“He attacked us with a fire iron when he realized what we were doing and what we’d discovered,” Giles said, exhaustion lacing his words. “I fended off the blows as best I could to protect Rebecca, but he was persistent.”
Theo hated to think what would have happened if he and the others had waited even a moment longer to enter the house. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, fury boiling in his gut. He trusted Giles would know that he was asking about far more than fire irons.
“No.” Giles shook his head, then let out a breath of relief. “I was able to hold him off. I do not think my arm is broken, and despite the blood, the blow to my head was only grazing.”
Theo nodded, beginning to shake now that the initial fear subsided. “I do not know what I would have done if….” He shook his head to dispel the renewal of terror that squeezed his throat, then kissed Giles’s forehead lingeringly.
It was a terrible risk, but his fellow Runners were already suspicious. Showing affection for Giles couldn’t make things worse. Besides, they had other things to concern themselves with.
“My God, the evidence is overwhelming,” Fleet said, beginning to gather all of Pennyroyal’s letters and things into a pile. “I’ve never seen such clear evidence of villainy.”
“What do the letters contain?” Waterstone asked.
“Records of amounts spent to uncover information about Vansittart and several others,” Matthews said, helping Fleet gather the papers. “Correspondence relating details of conversations that were had about the results of clandestine meetings with Vansittart.”
“Ledgers that show Pennyroyal has amassed an astounding fortune,” Fleet said, showing Matthews one of the ledgers.
“Surely, that money will be forfeit to the crown,” Matthews said.
“No!” Pennyroyal cried from where he still knelt beside Waterstone. “That money is mine. I earned it fair and square. The shipping business is all mine, and its profits belong to me.”
“You won’t…you won’t take all our money and turn us out, will you?” Rebecca asked Fleet and Matthews in a tremulous voice.
The two men glanced guiltily at each other, then at Rebecca.
“My sisters have had nothing to do with our father’s treachery,” Giles said, moving to stand by Rebecca’s side and draping an arm around her. He glanced past Fleet and Matthews to the doorway. Theo looked as well to find the two younger girls watching the scene with terrified eyes. Giles beckoned to them, and they rushed to form a cluster with him and Rebecca. “You would punish these innocent girls for my father’s crimes?”
Theo’s mouth twitched, not quite forming a smile. He was certain that Giles had formed the picture with his sisters deliberately, although there wasn’t half as much guile in the move as there could have been. Theo could see that Giles truly was concerned for his sisters.
Fleet winced slightly and glanced down at the papers and ledgers he’d been gathering. “I’m no magistrate,” he said, “but it seems to me that, if your father does have fair business dealings, those will not be confiscated by His Majesty.”
“Surely not,” Theo said, stepping in to defend what he felt in his heart of hearts was his. “If there is proof of ill-gotten gains, then those should be confiscated, and Pennyroyal should most certainly spend the rest of his life rotting in prison. But Pennyroyal began his shipping business long before he turned to deception and blackmail to advance it.”
“He purchased theWhirlwindages ago,” Giles said, the light of triumph forming in his eyes. “We can keep that ship, can we not?”
Fleet and Matthews exchanged another look, then glanced to Waterstone.
“That would be entirely for the courts to decide,” Waterstone said with a shrug, “but they are not in the habit of leaving innocent children penniless or sending them to the poorhouse.”
A visceral wave of horror swept through Theo at the mention of the poorhouse. “I swear to you,” he told Giles’s sisters, his voice hoarse, “I will do whatever it takes and give my life in the process to keep you out of any danger.”
The girls seemed relieved, but it was Giles’s look of love and gratitude that warmed Theo’s heart. He mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
More than anything, Theo wanted to take his lover in his arms and show him in far more lurid ways that everything would be all right in the end.
Those warm thoughts were cut short when Waterstone said, “Pennyroyal will go to prison for certain, but it appears we have two other criminals to bring to justice this morning as well.”
Every kind thought Theo had ever had for Waterstone and the other two dropped like lead to his feet.
“Surely, you wouldn’t,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Waterstone.
Waterstone met his stare with unrelenting stoicism. “You have a sworn duty to uphold the law, Brunner,” he admonished Theo. “And sodomy is punishable by death.”
Theo glared at the man, but inwardly, he trembled. It was one thing for him to fight his way out of a situation and to avoid prosecution, if he could at this point, but it was another to have not only Giles, but the Pennyroyal sisters to look out for. He’d all but decided his time with the Runners was over regardless, but every instinct within him whispered that now was the time for swift and decisive action that would change his life irrevocably.
He ignored Waterstone’s accusatory stare for a moment and turned to Giles. “Are you willing to leave them for the time being?” he asked.
Giles seemed to know everything Theo implied. He let out a breath and faced Rebecca and the others. “Can you manage without me?” he asked in a small voice.