Page 92 of A Relentless Rake

When Sir George didn’t answer, Reed again threatened Sir George, this time with a hard grind of his knee into the man’s back.

The movement was threatening enough to start him writhing on the floor in an attempt to cower away. “I don’t know! All I could drag out of the boy was that a woman had paid him to deliver that message.”

Olivia looked up in surprise just in time to see the same knowing expression darken both Alec’s and Reed’s faces. A woman…Baroness Rowland.

“The building plans,” Reed demanded. “What were you told to do with them?”

“Nothing! That’s all I was told—be here at midnight and kill Olivia Everett. No one mentioned any plans.”

Fresh fear seized Olivia. If they didn’t want the plans, then why did they ask for them? And where on earth was Henry?

“What did they use to blackmail you?” Reed asked.

“I took money from the War Department,” Sir George confessed. “Moved it through various accounts so no one could trace where it went or that it ended up in my own bank.” He breathed more easily as Reed’s knee moved away from his lower back in small reprieve for that bit of honesty. “Scepter threatened to expose me. I’d lose my seat in Parliament, my fortune, my reputation… I’d be imprisoned or transported.” His eyes darted to Olivia, and she felt hatred in that glance. “If I didn’t kill her, my own life would be ruined.”

“Itisruined,” Reed commented dryly and tied Sir George’s hands behind his back. He yanked harder than necessary to cinch the short length of rope. “You’ll rot in Newgate for this.”

“No, I won’t.” Sir George laughed bitterly with a sputter of blood spraying from his split lip. A ghastly, mad smile stretched across his face. “I’ll never go to Newgate. Not now.”

Alec rose to his feet and lifted Olivia to hers. “Take him to Clayton,” he ordered Reed. “His men will get the truth from him.” When he looked down into Olivia’s face, his affection and concern took her breath away. “We’re leaving.”

He took her elbow to steady her and led her out of the building, leaving Sir George in Captain Reed’s capable hands.

As soon as they’d stepped into the cold darkness of the London night, he placed his hand to the small of her back and leaned over to speak into her ear.

“I’m escorting you home, safe and sound.” He brushed his lips across her temple. “And then I’m tucking you into bed myself.”

Despite how wonderful that sounded, sadness overshadowed her heart. He would only be hers for tonight, and only for a short while until Reed handed Sir George over to Major Elliott. Then Alec would have to leave her to track down Henry. After all, Sir George must have knownsomethingabout her brother that could lead them forward in their mission, someone who possessed the power to—

Shock flashed through her as a terrible idea struck her. She whispered as she turned toward him, “Alec, the plans…”

He absently searched the shadows around them, not yet trusting that they were safely free of Scepter’s trap. “What about them?”

“Sir George didn’t want them. He didn’t care that I’d worked the calculations and brought them with me.”

“Because he only wanted to kill you,” he reminded her grimly.

“Then why wouldn’t they have tried to do that at the school? Why force me out into the City like this?” The truth slithered icily down her spine. “Unless they wanted me away from the school. Unless…unless they didn’t find everything they wanted last night when they took Henry and needed to sneak back inside to get it.”

“What’s there that they would want? You said that the charred paper was the only copy of the Admiralty Club’s plans. There was nothing left at the school they would need to destroy to cover their tracks.”

Including Henry. She fought down her grief and tried to think, but her whirling mind couldn’t seize on anything. She gave a groan of frustration. “I don’t know. I can’t think of any—” The realization pierced her. “Waterloo!”

His brows knitted together. “Pardon?”

“The work Henry was doing for the Royal Society, his article on architectural tensions and compressions—I told you about it, the first night when you came to my room as the masked man, remember?”

“I remember. And?”

“When I was checking his equations, I came across a page of new calculations.” She drew a deep breath to settle her roiling stomach, but it did little to soothe the dread that gnawed at her. “It was little more than data sets for a series of parabolas. But there was a word written across the bottom—Waterloo. At the time, I thought he’d taken notes for a second article on gun targeting and had gotten them mixed up with his other papers, that he was working out calculations for making artillery more precise, but…but he wasn’t. He wasn’t working parabolas. He was workingarches.” Her fingers twisted in his lapels so tightly that their tips turned white. “Oh God, Alec—Waterloo Bridge!”

He immediately took her shoulders. “Tell me.”

“I think Henry was calculating weaknesses in the new bridge.” Her heart pounded, and the rush of blood in her ears was deafening. “With those calculations, a minimal amount of explosives could bring down an entire span.” Horror at the idea clenched her chest so hard that she could barely breathe. “The prince regent is scheduled to be at the opening ceremony tomorrow, along with half of Parliament and all the city officials. They’ve already moved the royal barge to the dock at Westminster to take him downriver.” She dragged in a jerking breath. “Scepter wants to assassinate the prince regent.”

Alec shook his head. “Guards will search the bridge before he arrives. If Scepter has planted explosives, they’ll be found. Scepter knows that. They’d never attempt a plan that could be stopped so easily.”

“Unless Scepter really has infiltrated all levels of the government and the military, as you claimed,” she whispered in a hoarse rasp. “Unless the men who are supposed to be searching for explosives are the same ones setting them.”