“I found this.” Maggie came forward brandishing a length of rope. “Perhaps we should hobble him as well.”
Jeffers looked up, found a smile, and reached for the rope. “Good idea.”
Everyone was safe. All was under control. On that realization, Godfrey’s mind, his entire awareness, shifted. Leaving the others to deal with Masterton, he clambered over the scattered boxes to where Ellie waited, pale but alive, sitting propped against the wall.
She met his worried gaze with a faint and rueful smile. “I missed all the excitement.”
“Excitement?” Godfrey dropped down to sit beside her, then avoiding her wound, which she was clutching, he put his arms around her and slowly, feelingly, hugged her. He buried his face in her hair and let out the shaky breath that felt as if it had been lodged in his chest from the moment she’d been shot. When she leaned into him, he tightened his hold. “I thought I’d lost you, you crazy woman.”
He raised his head and pressed a long, hard kiss to her temple. He felt as if he was holding himself together—bottling up a maelstrom of turbulent, violent, powerful feelings—by the skin of his teeth. He’d never known he could feel so viscerally, so profoundly—not about anything.
She drew in a slow, deep breath, awkwardly raised the hand of her injured arm, and patted his encircling arm. “You’re not going to lose me so easily, for the simple reason that I’m not about to let you go.”
He softly snorted. “I gathered that—you were supposed to have gone the other way.”
“And then the devil would have shot you, and that wouldn’t have suited me at all.”
After a moment of simply soaking in her warmth, the reality of her presence, he sat up and gently drew his arms from her. “Let me see.”
She eased away the hand she’d clamped over the wound and allowed him to check it. “See?” She peered at it, too. “It’s not that bad.”
He frowned at the raw gash marring her delicate flesh. “It might be a graze, but it’s a deep one. You’re going to have a scar.” He wasn’t sure what offended him more—that she’d been hurt or that she would carry a permanent reminder of Masterton.
She ducked her head, captured his gaze, and gently smiled. “I really don’t care. You’re alive. I’m alive.” She glanced to where her siblings and Jeffers were discussing what to do with Masterton, who was apparently still unconscious. “And thanks to you, Harry and Maggie are also alive, and Jeffers as well, and that’s really all that matters.”
He couldn’t disagree. He wondered whether he could trust his legs to hold them both up and realized the shock of her being shot and the ensuing action had apparently galvanized his limbs and brain into cooperating again.
“How’s your head?” She looked at him anxiously.
He arched his brows. “Surprisingly better. Still throbbing a bit where he hit me.” He gently probed beneath his hair. “A goose egg that’s sensitive, but nowhere near as bad as before.”
He pushed off the floor and got to his feet, confirmed his balance wasn’t about to desert him, then reached down and helped her up. He put an arm around her, and she leaned against him, just a little, as they sidestepped the tumbled boxes and joined the others, still standing over Masterton, who hadn’t yet stirred.
After assuring the others that her wound was minor and she was otherwise perfectly well, Ellie looked down at Masterton, her expression severe and full of banked anger. “Leave him here.” She cut across the ongoing discussion of what to do with him. “We’ll send Kemp and the footmen to fetch him.”
There was something in her tone that had everyone else nodding.
They turned and headed for the door, with Ellie, still clutching her wound, walking within the circle of Godfrey’s arm. Jeffers went ahead and held the door wide for Godfrey and Ellie to pass through.
Poised to step over the threshold, Godfrey halted, then blinked. He could barely believe he’d forgotten…
He looked at Harry and Maggie. “There are four framed paintings resting against the wall beneath the last window.” He pointed. “Can you fetch them, please, and bring them downstairs?”
Harry and Maggie readily turned and went back to collect the paintings.
Godfrey returned his attention to Ellie, smiled reassuringly into her eyes, and guided down the steep stairs what was, to his mind, the most precious object the attic contained.
Chapter 14
With Godfrey hovering, Ellie paused in the front hall to tell Kemp of the happenings in the old wing—which almost succeeded in throwing the butler into a fluster, something she’d never seen and, even now, failed to accomplish. She concluded by asking Kemp to arrange to have Masterton fetched from the attic.
“He’ll probably have revived,” Godfrey warned. “Best send at least three burly footmen.”
Kemp’s spine stiffened. “Indeed, sir. I’ll go myself and supervise.”
“We should put him in some small room—one he can’t get out of.” Despite having his arms wrapped about two paintings, Harry managed to look belligerently combative.
When Kemp glanced at Ellie, she confirmed, “We need to keep Mr. Masterton under lock and key while we speak with Papa about what to do.”
Kemp nodded. “Very good, miss. There’s a room off the scullery that will suffice. We’ll hold him there until we receive further orders.”
“Thank you, Kemp.” Ellie was about to set out for the library when Jeffers cleared his throat.
When everyone looked at him, he colored faintly and said, “You might want to have your staff seal the door through which Masterton brought me into the house. I gather it’s been left unlocked for some time. Anyone could get in that way and”—Jeffers glanced upward in the direction of the door through which they’d entered the gallery, which had no lock—“gain entry to this part of the house.”
“Good gracious,” Ellie said. “I hadn’t realized you didn’t come through the front door. Which door was it?”
Jeffers described what she and Kemp recognized as the outside door from what was known as the summer parlor.
Grimly, Kemp nodded to her. “I’ll see to it immediately, miss—as soon as we have Mr. Masterton secured.”
“That,” Godfrey said as they turned toward the corridor to the library, “coming in through the summer parlor and through the disused wing, was the route Masterton used to spirit the Albertinelli out of the house.”
Ellie nodded. “And to bring in the forgery to put in its place.”
They walked into the library to discover that Morris and Pyne had been about to depart but, having heard the exclamations and voices in the front hall, had waited to support her father if such support proved necessary.
Ellie smiled reassuringly at all three men as Godfrey solicitously steered her to one of the armchairs, but her father’s, Morris’s, and Pyne’s gazes had dropped to her arm, and from their shocked expressions, she realized the blood staining her sleeve and bodice wasn’t reassuring at all. “It’s just a scratch,” she assured them as she sank down.
Godfrey stepped back and looked at her father. “With your permission, sir, I believe I should summon Mrs. Kemp and Cook to tend to Ellie’s arm.”