Chapter Six: The Price of Silence

Vane’s men surrounded them.

James stood with difficulty.

“You should have killed me years ago.”

“I tried,” Vane replied. “But Edmund insisted you might reveal where you hid the royal ledger.”

Edmund avoided Eleanor’s gaze.

Vane noticed.

“You see, Lady Ashford, your brother-in-law has recently discovered a conscience. An inconvenient condition.”

Edmund’s jaw tightened.

“You said the boy would be spared.”

“I said whatever was necessary to bring them here.”

Thomas pressed closer to the cello.

Vane held out his hand.

“The recordings.”

James shook his head.

Vane drew a pistol and aimed it at Thomas.

Eleanor stepped in front of him.

“Move,” Vane said.

“No.”

“You have already wasted fifteen years on this family.”

“Then I have nothing left to lose.”

Vane smiled.

“Everyone has something.”

He shifted the gun toward James.

Edmund suddenly seized one of the guards and drove an elbow into his throat.

Chaos erupted.

James pulled Eleanor and Thomas behind the stone table.

Gunfire exploded inside the chamber.

Edmund wrestled the fallen weapon from the guard and shot another man in the shoulder.

Vane fired.

The bullet struck Edmund in the chest.

He collapsed against the wall.

James attacked Vane with his cane.

The pistol skidded across the floor.

Thomas ran toward the staircase, carrying the metal case of recordings.

One of the guards caught his coat.

Thomas slipped free but dropped the case.

Wax cylinders rolled across the stones.

Several shattered.

“No!” James cried.

Vane struck him across the injured leg.

James fell.

Eleanor reached Samuel’s revolver from her coat and aimed at Vane.

Her hands shook.

Vane laughed.

“You cannot shoot me.”

“Why?”

“Because respectable women like you survive by obeying rules men like me create.”

A gunshot filled the chamber.

Vane looked down.

Blood spread across his shoulder.

Eleanor still held the smoking revolver.

“I have spent fifteen years respecting the wrong men.”

Before she could fire again, the remaining guard struck her wrist.

The revolver fell.

Thomas picked up one unbroken cylinder.

Vane lunged toward him.

Edmund, bleeding heavily, wrapped both arms around Vane’s legs.

“Run!” he shouted.

Thomas fled up the stairs.

James helped Eleanor stand.

Together, they followed.

Behind them, Vane shot Edmund a second time.

At the top of the tower, Thomas reached the silent bell.

There was nowhere else to go.

The sea raged below the cliffs.

Vane emerged from the stairway, blood covering one side of his coat.

“Give me the cylinder.”

Thomas held it against his chest.

Vane raised his pistol.

James stepped in front of his son.

“You took Clara,” James said. “You took my life. You will not take him.”

Vane fired.

James jerked backward.

Eleanor screamed his name.

But before Vane could fire again, Edmund appeared in the stairwell.

With the last of his strength, he drove his body into Vane.

Both men crashed through the broken railing.

Vane caught the edge with one hand.

Edmund clung to him.

“Help me!” Vane shouted.

James stared down at the man who had destroyed their lives.

Edmund looked up at Eleanor.

“I’m sorry.”

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