Chapter Forty-One

Sir Albert’s townhouse overlooked Park Square in Marylebone, a neighborhood consisting of mostly upper-class inhabitants, with rather lofty terrace houses in a horseshoe formation surrounding the green park in the center.

But rather than approaching the residence from the front, Marcus had directed his carriage driver to drop him and Kat at the rear of the property, in the small laneway. Stepping down from the carriage, he glanced sideways at Kat as they proceeded to the back gate of the property.

Even though she said she’d be all right, he was still worried about her, having seen the devastation in her very being when he’d arrived at the docks. And though his first thought had been relief that she was alive, seeing her pain had nearly undone him. There’d always been such an inner strength and determination deep inside her that seeing her so despondent broke a little part of his heart.

And there was such heartbreak in her eyes, the entire carriage ride here. He didn’t know how to comfort her. He couldn’t imagine the hurt she must feel from her aunt’s betrayal.

Not for the first time did he question whether he should have brought Kat with him. She’d endured so much pain today that he was worried about her. But perhaps she’d obtain some sense of closure and justice when they apprehended Sir Albert, and in doing so would prevent Nathaniel from doing something stupid, like killing the man, which Marcus believed was likely.

Even the thought of his brother cast a pang of regret within him. Why hadn’t Nathaniel approached him? Told him he was alive? After three years of thinking he was dead, it was surreal to know the truth. His mother would be beyond thrilled, as would his sister.

Shaking away the bitter sense of betrayal and hurt, Marcus quietly lifted the latch on the gate and motioned for Kat to go ahead of him down the path leading to the back door. They paused on the threshold, listening for a moment. When he was satisfied the hallway beyond sounded free from movement, he twisted the handle and opened the door a notch. There were some stairs to his left, leading down to the kitchen below, but thankfully no servants seemed to be present in the hall.

He stepped inside, and then nodded for Kat to enter, too, before he silently closed the door behind them. He nodded to the right, down the corridor toward Sir Albert’s study. If the man was home, that’s the place he’d most likely be.

A few moments later, he paused in front of the door to Sir Albert’s study and Kat followed suit. He could hear some slight murmuring through the oak. Unholstering his faithful Webley pistol, he felt the comforting weight of the weapon nestled against his palm. With his left hand, he twisted the knob and carefully opened the door but an inch.

“Do you really think killing me will exonerate you?” Sir Albert said.

“Perhaps not, but it will avenge Irena.”

His brother’s voice was unmistakable and for a moment Marcus felt such relief, having once thought he’d never hear the sound again.

Swinging the door wide, Marcus stepped into the room with Kat following. Sir Albert glanced up from where he sat behind his desk on the far side of the room, and then Nathaniel swung his head around to face them, his arm locked in front of him, holding a pistol steadily aimed at Sir Albert.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re both here!” Sir Albert exclaimed upon seeing Marcus and Kat. “It seems your brother has been playing a dangerous game pretending to be dead, when in fact he’s been working for the Russians. You must arrest him, immediately.”

“You’re a goddamn liar!” Nathaniel snarled, his eyes briefly returning to Sir Albert. “But you’ll be a dead liar soon.” He glanced back to Marcus and nodded his head. “It’s good to see you, brother. Kat,” he said. “But I do hope neither of you intend to try to stop me from ridding the world of this piece of vermin.”

Kat had been right; Nathaniel had changed. Marcus could see that instantly.

Gone was the happy-go-lucky younger brother he’d grown up with, and in his place was an angry man, with a thirst for vengeance. And who could really blame him, when Sir Albert was the architect of so much misery in all of their lives over the past three years? Could justice really be obtained by arresting him?

“I haven’t decided yet,” Marcus told him, which was the truth. Though he believed in justice, he also knew that with the contacts Sir Albert had it was more than likely he’d escape at some point. Perhaps Kat was right—sometimes vengeance was necessary to obtain true justice.

“You worked out he was behind it all,” Kat said to Nathaniel as she strolled closer to where he stood.

“I suspected, and now I’m certain,” Nathaniel said.

“You’re in league with the traitor, Lady Kaitlyn?” Sir Albert exclaimed. “Good God, Westwood, arrest them both!”

“Really?” Kat glanced over to Sir Albert. “That’s how you’re going to spin all this?”

“The game is up, Sir Albert,” Marcus added, raising his pistol until it also pointed at Sir Albert.

“You can’t seriously think I had anything to do with any of this,” Sir Albert said, his eyes narrowing upon them all. “Your brother is the traitor. For goodness sakes, he even faked his death over it. I expect you to do your duty, Westwood. You must arrest him.”

Marcus turned to look at his brother, his pistol staying steady on Sir Albert. “You could have come to me, you know. Let me know you were alive.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I would have helped you.”

Nathaniel’s lips pressed together in a firm line. “That’s why I didn’t, Marcus. I’d already botched everything up royally. This mess was mine to clean up.”

“It was both of ours,” Marcus countered. “The Chameleon seduced Elizabeth to get the information I was holding in my safe. If I had paid better attention to what Elizabeth was up to, the information wouldn’t have been stolen and given to Sir Albert to sell to the Russians in the first place. And then Sir Albert wouldn’t have had to frame you as his scapegoat.”

“What?” Sir Albert cried. “I’d never do such a thing. I’m on the Chameleon’s assassination list! If I was guilty, I wouldn’t be on there. You should be more worried about protecting me. Perhaps your brother is the Chameleon! Have you considered that?”

“The Chameleon is dead, Sir Albert,” Kat said. “And she mentioned your involvement in everything before she died.”

“She?” The word left Sir Albert’s lips, absolute shock on his face, almost as if he were about to collapse.

“Yes, she. Natalia Brighthope was the assassin.”

An unearthly silence filled the room at the pronouncement.

“The Chameleon was a female? I wouldn’t have thought that possible…” He straightened in his chair and seemed to recover from his shock. “Surely, though, you don’t believe the word of a woman like that?”

The man was good at playing the outraged innocent, Marcus would give him that.

“She was extremely convincing,” Kat said as she pulled out her dagger and then tossed it in her hand, catching the hilt perfectly.

“She was nothing more than a lady of the night,” Sir Albert continued. “No one would believe her. Don’t you both see? It’s perfect! She needed me dead to complete her target list, so she concocted such a tale.” He waved his hands wildly about. “Telling you I was the culprit. Hoping, obviously, you’d both want to kill me after hearing such lies.”

“That does make some sense,” Marcus said.

Sir Albert puffed up. “Good, I’m glad you’ve seen reason. Now, would you both mind lowering your weapons, please.”

None of them did as requested.

“Let me rephrase,” Marcus said. “It would have made sense, except Lady Montrose also confirmed your involvement in everything before she died. How she discovered your perfidy when translating some missives for Victor, and rather than tell him what she’d found, she instead approached you to have Victor killed to keep her silence. Which you did, and I imagine if she hadn’t told you that she’d written down all of your sins and had them in safekeeping with someone, to be released to the world at large if anything happened to her, I daresay you would have had the Chameleon kill her, too, straight after Montrose.”

“Lady Montrose is dead?” Sir Albert said in a rush. “Well, then you have no proof.”

Marcus walked over to Sir Albert’s desk, his pistol staying steady on the man as he reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and removed some papers. He flung Daisy’s notes onto the table, far enough out of Sir Albert’s reach, but enough so that he could see them. “We also found Silas Morriset, and he’d left Lady Montrose’s detailed notes on your perfidy, Albert. Very detailed and incriminating notes. The woman was thorough.”

The man’s face blanched and his fingers gripped the edge of his desk until the knuckles were white. “You can’t do this to me. I’m now the Secretary of State of War, as Danbury is dead, so you will all drop your weapons and arrest him.” He pointed over to Nathaniel. “Then leave my house!”

“No.” There was no equivocation in Marcus’s voice. “Like I said, the game is over, Sir Albert. There are others that know of this information. You can’t keep pretending.” Marcus prayed that the man would capitulate, especially before Kat took things into her own hands. He didn’t like the glint of anger in her eyes as she stared at Sir Albert.

“That damn law clerk Morriset!” Sir Albert swore, banging his fist on the table, his jaw clenched. “He stole those notes and started blackmailing me! The fool. He is the one to blame for this whole mess.”

It seemed Sir Albert was finally willing to concede his involvement. “You hired the Chameleon to find him and kill him, along with everyone else that had some involvement in the coverup?” Marcus asked.

“I had to.” Sir Albert shrugged. “My men couldn’t find Morriset, but I knew the Chameleon could. Thought I might as well tidy up everything while I was at it.”

“Why, then, were you listed in the Chameleon’s ledger that Fullbrink decoded?” That bit that had been puzzling Marcus. “Surely, you wouldn’t have given your own name to the Chameleon?”

“Fullbrink came to see me first after decoding the thing, and I insisted he place my name on the list.” Sir Albert slumped in his chair, defeat radiating from him. “I managed to convince him that if my name wasn’t on there, then people might think I was behind the plot which would only serve to distract everyone and delay us from finding out who was really responsible.”

“And Fullbrink believed you?”

“I’m convincing when I want to be.” Sir Albert straightened in his seat and eyed Marcus in defiance.

“Why did you do it?” Kat asked the man, taking a step forward, now only a few feet away from the desk. “Why would you sell British intelligence to the Russians in the first place? How could you betray your country like that and blame Nathaniel in the process?” Kat’s hand was steady on the hilt of her dagger as she stared at Sir Albert. “So many people died because of you.”

“They had to die!”

“No, they didn’t. They died so you could protect your secrets.” Kat’s eyes radiated absolute disgust.

“Why did you do it?” Nathaniel asked the man, taking a step forward. “Why did you blame me? Why did you bomb my apartment and kill Irena?” His hand was slightly shaky as his finger rested on the trigger of his pistol. “She died because of you.”

“It wasn’t my idea to blame you in the first place.” Sir Albert stood and let out a cry of frustration. “Brighthope was my Russian contact and when it was suspected that an English agent was selling secrets to the Russians, she approached me suggesting I needed to find a scapegoat to brand as the traitor, otherwise Russia would not wish to continue paying me. Obviously, I had no idea she was the Chameleon then, or more recently, either. However, it was she who was the one to suggest you as a patsy. I guess she didn’t like the fact that her sister had fallen in love with an Englishman, hence she was trying to get rid of you. She was protective of her sister. I was happy with the idea of deflecting any blame regarding my involvement with the Russians.”

“So you ruined my life, and killed my love?” Nathaniel’s hand gripped the pistol even tighter as he stared at Sir Albert, his arm trembling.

“The bomb was meant for you, not her,” Sir Albert said as he sank back down in his chair. “You were the one supposed to die that day. Lucky for me, I laid the blame for the blast at Victor Montrose’s feet. I daresay if Brighthope had known I was behind it, she would have killed me a long time ago.”

“I’m glad she didn’t know,” Nathaniel replied. “Because that means I get the honor of sending you to hell.”

“No, wait!” Sir Albert held up his hands, the buttons of his shirt straining with the movement. “There’s no need to be hasty. If you kill me, you will be tried for murder, and no one will care about whether you were a traitor or not. You need me alive.”

“Actually, Lady Brighthope kindly left a letter outlining your entire involvement with the Russians,” Marcus said. “We don’t need you alive at all to exonerate Nathaniel.”

“Surely, you won’t let me be killed in cold blood?” Sir Albert turned his attention to Marcus, his hands dropping into his lap. “You’ve always been a great believer in justice, Westwood. Don’t falter now.”

“Falter?” Marcus laughed. The audacity of the man was rather astonishing. “Do you think I’d lose any sleep if you died after all that you’ve done? Need I remind you, you orchestrated the death of my wife, sold intelligence to the Russians for which you framed my brother, then arranged for his death, organized the assassination of my mentor Victor Montrose, and goodness knows how many other people over the years, including several of the most recent assassinations I’ve been trying to stop. And yet you think I believe you deserve justice? I never took you for a dreamer, Sir Albert.”

A wild-eyed desperation crossed Sir Albert’s gaze, his attention darting between the three of them like a cornered animal. “You can’t kill me in cold blood. None of you are murderers.”

Marcus flicked his gaze to Kat and then Nathaniel. Both had been pushed to their limits, and though they needed closure, he didn’t want them to kill in cold blood. Neither of them would forgive themselves. “He doesn’t deserve a quick ending. It would be far more of a punishment to let him rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life.”

“He has the contacts to escape a prison,” Kat answered, her eyes steady on Sir Albert.

“She’s right,” Nathaniel added, his pistol still aiming at the man. “You know he does.”

How could Marcus deny something that only moments ago had been his own thoughts on the matter? But before he could answer, from the corner of his eye Marcus saw Sir Albert’s hand wrench a pistol out from under his desk. Everything slowed to a sickening, almost still-like quality, as Sir Albert’s arm jerked up, his pistol outstretched and aiming straight at Kat.

“No!” Marcus yelled, instinctively aiming his own pistol at the man and pulling the trigger as he leaped in front of Kat, who threw her dagger. The explosion of shots reverberated throughout the room, bouncing off the walls and echoing loudly in Marcus’s ears, as he and Kat tumbled to the ground.

For a moment he lay on top of her, both of them stunned.

Then he glanced to his side, toward Sir Albert. The man was sprawled back in his chair, his chest a bloody mess from both Nathaniel and Marcus’s bullets, and Kat’s dagger lodged in the man’s right shoulder.

And in the end justice had been served, but he was glad to take the burden of taking the man’s life instead of Kat having done so. As tough as she was, Marcus wanted to protect her with all that he had.

“Oh my God, Marcus, are you hurt?” Her hands frantically patted him across his back as she lay under him, seemingly searching for any bullet holes. “Please don’t be hurt.”

“I’m safe, my darling,” he crooned in her ear, before pulling up on his elbows to look into her panic-stricken face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She nodded as they got to their feet. “You jumped in front of me?”

“Of course I did.” His voice had become slightly hoarse all of a sudden as they now stood facing each other. “I’ll always protect you.”

“You could have been hurt or killed.”

“I would die for you, Kaitlyn.” It was the simple, unvarnished truth. The woman had infiltrated his heart, body, and soul, and he would give his life for her. He would give anything for her. If she would have him.

“Too many people have already died because of me.” Her voice was distant as she glanced over at Sir Albert. “I won’t have you added to the list.”

Nathaniel clearing his throat had them both whipping around to face him. “I hate to interrupt such a moment, but what do we do now?”

His brother had a point, of course. They had things to sort out here before he could sort out what the devil he and Kat were doing with each other. “Are you ready to come back from the dead?” Marcus asked him. “Because I know two ladies who would be desperate to see you again.”

His brother closed his eyes and winced. “I don’t know if I can face Mother and Isabelle, not after all that’s happened.”

“They’ll understand.”

“How could they? I didn’t even attend father’s funeral…” Nathaniel’s voice trailed off.

“They will understand because I know firsthand what it’s like to have mourned you only to have found out you’re alive.” Marcus approached Nathaniel and grabbed him in a bear hug. “It was the greatest gift I could have received.”

Nathaniel returned the embrace. “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve put you all through.”

Pulling away from him, Marcus kept his hands on his brother’s upper arms and gave him a brief squeeze. “As I’m sorry for the pain you’ve suffered. But come, we’ll sort this mess out, then we’ll get Kat home. Tomorrow we can travel to the country and reveal the news to Mother and Isabelle.”

Nathaniel nodded. “She doesn’t seem like herself.” He jerked his head over to where Kat was now standing by the far window, silently looking out across at the gardens.

Marcus quickly filled him in on the events of the day.

“I will miss him,” Nathaniel said, referring to Fenton. “He loved her like a daughter. Like Victor never quite could.”

“She’ll feel the loss of Fenton always, I imagine,” Marcus said. “Give me a moment with her.”

Nathaniel nodded as Marcus walked across to where she stood.

She looked too still, almost like a statue, and he could feel the grief that was wrapped around her like a second skin.

Sensing his presence, she glanced at him. “It’s finally over.” There was neither joy nor upset in her voice.

“It is,” Marcus said. “They can all rest in peace now.”

“I hope so,” Kat said, her voice devoid of emotion. “I thought I’d be more at peace when it was all over. Instead, I feel empty.”

“Come on, let’s get you home.” He gently reached out and took her cold hand in his. “You’ve been through a lot today, and Samuel is going to need you.”

And hopefully, if she was receptive, Marcus would be able to convince her of how much he needed her, too.