Page 39 of The Dueling Duchess

What sort of idiot was he after he’d watched her shoot off a man’s toe from fifty paces?

“Any news?” Guy asked before Sin broached any uncomfortable subjects.

“I just came from the town square, where it seems that more news—and plenty of rumors—comes in every hour. All of it points toward Bonaparte’s army getting bigger. Quickly.”

“Bloody hell,” Guy muttered. “This is a complication we could have done without. Any news from Vienna? The Allies will have to do something about this.”

“One would think,” Sin said dryly.

“What does Farnham think? I know he’s been whining about the ticket sales plummeting.”

“I don’t think he knows what to do.”

“You think he’s waiting for war to be declared before he goes home? ”

“Who knows? This entire thing has a certain air of unreality about it.”

Guy had been thinking the same thing. It felt as if the world had been at war all his life. And just when it seemed that they’d left the madness behind, the lunatic came marching back—with apparently nobody to stop him.

“It’s a bit ironic that we haven’t finished hammering out the bloody peace treaty after the last time we stopped Napoleon’s rampage,” he muttered.

“At least the Allies are all together so it will be convenient when it comes to declaring war.”

They shared a grim chuckle over that.

Guy didn’t bother pointing out the obvious to his friend—that he, Sin, and Elliot would be considered hostiles in France if war broke out.

Instead, he asked, “What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t have a choice; I need to get to Metz by April first, Guy.”

“I’m going wherever you’re going, Sin.”

Sin gave him a faint but grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Guy scratched his jaw; he’d believed that not shaving every day would be a relief. Instead, he’d discovered the new growth itched like mad. “Is there anything we should do to prepare? I mean if we end up needing to leave quickly?”

“Yes, and I was just coming to talk to you about that. I think you should move our caravan closer to the inn.”

“I’m not sure I can find another place where we can keep it locked up inside a building.”

“Then one of us will have to stay with it every night.”

“I can do that,” Guy said.

“The three of us can take turns.”

“Please,” Guy said, meeting Sin’s gaze. “Let me do this. You need to be at the inn or the theater if things go to hell, and Elliot does his best work slipping and sliding through the shadows. So it only makes sense that I stake out the caravans and make sure they are ready to go.”

“Good thinking.”

Guy pushed off the wall. “I’ll go look into moving them right now.”

“I’m going to go find Farnham and let him know our plans.”

Guy watched him go, uneasy about the dark circles he saw beneath the other man’s usually vivid green eyes. He was more than a little concerned for his friend; Sin was the sort of person to keep all his worries bottled up, rather than ask for help. Although they never talked about it, Guy knew the news that Sin’s brother might still be alive was causing his friend both stress and joy. But the joy was a guarded sort of happiness because not one of the three of them believed that Baron Dominic Strickland—the man who was ransoming his brother—would actually deliver on his promise. It simply seemed too fantastical that Benjamin could have survived the brutal ambush that had killed all the others who’d been with him.

The trip was already going to be nerve-racking enough before Napoleon broke out of his island prison. With France falling to pieces around them, things were likely to become more than a little dangerous in the days and weeks to come.