Rebel Magisters (Rebel Mechanics #2)(68)

“So it was worth that hole in your shoulder?”

“What’s a revolution without a little bloodshed?”

Only then did he appear to realize how closely he was still holding me, pressed against the door frame. He stepped away, sliding his hands off my waist, but he caught my left hand and held it a moment longer. Our eyes met, and he opened his mouth as though to say something, paused, shook his head slightly, and said, “I should let you get back to work.”

“Yes, I should go check on the children.” I moved to go, but he hadn’t released my hand. I glanced down at it, then up at him.

“Oh, yes, right. Sorry.” He blushed and let go, taking a step away.

I forced myself not to look back at him as I headed toward the stairs, but I could hear him whistling softly. I knew I had to be grinning like an idiot, but as there was no one to see me, I made no effort to school my features.

I was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rang. Mr. Chastain opened the door and several police officers came rushing through the doorway.

“May I help you gentlemen?” Mr. Chastain boomed in his deep voice.

“We’re here for Lord Henry Lyndon,” one of the policemen said. “Where is he?”





Chapter Eighteen


In Which

I Must Carry On




Ever the consummate butler, Mr. Chastain said, “If you gentlemen would care to wait in the parlor, I will announce you.”

They paid him no mind. Two of them rushed up the stairs, while the other two stood at the front door. I stood frozen to the spot on the stairs, even as they ran past me. I couldn’t have moved if my life had depended on it. Not that I had anywhere to go. I couldn’t escape past the men at the door, and I had no chance of warning Henry. One of the policemen at the door looked right at me. Our eyes met, and I thought his expression softened in something like sympathy, but if he felt sorry for me because I was about to be arrested, he made no move to take me into custody.

“Are you looking for me?” a surprisingly calm voice said from above me, and I turned to see Henry standing on the upper landing. The policemen ran toward him.

By this time, everyone else in the household had come to see what all the commotion was about. Mrs. Talbot and several of the servants came into the hallway on the lower floor, and the children appeared from the upstairs parlor.

One of the policemen grabbed Henry by the arm. It was his injured one, and he gasped in pain as his arm was jerked backwards. “Lord Henry Lyndon, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit treason,” the policeman said. The other officer shackled Henry’s hands behind his back. Henry remained surprisingly calm, but I could see the fear on his face. He looked so young and vulnerable.

“No! You can’t take my uncle!” Olive screamed. She rushed toward him as they hustled him down the stairs, but Rollo caught her and held her back, even as she flailed at him with her little fists and tried to kick his shins to make him release her.

Henry met my eye as he passed me. I wanted to reach out to him, but I restrained myself. I felt so helpless when all I could do was watch him be taken out through the front door.

As soon as the door slammed shut, the household burst into chaos. Olive broke free of Rollo and ran to me. I rushed to meet her and caught her in my arms. “Miss Newton, what are they doing to Uncle?” she sobbed against me.

“I don’t know, darling,” I said, patting her back.

“I wonder what Uncle Henry did,” Rollo said as he came toward us.

“It probably has something to do with his school friends,” Flora said, also coming toward Olive and me. “He ran with a radical set. Someone must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

Rollo reached us and caught both Olive and me in a hug. He gave the appearance of trying to comfort us, but I got the impression from the way he clung to me that he was seeking comfort, himself. “What can we do?” he asked plaintively. “We should help him. And what will become of us?”

Those were very good questions, and I didn’t have the answers at the moment. My first instinct was to run to my rebel friends to tell them and ask for help, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that would be the wrong course of action. Getting in contact with known rebels at this time would only draw the wrong kind of attention, and it was likely that they would know soon, anyhow. That was what my network of informants was all about. We had scullery maids and laundresses in the barracks and prison, clerks at the police stations. One of these invisible people would surely learn about Henry’s plight and alert the rebels.

Mrs. Talbot was the first to come up with a concrete action. “Mr. Chastain, you should contact Lord Henry’s attorney,” she said.

“Yes, very good idea,” he replied, and he headed down to his office.

That gave me an idea. “Flora, perhaps you should send a message to your grandfather. If anyone can help Lord Henry, he can.” That was, if it hadn’t been the governor who’d had him arrested in the first place.

“I will do so right away.” She flounced off, her shoulders squared and her head held high.

I thought for a moment about suggesting that Flora pay calls on her friends so I could check on Henry’s group, but I realized that paying social calls at a time like this would look decidedly odd. That meant that all I could do was wait and do my job of looking after the children. They’d had a terrible shock, and at the moment they needed a governess more than anyone needed a revolutionary.