They all began to swing down from their horses. Remi stepped up, placing a hand on Grantham’s shoulder. He could see the worry on his younger brother’s face.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Remi asked softly.
Grantham stared off at the building again. “From Marabelle?”
He glanced back at the woman. She had come down from her horse and was quietly standing alongside Dash and the handful of guards they had brought for his situation. She’d made no effort to intervene or influence who was brought along for this rescue mission. She seemed to only care that Blairford was caught.
“No,” Grantham said. “I feel she’s true.”
“I agree,” Jonah said, and motioned to the guards. It was plain to see his military training in his movements and strategy. “We’ll surround and be ready to move. Be careful.”
The others began to take their places as Grantham, Remi and Dash started up the beach toward the shack. Grantham so desperately wanted to run to the building, to burst in and simply save Ophelia.
He had to control himself now. For her sake.
As they reached the shack, Grantham dropped down, crawling on his stomach to the edge of the building and peering in through a crack in the paneling. Ophelia was there and his heart leapt. It was difficult to see, but she looked to be bound to a chair in the middle of the room. She moved, so she was alive. Though he couldn’t tell if she was injured.
He glanced at Remi and Dash. They both nodded. They’d seen the same thing through the gap as he did. He motioned Remi toward an entrance around the back of the shack, facing away from the sea. He moved toward the front and the door there.
When they reached it, he drew a few breaths.
“Let me go first,” Dash said.
Grantham shook his head. “She is too precious to me.”
“And your mother is too precious to me to allow you to—”
Grantham refused to argue. Carefully he pushed the door open. It creaked as it swung wide and Ophelia glanced back over her shoulder. Her eyes went wide when she saw him and she darted her gaze toward a small door in the corner of the room that likely led to a bedroom.
“Grantham!” she said.
“Are you harmed?” he said, motioning his head toward the door. Dash began to work his way along the wall even as Grantham moved toward her. “Did he hurt you?”
“They didn’t hurt me,” she said. “I was taken by a group, part of those in the uprising.” She slightly shook her head and he sucked in a breath. Clearly she was sending whatever message Blairford had insisted on. Clever girl.
“Thank God you weren’t harmed by those bastards. I swear I’ll make them pay,” he said. “Let me untie you.”
He moved toward her, but as he did, the door she’d been indicating swung open. Blairford burst out.
“Vile bitch!” he cried out as he lifted his gun and pointed it not at her, but at Grantham.
The world began to move in slow motion. Ophelia lunged toward him, but was hindered by her position on the chair. Grantham heard the gun fire, but before he could be struck he was hit by Dash, who threw him out of the way.
Remi rushed in, a legion of guards on his heels, and another gun fired. Grantham dove for Ophelia, covering her in the hopes she wouldn’t be struck. The smoky smell of powder hung in the air and Grantham looked over his shoulder. Blairford was dead, hit in the chest by one of the guards who now filled the room.
Dash was slowly rising and Remi gasped. “You’ve been hit,” he said, moving toward him.
Dash looked down and so did Grantham. Blood had begun to spot his white shirt in the middle of his forearm. “It’s minor,” he said, pressing a hand to slow the bleeding.
Grantham ignored the rest and refocused on Ophelia. He yanked on the ties, pulling them enough that she could wiggle out. When her arms were free, she put them around him, trembling as he freed her feet and swept her up to his chest.
“I love you,” he whispered against her hair as he carried her away from the sound and the blood and the death in that room.
“I told him I’d betray you,” she whimpered, her tears wetting his shirt. “I would have told him anything to see you again.”
“I know,” he said as he moved toward the horses down the beach. He really didn’t give a damn what happened now. The guards and Jonah could handle it. He’d let Remi manage Dash since it appeared he wasn’t badly hurt.
When he got back to the palace, he would be king again. But right now he just wanted to be the man who loved this woman and had nearly lost her.
He swung up on the horse, keeping her tucked into him as he turned them toward home. She clung to him, her heart wild against his body, her sobs soft as the reality of what had nearly happened seemed to hit her. He comforted her with murmurs, by smoothing his hands across her back as they rode.
By telling her he loved her over and over, and hoping that once the smoke had cleared on this nightmare, that it might actually be enough.
CHAPTER 22
Ophelia had felt the shift in Grantham after they entered the parlor. When they were alone, he had only been her lover, handing over the reins of what must happen to the others in order to protect and cradle her.
But as the family surrounded them, all talking at once, welcoming them home, reacting to the fact that Dashiell Talbot had been shot saving Grantham and everything that Blairford had confessed before his death, she’d felt Grantham being pulled from her side. Watched him become king as he settled her onto a settee, kissed her forehead and slipped away without a word to handle what would come next.
So now she sat on that same settee, shifting between staring at the marks on her wrists where she had been bound and watching the queen pace as the royal physician tended to Dash in some other room. If Ophelia had not realized the two were in love, she certainly saw it now on every line of fear on the other woman’s face.
She knew them so well, after all.
Sasha and Thomas were with the queen, as well as Jonah and Ilaria. Her children trying to offer comfort as the minutes dragged on. Priscilla was standing away from them, watching Ophelia instead of the royal family. When Ophelia dared to meet her gaze, her friend crossed to her.
“Tell me,” she said, sitting beside Ophelia and drawing her head into her shoulder. Her friend smoothed her hand over her hair.
Ophelia sighed. “I thought that man would kill me. He would have. And he would have killed Grantham and the rest, out of some desperate grab for power that was slipping through his fingers.”
Priscilla shivered. “I’m so glad it didn’t work.”
“So am I,” Ophelia whispered. “Though I have no idea where that leaves me. Leaves us. There is so much to resolve.”
Priscilla nodded. “And yet you have been granted such a chance, Ophelia. You stared death in the face and you lived. Did it not show you the path? The truth about your heart?”
Ophelia stared into the fire across the room. “I already knew my heart. I love Grantham and he loves me. It does not guarantee that there will be a future any more than it did before I was taken in the garden.”
Priscilla took her hand. “I have known you nearly all my life. And you are a fighter for those in need, for those who deserve to be protected. If you do not fight just as hard for yourself, I shall be very cross with you.”