Stir-crazy, she paced the length of the foyer—back and forth and back and forth, annoying Edward, who glanced up from his perch near the door every time her heels clacked off the edges of the hallway’s Oriental runner.
It was after five o’clock. The men had not returned, and there had been no word from the prison. No newspapers. Nothing. If she didn’t hear from Braham or David or Gaylord within the next thirty minutes, she was going to scream “fire” and dash out of the house.
On her next trip down the hall, she went into the office for the umpteenth time to see if Cullen might have left a list of assignments hidden under a law book or stuffed inside one. She opened a book titled, A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence and thumbed through the pages. Nothing.
The front door opened. She dropped the book and ran out, coming to a sudden stop, her heart in her throat. When she found her voice, she shrieked, “You’re free. They did it.” She ran to Jack and threw herself into his arms, hugging him. She groaned as his squeezing arms tightened.
“I’m sorry, sis.” He loosened his grip. “Braham warned me Henly punched you.” He touched her face lightly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Forget about me. Where’ve you been? You look fantastic.”
He smirked.
“No, I mean you’re”—she brushed his lapels—“all clean and dapper.” The fragrances of a barber’s talcum powder and new clothes filled the air in pleasing waves. She stood back and scrutinized him. “Lost a few pounds. Ten, maybe. Food wasn’t so good, huh?”
He stared at her, eyes fixed wide, blue and unblinking above a small twitch of a smile. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. The hoods were worse. Thank God, I spent so much time with the monks. Without meditation and the ability to go into deep trances, I’d have lost my mind. I spent hours in my head sitting by the river, reading.”
“Knowing you could do that kept me sane. So Braham and Cullen accomplished everything they planned to do today.”
“You should have seen Braham. He was brilliant. I’d pay a million bucks for a video and pictures of the expressions on Hunter and Holt’s faces. True brilliance. When this movie is produced, it’ll win a dozen Oscars.”
Cullen and Braham opened the door and entered the house, laughing. Braham ambled toward her with a smile playing around his mouth, and he pulled her gently into his arms. “I told ye I’d bring him home or die trying.”
David and Gaylord entered behind Cullen. She waved her hand at the whisky fumes being exhaled by all five men. “If I lit a match, the house might explode. Y’all stopped to celebrate while I paced, dying for news.”
“We had to wait for Jack. He didn’t want to see ye until he’d had a bath and shaved. While he did, we”—Braham pointed, carefully but tipsily, to Cullen, David, and Gaylord—“shopped for new clothes for him.”
“We couldn’t bring him home naked.” David hiccupped.
They deserved to get drunk, smoke cigars, and tell tall tales until the wee hours of the morning, but when they started singing Scottish ballads off-key, which they were bound to do, she was going to bed.
“Why are we standing out here? I hear a bottle of whisky calling my name,” Jack said, leading the way into the parlor.
“Hold on a second. Before y’all get too drunk, you need to tell me everything. Please. I’m dying to know what happened,” she said.
Braham poured a round of drinks, and they all found a seat. She scooted in between Jack and Braham on the sofa.
“There were a couple of tense moments,” Braham said.
“For me, not for him,” Cullen said. “Braham pulled Excalibur from the stone. He was in the…what’s the expression Kit uses?”
“Zone?” Braham said.
Cullen snapped his fingers. “Yes. That’s it. We’d rehearsed the questions and anticipated Henly’s responses, but reducing his laudanum to keep him on edge”—Cullen paused and gave a small head bow to David—“was brilliant.”
David nodded. “Thank ye, but the credit goes to Gaylord. He’d already been inside Henly’s house. He knew where the medication was kept and the location of every weapon Henly owned. Once we diluted the laudanum and put blanks in all the guns, it was just a matter of babysitting until he reached the prison.”
“Wait, wait. Time out,” Charlotte said, making a T with her hands. “I’m missing something. Who did you think Gordon was going to shoot?”
Cullen, David, and Gaylord turned their heads slowly in Braham’s direction.
She gasped, glaring up at Braham, open-mouthed. “You set yourself up to get shot in order to prove Henly’s guilt? You’re insane. All of you. What if he’d used another weapon?”
Braham’s mouth quirked wryly as he met her eyes. Then he pounded on his chest with his fists. “Bulletproof vest.”
She ran her fingers through Braham’s hair, gripped a few strands, and shook his head. “It doesn’t protect your head. Did David forget to mention such an important detail?” A muscle twitched by Braham’s mouth, and she shot him a sharp glance tinged with amusement.
Cullen chuckled. “Stubbornness would protect his head.”
Gaylord cleared his throat
