Griffin winced, hating that the woman he cared for had been hurt. Helplessness was the worst feeling in the world.
“But is she hurt beyond that?” Noah pressed. “Try to remember.”
There was a long pause as Hannah seemed to search for words. “He took her away. I could hear her telling him where he could go the whole way down the hall.” Hannah smiled. “One of the men said something about St. James Park.”
Noah jumped to his feet. “Very good, Hannah.”
Turning to Griffin, he said, “I need to go find Lord Golding and let him know of the situation. We’ve lost a great deal of time as it is, but we can still assemble a few men and save my sister. You stay here and make sure Hannah is treated by the doctor.”
“Like hell!” Griffin shook his head. “Either I’m going with you or I’m going to that park. I’m not going to stand here while the woman I…”
He trailed off and turned away from Noah.
Noah arched an eyebrow. “The woman you what?”
“Never mind. The point is, I’m going to help her.” Griffin’s head reeled from new emotions and fear for Audrey’s safety.
Noah put his hands on his hips. “If you were going to say the woman you love, I must say two things. One, it’s about time you realized this. Two, your feelings are all the more reason for you to stay here. Rushing in with too much emotion could put Audrey in more danger. Leave this to the men who were trained for it.”
“No! I-”
Noah scowled. “You’re wasting time. Don’t argue with me.”
His friend hurried from the room with no further discussion. Griffin glanced down at Hannah, who had slipped into a pain-induced unconsciousness.
“Fine, my friend,” he muttered as he heard the front door slam and Noah calling for his horse in the courtyard. “I won’t argue. But I never agreed, either.”
***
Audrey had never seen St. James Park so crowded. Thousands of people milled around her, but no one seemed to notice her torn gown or disheveled hair. She’d long ago given up calling for help when she realized most of the crowd thought she was a light skirt paying her vowels with the money she made from drunken revelers.
“Stop pulling, will you?” she snapped. “You’ll rip my arm out of the socket.”
Ellison turned to glare at her. “Where you’re going, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.”
His malicious tone frightened her into silence, but she noticed he didn’t pull her nearly as hard as he had been moments before. They weaved in and out of the crowd, going always forward, but toward what she couldn’t tell. She was just too short to see over the throng.
Finally they ascended a small hill in the middle of the park and she caught a glimpse of their destination through the trees, a giant, gas-lit pagoda that graced the center of the park. The yellow and black shrine sat on the bridge over the canal where rowboats had already begun the reenactment of the Battle of the Nile. The cheers of the crowd were deafening as they drew nearer, near enough that she could see the pagoda’s blue trim in the moonlight.
Ellison opened up a small door at the base of the structure and shoved her inside with little fanfare. “In we go.”
“What are we doing here?” she asked, looking around her as Ellison pulled the door behind them. The pagoda was enormous with a winding stairway that lead to the top high above.
“Well, you are dying,” he explained with a chuckle as he hurried her to the stairs and urged her up with a series of jabs with his pistol. “And I am about to kill the Prince.”
“From this distance?” She looked out of the small windows in the structure as they wound their way up floor after floor. “You don’t even have a rifle.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’ll give the signal that the games are to begin. Then my men will do the rest.”
Audrey’s stomach lurched. If it was too late for her, she swore she’d keep Ellison from doing any more harm than he already had. She whirled on him with venom in her eyes.
“Why? You’re a successful businessman with some level of acceptance in the ton. Why are you plotting to kill the Prince Regent? What will you obtain from all of this?”
“I wondered when you’d ask me why.” He placed a hand on her shoulder to push her down to a sitting position on the top floor of the pagota.
She followed his painful order with a glare, but didn’t fight back. Now wasn’t the right time, though it was close. If she could get him talk until he was distracted, she could strike.
“It’s complicated, my dear,” he said, as he glanced down on the revelers below while he continued to keep an eye on her. “You wouldn’t understand all of it. You were raised in privilege. You never wanted for anything. But I had to raise myself up in the world. My mother was a common whore,” he accentuated the word with a hiss. “My father her ‘protector’ until she told him she was carrying a child. Whatever protection he’d given her departed with him. I swore I would never depend on anyone as long as I lived. I stole to get where I am, I sold my soul.”
Audrey wrinkled her brow. “But what does that have to do with our future king?”
He scowled. “The war with France brought me my fortune. It began with the simple buying and selling of commissions in the army. Then I realized there was more that could be done. I ventured into shipping, loading up boats and charging the military to transport them, then hijacking the shipments myself and calling it the dangers of the sea and war. I then sold the materials to the other side. There’s more profit to be made than you realize.”
She shook her head in disgust. The man was so driven by money that it sickened her.
“When the war ended in April, most of my wealth was cut off. I still had legitimate businesses, of course, but none brought in the cash I desired. I made contact with a group of men who are trying to bring Napoleon back to power. They agreed to give me an enormous sum of money to assassinate the Prince.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t lose. The nation will go back to war, which is profitable to me, and I receive the bonus this group has offered me.”
Audrey drew in a sharp breath. “So all this…” She waved her hand around the empty building. “The plots, the murder? It’s all for money?”
“Not you.” He crouched down to touch her face. She moved away, but he grasped her cheeks and held her in place. “What was happening with you was all too real. You offered me position and money, but I also wanted you. But you’ve ruined it all now.”
With a sigh of disgust, he thrust her face from his hand and strode over to the window again.
“You won’t get away with this,” she said. “Even if you can kill the Prince, there will be a manhunt for you. You won’t be able to get out of London fast enough.”
“Except that one of my ships waits for me even as we speak,” he murmured, still looking away from her though she sensed he was concentrating on her very closely. “There will be so much turmoil after the Prince is dead that I’ll have plenty of time to escape. I’ll be in France before anyone realizes what has happened. And then there will be so much infighting over who should rule the country that I’ll be a mere spot in the distance.”
Audrey frowned at the truth in his words. Princess Caroline and her daughter Charlotte would pick fights with the Dukes. Everyone would rush to marry and produce the next heirs to the throne. The country would be in turmoil.
“All I need to do is shut off the gas and the plan will be set into motion.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“The pagoda can be seen from all over the park. The second it goes dark, my men will strike,” he said with a smile as he strolled over to the covered flame in the middle of the room. The fire was large enough to hide the gas source beneath.