Olivia Twist(75)
“Halt!” Feet pounded on the stairs.
Framed in the entranceway, Olivia stopped and turned to see the inspector, his face a blank slate. He rushed toward her with an amethyst necklace clutched in his fist. The square violet gems and rose-cut diamonds winked in the flame of the lantern in his other hand. Olivia’s stomach clenched. She had seen that necklace countless times. Because it was Fran’s.
“Olivia Brownlow, you are under arrest for the murder of Francesca Lancaster.”
CHAPTER 22
Jack’s hackles were raised like a cat on its ninth life, making him wish he’d gone with his initial instinct and stolen a horse from the Grimwigs’ massive stable. It wasn’t as if they would miss the animal, but his thieving days were over. So he’d settled for renting a cab and hightailing it to Turnbull Road. But when he got there, Olivia was already gone. He rapped on the roof of the hackney with his brolly and shouted, “Get to Cavendish Square in the next ten minutes and there’s an extra crown in it for you.”
With a crack of leather against horsehide, the beast took off at a gallop, nearly catapulting Jack out of his seat. That’s more bloomin’ like it, he thought as he grasped the edges of the folded canopy. They sped past the river, the muddy ribbon nothing but a blur, and Jack worked through the night in chronological order, hoping to make some sense of it all. After cracking the Grimwigs’ safe without a hitch, he’d passed the emeralds off to Topher as they’d planned, and then gone in search of Olivia. That’s when Francesca found him, gave him “Archie’s” note, reported that Olivia had run from the ball with the devil at her heels, and rather gleefully speculated that her cousin’s engagement to Maxwell was off. There had been no time to digest that bit of happy news. Jack had rented a hackney, dropped Topher and the jewels off at March House, and raced to Turnbull Road. By the time he got there, Brit was safe, if not fully sound, and Olivia was gone.
Jack had inspected Brit’s injuries while he gleaned as much about the kidnapping as the boy was willing to tell in his desolate state. Jack sensed something more than the boy’s near brush with death caused his reticence. But when Jack attempted to buoy Brit’s spirits by promising to return with Ollie the following night, the boy’s solemn one-eyed gaze had gripped Jack’s heart. He’d lowered his head and muttered, “She isn’t comin’ back. Not ever.”
With every word the boy spoke, a terrible supposition grew—Olivia planned to run. If she left the orphans in order to protect them, what was to stop her from leaving London without a trace? The thought fueling him, Jack had torn out of there, intent on stopping her. Or saving her.
The hackney rounded the corner on two wheels, the gallop of hooves against cobblestones echoing in time with Jack’s racing heart. They reached the tree-lined boulevard of Cavendish Square and the driver pulled back on the reins, the horse snorting into the quiet night.
“Just ahead on the right. Number Four.” Jack pulled the coins from his pocket, ready to throw them and run. He would take Olivia out of the city himself—perhaps out of the country. Spirit her and her uncle away somewhere that bloody Monks would never find them.
They slowed to a stop behind a black police wagon. Jack paid the driver and jumped from the cab. Everything seemed to slow as if in a nightmare as the sky-blue door of Number Four opened and Olivia emerged. Jack rushed forward and then stopped dead as two constables, one restraining each of her shirt-clad arms, followed behind.
Olivia’s stricken, tear-filled gaze met his and he stumbled forward several steps. She shook her head almost imperceptibly as if warning him away—protecting him even as she was being hauled off to jail.
The coppers loaded her into the back of the wagon, chaining her to the seat like some deranged criminal. Pressure built in Jack’s chest and burned behind his eyes as he watched, helpless. He couldn’t let them take her, he had to do something. Just before they closed the doors, he sprinted forward. “Olivia! What’s happened?”
“Francesca’s been murdered. Jack, they think I did it.” Her voice choked off in a sob.
“Stand back, sir.” Hands tugged at his arms.
A constable climbed in and sat across from Olivia. The doors were closed and locked behind them.
Jack pushed away from the coppers restraining him and tripped forward, gripping the bars of the window. His eyes locked on Olivia’s bewildered gaze through the darkness, a vow tearing from his throat. “I will save you, Olivia. I’ll find a way, no matter what they say you’ve done.”
“Jack, don’t.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do.”
The wagon pulled away, yanking the bars from Jack’s numb fingers. He stood in the street and watched her face through the barred window until it shrank into the night, a piece of his soul ripping away and going with her.
“Young man!” It took Jack several seconds to realize the old man standing in the doorway of Olivia’s house was her uncle and that he was talking to him. Jack focused on the bent figure.
“Young man, please come in and join me for tea.”
With no clue what else to do, he followed the gent into the house, where they sat in the yellow parlor. Jack slumped on the divan, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. His mind felt oddly empty as he overheard Mr. Brownlow order tea and ask to have the fire lit in the hearth.