Matthew hesitated. “I’ve looked. You don’t have it.”
“It’s not in my house. I have it hidden elsewhere.” All lies, of course, but Jasper put all the sincerity at his command into his voice. If he could just buy some time and get Melisande off the parapet.
“Do you?” Matthew looked warily hopeful.
“Yes.” Jasper had slowly straddled the roof, and now he brought his other leg over as well, crouching at the top. Melisande and Matthew were only ten feet or so away. “Back away from the edge and I’ll bring it to you.”
“No. We stay here until you bring the letter.”
Matthew sounded reasonable, but he’d already killed one person today. Jasper couldn’t leave him alone with Melisande.
“I’ll bring the letter,” Jasper bargained. He inched forward again. “I’ll give you the letter and forget the whole thing. Just let me have my wife first. She means more to me than any revenge for Spinner’s Falls.”
Matthew started shaking, and Jasper rose in fear. Was the man having some kind of fit?
But dry laughter spilled from Matthew’s throat. “Spinner’s Falls? Oh, God, do you think me the Spinner’s Falls traitor? All this and you don’t even know, do you? I never betrayed us at Spinner’s Falls. It was afterward—after the British army left us to be tortured for two damned weeks—that I sold secrets to the French. Why shouldn’t I? I had my loyalty carved out of my chest.”
“But you shot Hasselthorpe, you must have.”
“Not I, Vale. Someone else shot him.”
“Who?”
“Why would I know? Hasselthorpe obviously knows something about Spinner’s Falls that someone doesn’t want him to tell.”
Jasper blinked raindrops from his eyes. “Then you had nothing to do with—”
“God, Vale,” Matthew whispered, despair in his face. “You’ve destroyed my life. I believed that you were the only one who understood me. Why have you betrayed me? Why?”
And Jasper watched with horror as Matthew raised his pistol and aimed it at Melisande’s head. He was too far away. He’d never get to her in time. Christ. He had no choice. Jasper fired his own pistol and shot Matthew’s hand. He saw Melisande flinch as blood splattered her hair. Saw Matthew drop the pistol with a shout of pain.
Saw Matthew shove Melisande over the edge of the parapet.
Jasper fired the second pistol, and Matthew’s head jerked violently£erkf t back. Then Jasper was scrambling on the slippery tiles, a scream filling his head. He shoved Matthew’s corpse to the side and looked over the parapet, expecting to see Melisande’s body broken below. Instead, he saw her face, three feet down, looking back up at him.
He gasped and the screaming stopped. Only then did he realize that the sound had been real and that he’d been the one making it. He stretched his hand down. She was grasping an ornamental ridge of stone.
“Take my hand,” he rasped, his throat raw.
She blinked, looking dazed. He remembered that day, so long ago, in front of Lady Eddings’s town house just before they were married. She’d refused his hand to help her down from his carriage.
He leaned farther out. “Melisande. Trust me. Take my hand now.”
She gasped, her precious lips parting, and let go of the ledge with one hand. He lunged and grasped her wrist. Then he leaned backward and used his weight to haul her up and to safety.
She came over the parapet and fell limply into his arms. He wrapped his body about hers and held her. Simply held her, inhaling the scent of oranges in her hair, feeling her breath on his cheek. It was a while before he realized that he was shaking.
Finally, she stirred. “I thought you hated guns.”
He pulled back and looked at her face. She had a bruise on one cheek, and there was gore splattered in her hair, but she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He had to clear his throat before he spoke. “I do hate guns. I loathe them desperately.”
Her lovely brows knit. “Then how . . . ?”
“I love you,” he said. “Don’t you know that? I would crawl through the flames of hell on my knees for you. Firing a goddamn gun is nothing compared to you, my dearest wife.”
He brushed her face, watching her eyes widen, and he bent to kiss her, repeating as he did, “I love you, Melisande.”