Page 3 of Along Came a Rogue

“Chesney.” The man blinked, surprised that anyone in the opera house could possibly not have heard the news. “Shot in the street at sunset. No one knows—”

Thomas. For a moment he stared in disbelief, his stunned mind unable to comprehend the words falling from the man’s mouth. Then his blood turned to ice as panic sped through him and the air squeezed from his lungs. God no…it couldn’t be. Not Thomas—but the expression on the man’s face was too certain to be wrong.

Grey ran for the street.

When he reached Chatham House, the townhome was ablaze with candles and lamps, and his heart stuttered with dread. Two saddle horses stood tied in the front, along with the massive black carriage marked with the Duke of Strathmore’s coat of arms.

He raced up the front steps of the stone portico and pounded on the door. Jensen, the Chatham butler, opened the door but did not step back to let him pass.

“The house is closed tonight, Major,” Jensen told him, his ashen face drawn and his gray brows knitted with worry. “Please return tomorrow.”

When he tried to shut the door, Grey shoved his shoulder against it and pushed his way inside, forcing the butler to stumble backward to make way for him.

Had it been any other night, he never would have caused such an uproar. He would have returned the next day as asked, just to keep peace. But tonight, he refused to stand on politeness.

“Where’s Chesney?” Grey demanded. “Is he here?”

“Major, please!” Jensen glowered at him. “The house is closed upon order of His Gr—”

“Jensen.” A commanding voice from the upstairs landing cut through the scuffle. “Let him pass.”

The butler glanced up at Edward Westover, Duke of Strathmore. With an aggravated humph! beneath his breath at having his authority undermined, he stepped back to let Grey into the house.

He raced up the curving marble stairs, his heart pounding with fear. “Thomas?” he rasped out.

“He’s here,” Edward informed him solemnly, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t be overheard by the servants. “The surgeons are with him.”

“He’s alive?” Grey gripped the wrought iron banister to steady himself.

A grim solemnity darkened Edward’s face. “Barely.”

He exhaled a long, shaking breath. “Jesus…what happened?”

With a glance at Jensen still lingering in the foyer, Edward nodded toward the nearby billiards room. Grey followed him inside and accepted the scotch his former colonel poured from a bottle on the table just inside the door, the half-filled glass beside it telling him that Edward had already sought out his own liquid strength.

As he raised the glass, he tried to hide the shaking in his hands. “Was it the French?” he asked quietly.

Edward and Grey were two of a handful of people who knew that Thomas had continued to dedicate himself to his country after leaving the army, signing on to work secretly with the War Office. If the French had discovered he was spying, they might have attempted an assassination.

Edward shook his head. “He’d been visiting at Strathmore House and was on his way home when a footpad shot him.” He reached for his glass and took a long swallow. “A groom heard the report and found the man rifling through Thomas’s pockets.”

Grey steeled himself. “How badly is he wounded?”

Edward’s face turned to stone. “Gutshot.”

The air rushed from his lungs, and Grey leaned against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut against the mix of fear, dread, and fury swirling inside him, unwilling to believe the worst. Dear God…not Thomas, not like this. Not after he’d faced down death in Spain, only to be killed two streets from his own home.

“The surgeons are operating now. Thank God that groom came upon him when he did, or he would have bled out right there.” Edward studied the amber liquid in his glass. “Jensen sent a messenger to the house. When Kate heard, she insisted on coming with me to attend the surgeons.”

New worry spun through him for the duchess. “In her condition?”

Edward’s lips pressed together grimly at the reminder that his wife was expecting. “You try stopping her when she’s set her mind on something.”

Taking careful breaths, concentrating on the air filling his lungs and forcing back his growing grief, Grey tried to steady himself. But his heart kept pounding harder, his stomach roiling. Gutshot…Thomas was alive, but he’d most likely be dead by dawn.

“Damnation!” Edward slammed down the crystal tumbler so hard the liquor splashed onto the table. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger at his forehead, at that moment appearing as if he’d aged decades. “I sent him away tonight. Kate asked him to stay with us for dinner, but I wanted an evening alone with her.” Guilt stiffened his shoulders as he shook his head. “If I hadn’t—if I had just invited him to stay, offered another drink…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Colonel,” Grey assured him.