Francesca's heart, heated by his kisses and caresses, dropped into her stomach, now a ball of ice and
stone.
"Is this why you brought me out here?" she demanded. Any moment she would push him away. Just
as soon as she wasn't still boneless and breathless from his artful seduction.
"There are speculative whispers that ye're an imposter," he breathed in her ear. "I hear them in
dark corners."
"I have no doubt you spend a great deal of your time in dark corners, sir, but what on earth could
make you believe the claptrap you hear whispered there?"
"Because I knew her," he murmured, swiping a thumb over her jaw, as if his words were ones of
affection rather than accusation. "That is, I'd had the occasion to meet Lady Francesca as a child. She
was charming, amenable, and you…" He astonished her by nibbling at the very same jaw he'd
caressed, kissing away his words.
"Are neither?" she finished as wryly as she could while his mouth made its artful way back toward
hers. This wasn't a conversation with which she was unfamiliar. She didn't find it difficult to prove
she was a countess; she had the appropriate airs and graces, along with a swaggering confidence
generally only belonging to nobility.
Or lunatics.
However, if someone had known "sweet, amenable Francesca" … they irrevocably asked some
form of this question.
How did such a soft, delicate, good-natured little girl grow up to be … well … her? Outspoken to
the point of insolent. Brash, independent, opinionated, educated, and, worst of all, unmarried.
Well, perhaps that was no longer the worst of all her sins in the eyes of society. They could now
add promiscuous to the list.
Promiscuous and wanton, apparently, as she shouldn't at present be enjoying an interrogation by a
man who held her captive against a wall.
"She had a beauty mark above her lip," Drake murmured. "Right here." His mouth brushed softly
against the corner of hers, lifting shivers from her soul.
"It faded," she whispered, turning her head to seek his kiss.
He drew away, but only slightly. Enough that his features remained unfocused, unless she
concentrated on just one. She looked into his eyes, of course. Those supposed windows to one's soul.
Except in this case, they were infuriatingly opaque. For shame, they couldn't even seem to decide
upon which color to be.
"It's my experience such marks and moles have a way of becoming more dramatic with age, rather
than fading," he persisted.
"I don't remember being introduced to you as a youth." She lifted her hands to his chest but didn't
push. Not just yet. "Furthermore, I don't have to prove to you who I am."
But she did. She should, if she wanted her ruse to work."But ye can," he said.
"How?"
His hands slid down her shoulders, skimming her ribs. Spanning her waist. Francesca remained
utterly still.
"She was injured when we met," he recalled aloud. "She'd fallen on something sharp." He'd
begun to gather her skirts, the hem sliding past her ankle, then her calf. "A knife in the kitchens had
sliced into young Francesca's thigh deep enough to require stitching, and I remember hearing her
crying through the whole of the east wing."
His words conjured the memory from deep in her childhood. Francesca had been eight, Pippa only
six, and the young girls had used the distraction of their parents' important guests to raid the kitchens
for sweets. Had those guests been from Scotland? She couldn't remember.
The slide of her hem over her knee dumped her into the present moment. This was something she'd
forgotten, a scar of Francesca's she didn't yet possess.
He continued, "The cook was a bit of a scatterbrain, I was told—"
Francesca lifted her knee with as much speed and power as she could muster, aiming for the
impressive flesh between his legs.
She'd never met a man who could dodge her agile movements, until now. The blow landed on his
inner thigh, and he did little more than wince.
Lord Drake, it appeared, was a man used to pain.
Francesca didn't give him time to answer her attack with one of his own; she followed up with a
blow to the solar plexus that should have doubled him over.
Should have.
He released her with a grunt and staggered back a few steps, but other than that the marquess
seemed unfazed.
"Mrs. Hargrave was an angel, you pompous twat!" Francesca balled up her fists, dropping into a
fighting stance, ready to deflect or absorb any retaliation he could muster.
If this man hit her, she would be in trouble. His fists would land like hammers, and she wasn't
certain her bones cold take it.
"That 'scatterbrained' woman is the reason I'm alive," she spat, palming the knife in her pocket.
"So you will keep a civil tongue in your head about her or I'll relieve you of it."
"Forgive me." The Scot held up a hand as if to ward her off, the other rubbing at where her knee
had connected with his thigh as though trying to erase the pain. "Forgive me. I forgot myself."
"Yes, well…" Well, she hadn't expected him to apologize, not after what she'd just done. "I made
certain you will remember in the future."
She turned to leave, but he caught her elbow. "Countess … Have I ruined this beyond repair?
"Ruined what, I ask you?"
"Us?"
She gaped at the sheer impudent absurdity of the question. "What makes you think there is an us?
You don't even believe I am who I am. And I've only just met you!"
"You just kissed me—"
"I categorically did not! You, sir, kissed me." She jabbed his chest with an accusatory finger.
"And I doona think ye wanted me to stop." His voice deepened once more, and he stepped closer.
"I think, Countess, ye wanted more than just a kiss."He thought right, but she'd die before she'd admit it. "If you think I'm letting you inspect my leg
for your own perverse curiosity, you can think again." She wrenched herself away, turning back
toward the door.
He was behind her in an instant, moving with that improbable agility of his. His hands shackled
her arms, his chest pressed against her shoulder blades, reminding her what a powerful beast he was.
His voice was velvet, though his grip iron. "I find my perverse curiosity has less and less to do
with what is on your leg, and more to do with what is between them." His warm breath carried the hot
words to her ear, and they landed in her blood like molten fire. The wickedness of them, the abject,
unrepentant desire. "I vow not to take one single look at yer legs, my lady, if ye open them for me."
His fingers curled around her arms, his desire evident in the latent wildness, the barely leashed
restraint.
"Why should I?" she asked huskily, unable, in this tenuous moment, to think of the many, many
reasons she shouldn't.
"Ye're fond of lovers, I'm told. I hear that the closest a man can come to touching heaven is to be
inside ye."
"Don't believe everything you hear."
His chuckle belonged to the devil. "My sins are so many, they'd crush yer average demon,
Countess, and a night with ye might be my only chance to glimpse what I'll be missing whilst I
inevitably burn in hell." He brushed the soft place behind her ear with his lips, nuzzling into her hair.
"I promise to take ye to paradise, to keep ye there with me, if only for a night."
Francesca's insides knotted at the same time her most feminine parts turned warm and liquid,
pulsing with an answering ache. The answer was no, wasn't it? This man, he'd never been whispered
about, not by the council, not by any of her "lovers."
She didn't understand what was happening. Didn't have time for it. If she took him up on his offer,
she'd be exposed, and not merely because she didn't have a certain scar on her thigh. One she'd give
herself the moment she reached home.
"We'll do it in the dark. Yer secrets and truths can remain yers, until ye're ready." Drake seemed
to take her silence as acquiescence. "Meet me tonight. I'll be at the bottom of the back stairs at half
one."
He released her so abruptly, a less dexterous woman might have stumbled. As it was, Francesca
reached out to let the stone of the manse hold her up as she watched the wicked Scot saunter back
inside.
Francesca grappled with her heart, her lungs. With indecision and lust and fear and yearning. For
the first time in her life, she understood. God! She'd thought men so simple. So ridiculous, to be led
about by her. To be handled so deftly with the promise of a little pleasure. Now it made sense how
the body was more powerful than the mind. How need could overcome logic. How desire could
excuse danger.
Half one, bottom of the back stairs.
Francesca bit down on her lip hard enough to hurt, gathered herself, and went in search of another
drink.Chandler escaped the dance floor to slide into the quietude of the east wing. Once he found a
washroom there, he locked the door, yanked his cravat loose, and greedily gulped air into his lungs.
God damn, but he'd never been so turned on. He was hard enough to punch through marble. His
blood simmered with the want of her, with an anticipation he'd not felt since he'd been a lusty lad
seeing a naked woman for the first time.
The Countess of Mont Claire. Francesca?
If he thought her beautiful before, she was even more so when she was angry. Her eyes sparked
like diamonds cutting into emeralds. Her pale skin flushed, and he would have given his eyeteeth to
follow that color below the line her bodice.
A flush of desire? Or of guilt?
When he'd baited her, the melted puddle of warm, willing woman had frozen to ice and iron in his
grasp. He'd instantly wanted her back the way she was, drooping with desire against him.
Desire, and probable deception.
He still didn't believe a word she said. He'd have not been able to seduce her if he truly thought
she was Francesca.
Not only was she was missing a freckle on the top left of her lip, but everything about her was as
wrong for Francesca Cavendish as it was right for his libido. She was more lithe and nimble than
demure and delicate. Strong, sure, and bold. Three things Francesca had never been.
He'd loved the girl for her fragility. He'd spent his youth swathed in guilt and self-loathing for
reasons innumerable, and she'd made him feel like he was St. George, the knight in shining armor
who could slay her dragons.
But to this imposter, he could be no saint. She stirred ardor and lust with such violence, he could
barely contain it.
And with her, he wouldn't have to.
Chandler gripped the sides of the sink, staring at a stranger in the mirror, going over their
interactions carefully, word by word.
She'd ignited within him a spark of recognition, hadn't she? Something had stirred memories of
their shared childhood.
The years have changed us both, a desperate inner voice contended. What if she is who she
claims?
Impossible. Wasn't it? Pippa had said Francesca didn't make it.
For the millionth time, he wished Pippa had survived so he could talk to her. Ask her. Delve into
her memories.
So the world could have known her endearing exuberance.
He'd tried so hard to save her. He'd done his best. He'd paid for every second of his sacrifice for
her in blood, in nightmares, and with his very soul.
Memories, as he well knew, were forever unreliable. His entire life seemed like a struggle against
them, and not just memories of the Mont Claire Massacre.
He'd been broken before then.
And the memories of his childhood often threatened to pull him beneath a tide of pain too strong to
fight.
Indeed, Mont Claire had been his salvation. Coming from the dregs of despair as he did, even the
little cupboard behind the kitchen stove in which he slept had seemed like a lord's lodgings.Every kind word of paternal encouragement from the butler had glowed in his chest. Every extra
treat from the cook or diverting story from the Romani woman who often kept their company had
kissed his dark young heart with hope. Those little moments of respite were like the pinpricks of stars
on a moonless night. Glittering points of light and warmth … unfathomably far away.
Then there had been Ferdinand and Pippa, the surrogate siblings he'd yearned for. They'd taught
him what joy looked like. What fun was. They accepted him into their fold like he'd been born into
their litter of pups, scooping him into a wriggling pile of giggles, imagined adventures, and ridiculous
romps.
And Francesca …
Coming from a world so hard and unmerciful, she had been this brilliant splash of color and
kindness. He'd sometimes not been able to bring himself to touch her because he was afraid his
common fingers would stain her pure, unadulterated loveliness.
How a girl like that could meet her end with such savage violence. How she'd become nothing
now but ash and rubble.
His heart became a lead weight in his chest, returning him to the present.
The current Countess of Mont Claire couldn't be Francesca Cavendish.
He knew it.
She knew it.
And he'd do what he'd have to do to find out just who the fuck she really was.
He'd get her naked. He'd check every inch of her. He'd find the other marks, the other proof.
There was plenty to be had. If she was a liar, he'd expose her lies.
After he plundered what pleasure he could.
After he'd given the pleasure he'd promised.
Yes, they'd both glimpse paradise together before he dragged her down to hell. He'd make certain
this was a lie she'd always regret. The temptress couldn't lick the bottom of Francesca's boots, let
alone occupy the void her death had left in this world.
Fixing his cravat, he went to the balcony to smoke his pipe and take in the night, biding his time
until the appointed hour.
He'd almost made his way through the first smoke before a vision drove him to his feet. He
gripped the railing tight enough to take chunks out in his claws.
Brendan Murphy helped the Countess of Mont Claire into his carriage, and they clopped away into
the London night.
Fucking hell. She'd never intended to meet him.
Her secret was safe, for now.Telephones were the worst inventions known to man, Francesca decided as she paced the length of
her study in her Belgravia terrace. One could have a frustrating conversation with someone else, and
it was impossible to throttle them through the wires.
Not that she could get her fingers around Lord Ramsay's thick throat.
"Don't be obtuse, Ramsay," she snipped. "Just get me in the door of the Secret Services holding
house, and I'll do the rest."
"I'm sorry, my lady, but it's too risky for us both." Francesca didn't have to imagine Ramsay's
fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "I'm not even supposed to know about the holding
cells and safe houses. Also, ye're asking me to find ye the former Lord Chancellor, for Christ's sake.
Do ye not think he's untouchable whilst in custody? If ye wanted to interrogate him, ye should have
figured out how before he was arrested."
"We none of us knew of his ties to the Crimson Council then!" She slapped the edge of her desk.
"Come on, man. Just leave a door open for me. Better yet, tell me where he is, and I'll do it all
myself. You owe me that, at least."
"I. Owe. Ye?" His dangerous tone would have sent any number of men scampering away, but
Francesca had never scampered in her entire life, and she wasn't about to start.
"Remember two weeks ago when I gave you Lord Colfax? That was a career-making indictment,
and do not pretend otherwise."
"I only indicted Colfax for fraud on the provided evidence," Ramsay argued. "Ye gave me nothing
to do with the Crimson Council."
"What does it matter if he's in chains? Soon they will all be in chains," she vowed. "But Murphy
proved the Lord Chancellor was part of the Triad, and so I have to interrogate Lord Hubert or I'll
never get the answers I—er—we need."
Ramsay's sigh was a windy sound against his receiver. "Why doona ye tell me what to ask him
about, and I'll get ye the information ye need through proper channels. I have a contact inside the
Secret Services. A spy who helped me take him down."
"No. It has to be me." She had some questions of her own to ask the bastard. Questions twenty
years overdue.
"Lady Francesca." Ramsay's voice had quieted, tightened, to one he might use with a hysterical
child. "I respect and admire your dedication to your cause—"
"Oh horsewallop, don't you dare condescend to me, you arrogant—"
"And I truly sympathize with what ye've lost."
"You have no fucking idea what I've lost!" What she'd lost was her temper, the one she'd never
quite had to begin with. "You have status and wealth and respect. You have Cecelia. You have a
darling child, Phoebe. You have what you were born with between your legs to give you a generous
head start out of the womb, goddammit. I only have this!"
"My woman and my daughter were almost taken from me by the council, if ye remember," Ramsaysaid quietly, as if her words made an impact, but not the one she'd intended. "And ye ken that ye have
more than this mission of yers. More than yer revenge. Ye have Cecelia, and Alexandra. And … us."
Us. He meant himself? His brother, Piers?
"You almost lost them, Ramsay," she said, adjusting her tone to match his. " Almost being the
operative word. But you didn't, you rescued them and claimed revenge on those who would have
taken them from you."
Francesca normally fought her emotions, but as they welled into her voice, she painfully allowed
Ramsay to experience them. "I can never bring my family back, but I can bring down those who took
them from me. Dammit, Ramsay. I'm not asking you to break the law, just to look the other way while
I do it."
Another sigh, this one more defeated. "Lady Francesca. The Lord Chancellor is many things, but
not a fool. If he is not handled by the book, he might be able to use what little influence he has left to
lever leniency for himself in the courts."
"Oh, dog bollocks!"
"Ye ken that means he wouldn't pay for his crimes. Not as he should. I willna allow it. And that is
my final word upon it."
Francesca curled her fingers into talons. A man had spoken and his word was final. If she heard
that one more bloody time in her life, she might shove those final words one final time up their
patriarchal arses. No, she'd get nowhere like this. With beseeching, logic, or argument. She needed to
change tactics. She needed to trip him up.
"I understand your concerns, Ramsay, but he's not in a prison, I've checked. So surely he's not
being kept in a place where I'd be found out. I could dose him with my tonic and he'd be certain my
entire action was all a dream. No one else need know about it."
"Francesca." Ramsay dropped all pretense of civility. "Ye canna sneak into a place like Trenton
Park. It's utterly guarded, and the balconies are three stories high. I'm sorry. It's just not possible.
Ye'll have to find another way."
"Fine. I hope you can sleep tonight, you bloody Scottish blowhole."
This time, his sigh was one of relief. "I'll give Cecelia yer regards."
"Hang your regards, you stubborn bastard."
"See ye at supper, then?"
"I'll be there at half seven," she muttered. "But only so I can poison you."
"Earlier maybe?" Ramsay's tone warmed to that of a friendly acquaintance. "Phoebe is begging
for yer help with her archery."
"Fine. Five o'clock."
"Excellent. Looking forward to it."
So was she. Surprisingly eager to see Ramsay's daughter and Cecelia's ward. She'd never been
what she would call a motherly sort, but she enjoyed the precocious girl a great deal.
Francesca replaced the receiver and did an awkward little dance of victory. Ramsay, as canny as
he was, didn't realize he'd just revealed to her the exact way to get to the Lord Chancellor. And she'd
do it, the very next evening. Tonight, she had to dress for dinner at Cecelia's. Alexandra would be
there, with her duke, and they mentioned they'd an exciting announcement to share.
A pregnancy, no doubt, judging by the way they'd been carrying on. Redmayne could barely be in a
room with his wife without his hands upon her; she could only imagine what they were like alone.A child was happy news, most especially where Alexandra was concerned.
So why did she feel so despondent? Because the world felt as though it was moving on without
her? As much as her friends had said it was impossible, that they were forever a female family, she
realized she'd been so naive to think it could be so indefinitely. Cecil and Alexander would be each
other's lawful relations, as Redmayne and Ramsay were half brothers.
They didn't have another brother for her, not that Francesca wanted one. She categorically didn't.
She was happy for them. Really. Because they were happy, her Red Rogues. Happy and hopeful
for the future, having children, and making plans for adventures with them, with one another.
And of course, they always made room for her at their tables.
But … what would she be after all this business with the Crimson Council was over?
She knew she was being maudlin, but she allowed herself to wallow in this moment of self-pity.
For a young woman—well … young-adjacent—she suddenly felt very old. She'd been so many
places, enjoyed so many experiences and suffered through others. She'd trained with masters of
almost every kind of art, from the physical to the mental, visceral, and aesthetic. She'd climbed to the
top of things. Ridden to the edge of other things. Crossed nearly every border and pushed the
boundaries allowed to a woman in almost all but one arena.
Sex.
Huffing, Francesca bucked her hips away from her perch on the desk and flicked at a tassel on her
bronze window drapes. Perhaps it was time she actually slept with one of the men she marked as her
unwitting informers rather than drugging them. Biting her lip, she paused. In order to succumb to a
man's advances, she'd have to mark a man worth seeing in the nude. She'd have to find hands worth
touching her. A mouth worth kissing.
A body worth allowing inside her own.
Now, that did pose something of a problem.
Oh, of course she was kidding herself.
Every time her mind followed this path, its destination was invariably Lord Drake. His kiss had
kindled a fire inside of her that'd taken days to quench, one that had addled her into a puddle of
quivering female desire. As far as she knew, he was no one to the Crimson Council. And no one of
consequence to her.
Except that he'd promised to take her to heaven.
Francesca bit her lip at the memory of his voice sliding down her body like velvet and vice.
No, no, best to pick someone else. Someone less lethal. Less suspicious. For something told her
that the man who lived behind Drake's gaze was too dangerous even for her to handle. And that
wasn't something she readily admitted.
Besides, he claimed to have known Francesca. And she had no real way of repudiating that claim.
Which made him dangerous on an entirely different level.
She touched the healing wound on her thigh, the one she'd inflicted weeks ago that would be a scar
in a matter of days. She was still furious with herself for forgetting it had existed. When she'd been so
careful to take on every slice of Francesca's persona since childhood.
No, the judicious thing to do would be to stay away from Preston Bellamy, Lord Drake.
Drake was another name for dragon, and this city had room enough for only one of those.
Francesca swept out of her study and into the damask-papered hall, calling for a footman. She
nearly collided with an older woman as she shuffled around a corner."Serana!" She steadied the woman, who was still more elegant than aged, though rheumatic bones
kept her from moving like she used to. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there."
"Distracted by your schemes, child." Serana patted her on the cheek as she'd done when she was a
girl. "I've been bowled over by worse."
Interlocking her arms with her friend, Francesca helped her to navigate the staircase to the ground
level. Even though Serana had taken to living in the luxurious accommodations of a countess, she still
favored the animal-skin slippers her tribe of vagabonds crafted in the eastern mountains. Warm, light,
and utterly silent.
"Are you engaged to go to a party tonight, love? Do you need me to mix you a dram for one of your
villains?"
"What I need is a footman to set up the pole vault in the back garden." She bellowed for her butler
across the marble-and-parquet entry. Just where was her staff today?
"A pole vault, you say?" Serana wasn't a woman who gave in to surprise, but her eyebrows
crawled up her forehead. "Whatever could you need with that?"
"To practice, dear Serana. I'll meet my end as a stain on the cobbles if I don't make my jump."
"Just how far is this fall you might take?" Serana's brows made a significant inversion, drawing
together in worry.
"Only three stories," Francesca said, brightening as she spotted one of her footmen. "But I know
that part of town, the space between roofs shouldn't be too far. Also, I'll need to borrow a pair of
your shoes."
Chandler couldn't breathe. His lungs were full of water and lead and his limbs secured by
shackles of bone. He thrashed. He screamed, but only a flurry of moths escaped his mouth. Flying
up. Up. Their sounds as loud in his ears as the beat of bat wings. An explosive, percussive sound.
A final sound.
His eyes stung, with tears. With salt. With … something strong and chemical.
He'd done nothing, he wanted to scream. He'd done nothing wrong. Not yet. So why did his skin
burn? Why did his sins have to be scrubbed away with bristles that felt as though they were made
of iron and ice? Why must he die when he'd not yet lived?
Water and Fire. They both burned, didn't they? They burned and tore flesh away from bone.
Tore life away from love. And everything he cared about away from him.
And this time, it was his fault. He'd started the fire and now it sped through the Mont Claire
estate devouring everything in its path. If only he had water now. If only he could put it out. And
save her.
Save them.
Francesca. Pippa. Everyone.
He'd tried so hard. But he couldn't outrun the fire he'd lit. It would catch him. Burn him. Burn
this entire city to the ground if he didn't stop it.
The flames licked at the soles of his feet, searing them, peeling the skin and—
Thud!
Jerking awake, Chandler leapt from the chair where he'd fallen asleep with his feet up close to thehearth. He'd a knife in one hand at the ready and another fist balled, prepared to strike.
His chest pulled in lungsful of air in great gulps. His hands trembled slightly, before steadying
themselves.
He looked this way and that, scanning the Spartan bedroom for intruders. If he found one, the
bastard would bleed.
It took less than a second to realize he was alone.
Always alone.
He emptied his lungs and dropped his arms. It was just a nightmare. The nightmare.
Chandler always had a difficult time sleeping when he'd a monster beneath his roof.
A lesser monster than himself. But a monster, still.
Though he occupied the floor beneath the Lord Chancellor, it was as though the man's evil seeped
through the rafters above him, emanating into the very energy of the Lambeth safe house in which he
was stationed.
Of course, he'd been called upon to supervise the custodianship of the blackguard as the Secret
Services did their utmost to unravel the Lord Chancellor's treasonous acts.
He was the Devil of Dorset, the very best.
Even they didn't know the truth about him.
They didn't know what role Chandler had to play in all of this from the very beginning. What past
and prejudices he'd had against the Lord Chancellor on every personal level imaginable.
Chandler went to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel with one hand, staring into the coals
and letting them dry the cold sweat in which his nightmare had doused him.
An old and familiar rage rose in him like a tide, choking off his breath even when awake,
drowning him in fury and washing him in a cold, bleak fervor he'd spent his entire life trying to
forget.
To avenge.
He needed to think of something else—anything else. Until he could truly breathe again. Until the
rage receded and the tempest stilled. Until he became himself once more.
Whoever that was.
He needed a distraction from the bleak void that threatened to swallow him on nights like this.
A silken fall of vibrant red hair glistened over a pair of eyes the color of the Cliffs of Moher.
Pretty pink lips quirked beneath a nose just a little too crooked to be comely.
The counterfeit countess. She was anything but bleak. The opposite of bleak. God, she was …
luminous. Vivid. Dazzling. Radiant.
So very alive.
Or at least, he'd begun to wish it so.
He just needed to be sure. He needed to see her hand. He wanted to prove her lie, to kill the hope
beginning to bloom in his chest.
He needed to touch her again, regardless of her identity.
For something irrevocably told him she was no more a countess than he was the actual devil, but
that didn't stop him from yearning to fuck her.
Lord, he really was a devil.
What a word they'd assigned to him in the as-yet-unofficial Secret Services. He'd never quite
learned why it stuck. Because he looked like depictions of said devil? Handsome, satirical, andswarthy. Because he was without a conscience, compassion, or empathy for the men he was assigned
to punish?
Because he enjoyed condemning those who deserved it. Bringing evil men to their final reward …
Someone had to. Someone needed to be a ballast to the weight of rot and malevolence rising in the
empire, in the souls of men. Someone must atone.
Who better than he? When he had so much to atone for.
Thud.
Chandler's hackles rose and his knife appeared back in his palm in the space of a blink. He'd
thought that sound a figment of his dream, but no. It came from directly above him.
The Lord Chancellor was kept at the other end of the house.
Someone else was upstairs.
Fetching his pistol from the table beside the bed, Chandler flung open his door and pointed it down
both ends of the hallway. Finding it dark and empty, he turned to a click at the end of the hall from the
rooms of Mrs. Kochman, the cook and housekeeper.
"M-Mr. Alquist?" she said in a trembling voice.
"Stay in your rooms, Mrs. Kochman, I'll investigate." He mounted the stairs two at a time, tearing
through the third-floor chamber above his. Nothing but an empty cell, awaiting another prisoner of
state, or sometimes a refugee for hiding until they could be deported. This was a modern version of
the Tower of London, a building in which people often disappeared, one way or another.
Cautiously, he made his way to the Lord Chancellor's cell, a room that might have been the master
suite once upon a time, when this part of town was more fields and fewer factories.
A light glowed from beneath the Lord Chancellor's door. Chandler retrieved the key from his
pocket and unlocked it one-handed, training his pistol on the hall the entire time. Kicking the door
open, he barreled in, thrusting his weight against it lest someone be on the other side.
He found the room empty but for the Lord Chancellor sprawled on the floor.
Chandler ran over and checked the portly man for wounds. A gash on the head, nothing more. He
was breathing, in fact, and fighting for consciousness.
"Who did this, you piece of filth?" Chandler demanded. "How did they get in here?"
"The-the—shhh."
The criminal pointed at the shutters of the window before his eyes rolled back in his head.
The roof? Impossible. One of the reasons a man of the Lord Chancellor's station had been stashed
here in the first place was that he had an outdoor area from which to see the sun yet remain hidden.
Chandler threw open the shutters and leapt onto the balcony, searching the dark night with the point
of his gun. Instead of speaking, he listened to the night. Waiting for a breath, a step, or a presence to
manifest.
On his next step, the ground moved beneath his foot. Or, rather, a cylindrical part of it did.
Bending, Chandler picked up an astonishingly long stick. No, not a stick. A vaulting pole.
"Fucking hell."
He tore back through the Lord Chancellor's room, barely taking the time to lock the unconscious
man inside before he leapt down the entire flight of stairs.
Someone had vaulted—vaulted—from the empty warehouse across the lane onto the roof and had
planned to use that exact method as their escape.
Which meant … whoever had done it was still in the house.A muffled cry drew him to Mrs. Kochman's room. If they'd hurt the poor, elderly woman, he'd
tear them apart. Kochman had likely been around since Waterloo, and hadn't the eyesight God gave a
mole rat by this age.
"Mr. Alquist?" The lady's tiny voice rang from the bed when he opened the door. "Someone was
in here, Mr. Alquist. They gave me a dram of something and I can't seem to … to stay…"
"Mrs. Kochman." Chandler ran to her bedside. "Are you all right? Were you poisoned you say?"
"I-I can see sounds in the darkness. They're like colors. Your voice is blue, Mr. Alquist. Like
water, but heavier. You're so lovely to look at, I bet the ladies tell you that sometimes. When they
take you to bed…"
Holy bleeding Christ, she was addled as an Irishman on St. Patrick's Day. He checked her pulse,
her breaths, her pupils. She didn't seem to be in any imminent danger. She hadn't been poisoned, but
drugged.
A slight creak in the floorboards told Chandler exactly where their intruder had gone.
His bedroom.
Swearing a foul streak as wide as the Thames, Chandler left Mrs. Kochman's side. He'd taken the
vaulting pole away from the intruder, and now they were searching for another way out.
An anticipatory smile tightened his mouth.
There was no way out … except through him.
The moment he crept back into the hall, a soft and familiar scent teased his body into awareness of
a different sort. Citrus and honey.
Chandler shook his head. Now was not the fucking time, and certainly not the place to be conjuring
her.
He stalked the darkness, moving slow and soundless, counting the steps he'd memorized to his
room. A pistol in the dark was rarely a boon, unless his nemesis had one.
He pressed his ear to the door and listened. A latch was undone and wood scraped against wood.
He knew exactly where the interloper was. He'd somehow found out about the hidden ladder to the
observation room on the third floor.
Probably from poor addled Mrs. Kochman. The woman was a legend; she'd withstood torture
back in her spy days, or so they whispered at the Secret Services.
But this villain had gotten her to spill secrets.
And for that he would pay.
Chandler palmed his weapon and kicked his own door in. The moonlight provided ample light for
him to catch two slim legs dangling from the pull-down ladder.
He lunged forward, caught an ankle, and tugged.
Instead of landing flat on his back, the nimble invader grabbed the ledge of the ceiling just in time,
swung his legs out, and kicked the pistol from Chandler's hand.
The weapon went flying, but Chandler had the criminal subdued before it hit the ground. A quick
jab to the stomach stole the air from his enemy's lungs and the strength from his limbs. He lost his
grip and Chandler caught the body, elbowing them both to the ground and using his superior weight to
secure wiry arms behind the man's back in his inescapable hold.
"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.
The slight figure merely struggled for breath on his stomach, remaining still otherwise.
Chandler extracted his knife, tucking it beneath the man's chin next to the jugular. "Make a moveand I'll open your vein."
No move was made. No words were said. What he wouldn't give for his shackles. A rope.
Anything. In order to further secure his opponent, he'd have to take the knife from his neck or his hand
from where it clamped around two very slim wrists.
No wonder he'd been able to vault. The intruder weighed a bit of nothing.
"Do you have a weapon?" Chandler demanded.
"If. I did. Do. You think. I'd tell you?" The reply was rasped out between pained breaths, in a
distinctly female voice.
Holy God. Chandler reared back, pulling the knife away. A woman had vaulted into the safe house,
drugged both the Lord Chancellor and the housekeeper, and nearly disarmed him.
No one would believe this.
And if he was honest, he wasn't readily keen to have the story told.
While he kept her hands in his grasp, he palmed his knife and lifted up on his haunches to yank the
cord from the bed curtains to tie around her wrists.
She had some explaining to—
Her leg whipped around at an impossibly acrobatic angle and kicked him off balance from where
he'd crouched.
Chandler could have maintained his hold on her wrists and the rope, but only if he sacrificed his
footing.
He chose his footing, as she was a woman, and would be easy enough to grapple again.
No one else alive had ever made him pay so dearly for a mistake in the moment. She swept his feet
from beneath him before he'd even regained his balance. He landed on his arse in an indecorous
heap. She was with him the entire way, controlling his fall, leaping atop him so her weight,
insignificant as it might be, was concentrated on his chest, her legs trapping his arms and her knees
threatening to squeeze the life from his throat.
The throat to which she now held his own knife.
"I don't want to hurt you, not for doing your job." Though still out of breath, her words were
measured and even. "No one need know I was here. No one need know I got one over on you."
The smug triumph in her voice wasn't required to identify her. Nor was his body's sudden and
thorough reaction to her.
Francesca Cavendish.
Or, rather, the woman who masqueraded as same.
Christ, he could have killed her in the dark. His breath trapped for another reason, one for which
he wanted her to kill him. He'd done her violence. Punched her in the stomach … hard.
She was still regaining her breath.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said, reflexively.
She snorted and ground down with her knees, her slim frame a darker shade of black than the night
shadows. Her hair was hidden beneath a sailor's cap, knitted to pull down over her ears.
"You hurt me?" She huffed out a laugh. "Please, I'm not the one trapped."
"I wouldn't say I'm trapped beneath your thighs, my lady, I'm merely enjoying my current
situation." His own English accent protected him from recognition as Lord Drake. At least while the
lights remained doused.
In reply, the muscles in her legs tightened, forcing a gasp of air out of him in a cough. Instinctively,his hands lifted to the tops of her thighs, fingers digging in, but it would have taken a crowbar to pry
them apart, and he didn't want to hurt her.
Lord, she was strong.
"Are you going to be a good boy, and let me go?" she asked huskily, unfazed by his wickedness.
"Or will I have to spill blood on your floorboards?"
His blood sped away from every one of his limbs, racing to his cock with dazzling and infuriating
speed. Surely that's why he was light-headed.
Not because her knee dug into his carotid.
He took too long to answer, apparently, while contemplating just why her threat of murder gave
him such a painful hard-on.
"Did you hear me?" The knife nicked the tender flesh of his throat, and he sobered instantly.
"Because it's been a while since I've buried a body, but I'm certain I've not forgotten how."
Chandler did his best not to investigate the intriguing fabric covering her thighs. She didn't wear a
skirt, but they were like no trousers he'd ever seen. Er—felt. They clung to her legs like a second
skin, but stretched and moved as she did. Cotton perhaps? Lord he'd give his left eye to find out. Or
maybe his left arm, as he'd need both eyes to see her.
She was magnificent, this woman. Who the devil was she to have been entrenched in Francesca's
life since finishing school? A spy? Did she work for the council?
Gads he hoped not. He'd hate to see a woman he so thoroughly admired hanged for high treason.
"You failed, you know," he said evenly.
"This ought to be rich. Please tell me which one of us is a success and which a failure under our
current circumstances?"
"Whether you intended to kill the Lord Chancellor or rescue him, you have botched both
endeavors."
Her scoff was a short breath that he could feel through her entire body. Tightening it. "Men have
such vague imaginations sometimes."
Chandler could feel every flex of her buttocks against his chest, every quiver and clench of her
thighs as she maintained her balance, her power, her control.
"Oh, I can imagine plenty." Right now, his thoughts were conjuring all sorts of scenarios that had
had absolutely nothing to do with the Lord Chancellor. And everything to do with figuring out how to
get his head deeper between her thighs.
"Now is not the time to be disgusting or disrespectful," she snapped. "Or must I remind you I'm
the one with a knife against your throat?"
Chandler knew he could likely disarm her before she did any lethal damage.
Probably.
However, she'd astonished him more than once tonight with her physical prowess, so it might do
him well to be careful.
Just in case.
Besides, he was too aroused to be very agile, and enjoying his position beneath her a little too
much.
"I assure you, lady, I have nothing but respect for you. It's been some time since anyone has been
able to disarm me, let alone a scrap of a woman."
"A scrap," she huffed. "I've had enough of you. I'll have you know I'm quite heavy enough tomanage all sorts of nefarious—excuse me, sir, are you laughing?"
The abject outrage in her voice did little to help the situation as spasms of mirth overtook him.
"I'm sorry," he gasped. "It's only that I've never heard a woman anxious to claim how heavy she is."
"Well," she growled. "Now I might just kill you for fun."
No she wouldn't. He'd been trained to spot a killer, as murder was rather his expertise.
This woman was many things, but a cold-blooded killer she was not.
"Tell me what you wanted, and I'll let you go," he offered simply.
"I'll tell you this, I got what I wanted, and you'll let me go, regardless," she said. "You haven't a
leg to stand on."
No, but he had a cockstand hard enough to support his entire weight.
"I'll let you go if you kiss me," he breathed.
He didn't see her fist coming at his jaw until it connected with astonishing force.
And then she was gone, as was the front-door key she'd picked from his pocket without him even
knowing.
Chandler lay there in a daze. Not because of her blow, which smarted, but because he was an
amalgamation of pain and pleasure. A confusion of awe and enmity.
God, she was magnificent. He wished he could think of another word. But there it was. She was a
magnificent liar, creature, criminal, and—he was certain—lover. She had physical capabilities so
many did not.
And he could only imagine how that interpreted in the bedroom.
Or wherever else he could have her.
He let her go because if he went after her, the urge to pull her back on top of him might prove
overpowering.
She was after information from the Lord Chancellor; all he had to do was ask the man what it was
she'd demanded of him.
And then Chandler would not only have a leg to stand on, but a leg up on her.Less than a week later, Francesca found herself in the arms of a devil.
Lord Luther Kenway, Earl of Devlin, waltzed her expertly around the Marchioness of Davenport's
ballroom, gazing down at her as though she were the only woman in the world.
Francesca, however, could barely bring herself to look him in the eyes for several reasons. The
chief one being that she kept inadvertently searching the ballroom for a certain intriguing, infuriating
Scot.
But, alas, she didn't see Lord Drake anywhere. Chances were, he didn't run in circles quite so
illustrious.
"Are you looking for someone, Countess?" her dance partner astutely inquired.
Francesca mentally admonished herself to pay attention to the task at hand, and batted what she
hoped were flirty lashes. "Forgive me, my lord, but I'm a bit awestruck by your attentions, and I'm
doing what I can to compose myself."
"I don't believe that for a moment." Kenway patted her rib cage in a rather fatherly gesture, and
then pulled her closer in a way that was anything but.
The Earl of Devlin was handsome in that disarmingly attractive yet subtly menacing modality that
left a woman breathless. Even the debutantes in their first seasons cast their eyes in his direction,
even though he'd probably lived a half century at least.
To distract herself from her racing thoughts, Francesca listed what she knew about him. He'd
married young to a beautiful country baron's daughter and had sired three children, a son and then
twins, a girl and a boy. Some years ago, his wife had apparently gone mad and drowned their three
children. The tragedy still kissed his every interaction in society, even after all this time.
Such a pity, they'd say behind their fans. Wed a lunatic and lost everything. Quite probably why
he never deigned to marry again.
Despite all that, he was obscenely wealthy, powerful, and possibly the vilest man alive.
At least according to what she'd gleaned from the Lord Chancellor. While she'd interrogated him
at the safe house, he'd revealed to her that Kenway was the top point of the Triad.
It all made so much sense now.
The name Kenway had been spilling all around her Red Rogues for ages, but always in the
periphery. As something like fourth in line to the Mont Claire title, he had been far down on her list of
suspects, but because of his tragic past, his philanthropic reputation, and more compelling evidence
leading her in other directions, she'd allowed her suspicions to wander away from him.
All this time. She'd been so close.
Months ago, a dead girl had been found in his garden, but he'd submitted to every form of
investigation, and they'd found the immediate culprit in Cecelia Teague's own household.
The body had been placed out of spite for the man pulling the strings of many a marionette.
Why hadn't she pieced that together before?
The Lord Chancellor had been another angle of the Triad, and because of a recent death by naturalcauses, the conclave was in search of a third. They'd several candidates, many of them astonishing,
and a few of them surprised her not at all.
When she'd asked the Lord Chancellor if Francesca's father, the previous Earl of Mont Claire, had
been a powerful part of the Crimson Council, he'd shocked her by laughing.
The Cavendishes were not killed for who they were in the council, he'd slurred up at her, they
were killed for the secrets they couldn't keep. Every person in that household had become a
liability, and so they were dealt with.
Further interrogation had been interrupted by that skilled and … perverse agent of the Crown.
Blast that man, whoever he was.
What she didn't know didn't matter. Not tonight. She had a name. Luther Kenway. She was in his
arms. The waltz would soon be at an end and she'd done nothing to further their acquaintance.
Speak, Francesca, speak! she bade herself. Say something witty, or snide, or flirty, at least.
But she could only peek at him from beneath the shadows of her lashes, because being in his arms
made her soul cold enough to lock her muscles with shudders.
This was who she'd been waiting to meet for nearly twenty years. The man most likely responsible
for the death of her family. Who'd gone unpunished for so long.
Or had he?
She gathered the courage to scrutinize him. He'd lost all three of his children in such a horrific
manner. Perhaps the tragedy had driven him to become a monster. Or perhaps as a monster, he'd
driven his wife to do such a shocking and terrible thing. Who could say?
It didn't matter now. He was her enemy.
But what sort of enemy was he? An idealist? A pervert? A tyrant? Did he lead an organization that
had become corrupted, or had he corrupted his followers?
"I know what you're thinking," he murmured with a tender sort of condescension.
"You couldn't possibly."
"That we should marry."
Francesca would have stumbled had he not rescued her with a dashing twirl that might have been
the reason any normal woman would have appeared breathless.
He was nothing if not effortlessly deft.
Had he just proposed marriage in the same tone one might propose a game of whist?
"I-I beg your pardon?"
Lines appeared at his mouth and eyes that made him somehow look younger as his features were
touched with amusement. "Logically, it makes a great deal of sense for us both."
For a woman used to being two steps ahead of her opponent, Francesca found it that much more
disconcerting to not be caught up. "But I-I've only just met you."
"Certainly. But we're getting along, aren't we?"
"That's hardly grounds for nuptials."
His lip curled in an oddly familiar gesture. "I'm next in line to the Mont Claire title after you, and
seeing as how we're both without an heir, it might behoove us to make one."
Francesca gulped. To the say the prospect repulsed her would be akin to saying the ocean was
large or that hell was hot.
"I thought you were fourth in line. Or was it third?" she corrected.
"After two very unfortunate deaths, my dear, it would seem I am your heir."The blood left her face as she realized he didn't even bother to appear as though the deaths
weren't anything but fortunate where he was concerned.
These deaths—they had to have been decidedly recent, or she'd have heard about them. If she
didn't accept his proposal, would the next untimely demise be her own?
"You don't want me for a wife, my lord." She injected a coy bit of modesty in her voice,
remembering what Drake had said about the word. "I'm a tired old spinster."
He hid his lips next to her ear so no one could read them. "I find you a wickedly desirable woman
with an appetite that I'm told rivals mine," he breathed before pulling back and affixing a delighted
and fantastically artificial smile on his lips. "And I like to think I'm not without my charms."
"Indeed." He possessed every charm in the world, and he revolted her in every conceivable way.
"I see I've startled you," he noted almost fondly.
Startled? A larger understatement had never been made.
Suddenly Francesca could not breathe. Her corset tightened and tightened until she felt as though
her ribs would pop and stab her lungs. Or maybe one already had. The dazzling chandeliers above her
blurred and drew strange halos on the ceiling with tails dragging behind.
She was suddenly worried that she'd lost her hearing, but it was when he released her and bowed
that she realized the music had stopped.
"Think about it," he murmured as he led her from the dance floor on limbs gone completely numb.
"I'll be in touch."
Air. She needed air.
Suddenly Alexandra was there, linking their arms and strolling back to their circle with the
appearance of ease. "You look pale, Frank, are you all right?"
Still unable to speak, Francesca shook her head.
"Here." Alexandra took a glass from her husband as they drew near. "Have some water."
"She doesn't need water, she needs this." A snifter of scotch was shoved into her hand by Cecelia,
and Francesca tossed back the entire thing in one gulp.
"What happened?" Cecelia touched her elbow, and Francesca could see that she wanted to show
more concern and affection, as was her way, but understood the possible implications if she did so.
She'd stoke Kenway's suspicion and the speculation of the ton.
"What happened?" Francesca kept her back firmly to the room as she fought for composure. "I
choked, is what happened. I choked like a coward, extracted exactly no information from him, and
then he asked for my hand in marriage."
" H e what?" Alexandra put a nervous hand to her mahogany ringlets, as if Francesca's
pronouncement threatened to relieve her of her very mind.
"He's now first in line to the Mont Claire title, and he intimated that our child would be the perfect
heir." Lord, but she needed another drink.
"You've only just met!" Cecelia had reached out for Ramsay's steadying arm, and he stepped in
protectively.
"That's exactly what I said to him."
"That rat devil of a bastard." The Duke of Redmayne's swarthy complexion was lent an even more
exotic appeal by the onyx of his beard. It contrasted with Alexandra's milk-white skin, which was
paler these days, due to her condition.
Francesca had been right about a child, though Alexandra and Piers were waiting for a few moreweeks to make an official announcement. She wanted to be happy for them, but she now knew what
world their baby would be born into.
And who the villain was.
Redmayne, never a master of subtlety, scowled and made to advance toward the floor. "I'll have a
word with Devlin, and if he balks, I'll have his tongue."
"Not now, dear." Alexandra's gentle, staying hand was all it took to pull her husband back. "Do
you think he knows what you're about?" she asked Francesca.
"I think he got rid of everyone else in his way and would have already made attempts on my life if
he saw me as an impediment." Francesca felt an awareness on her skin, an invisible tug on her neck to
turn back and find what danger lurked behind her.
But she knew. She'd left him on the dance floor only seconds ago.
Ramsay, often the cooler head of the two brothers, touched his chin, adopting a pensive posture.
"The question ye must ask yerself is, what does he want with the Mont Claire title? He's worth more
than ye are as the Earl of Devlin. He's more powerful and politically connected. And he's done little
to move upon the Mont Claire estate ruins, yer fortune, or ye until tonight."
"Yes," Cecelia agreed. "Why now?"
Francesca let out a deep breath and closed her eyes against the concerned and pensive gazes of her
nearest and dearest. They were all so brilliant. So wonderful and helpful and priceless to her.
She never should have gotten them involved.
This was becoming too deep and too dangerous.
"Oh, Mr. Chandler!" Cecelia greeted warmly, glancing over Francesca's shoulder. "I hardly
recognized you in that—"
"My apologies, Miss Teague, I think ye have me confused with someone else."
Francesca froze when Cecelia uttered the name Chandler, and then melted at the familiar Scottish
brogue.
"I am Preston Bellamy, Lord Drake. Ramsay and I sparred in Scotland once, and it was a draw. I
believe he owes me a rematch."
"So we did. So we did." Ramsay's features shuttered as their assembly did what they could to
dispel the tension of their previous conversation for the sake of the interloper. "Nice to see ye again,
Drake. May I introduce Their Graces, the Duke and Duchess of Redmayne, and ye remember my
fiancée, Miss Cecelia Teague."
Francesca narrowed her eyes. As far as she knew, Ramsay was undefeated in the boxing ring. "I
don't remember you and Ramsay in Scotland recently," she remarked to Cecelia.
"Oh, it must have been ages ago." Cecelia was good at a great many things, but lying was never
one of them. She turned to their guest before Francesca could follow up with another question. "Have
you met my dear friend the Countess of Mont Claire? Francesca, this is … Lord Drake, apparently."
Francesca's lips warmed at the memory of his kiss, and she pressed them together before turning to
face him. "We've met." She held out a limp gloved hand.
"Only the once." His firm hand gripped hers with a strength he barely seemed capable of
restraining. Francesca looked up into dark-hazel eyes brimming with meaning even as he kept his tone
lighthearted. "I was hoping to meet again before now, in fact we'd made plans to do so."
"I'm sorry to have dashed your hopes, my lord Drake, but I had a previous engagement, and I'd
already let you divert me from it for too long." Francesca wrinkled her nose in a half smile, halfgrimace. Just as relieved for his distraction from her predicament as she was irritated at his presence.
His answering smile was full of masculine arrogance. "It's good to know I'm diverting."
Upon rolling her eyes, Francesca caught both of the Red Rogues' questioning glances.
"I'd like to take ye, Lady Francesca." His gaze traveled down the length of her scarlet gown,
leaving trails of fire in their wake.
"I beg your pardon?" Or, rather, she'd give him a chance to beg for his.
"For a turn 'round the garden, of course," he added, addressing her circle. "If ye can spare her for
a quarter hour."
Ramsay shifted uncomfortably. "It wouldna be proper…"
"But I suppose it's up to her, isn't it?" Redmayne cut his brother off and tilted one scarred brow at
Francesca. She was often very glad she'd relinquished her betrothal with the duke to Alexandra, but
there were moments like this when she realized they'd have found a kinship if the situation had been
forced.
"My lady." The way Drake murmured the words whispered through her, heating the chill Kenway
had left in her blood. "Walk with me? I would … discuss something with ye."
She hesitated. Lord, she couldn't handle another proposition tonight. Or, God forbid, another
proposal.
Her eyes flicked toward Kenway, and she found him watching them with acute interest.
She stared at him defiantly, transmitting a lie. I'm not afraid of you. To illustrate her point, she
tucked her hand in Drake's and she marched him toward the garden.
Francesca assumed that the tension in his grip conveyed surprise until he disavowed her of the
very notion by crowding her into the first dark nook he found and crushing his lips to hers.
Any thought of resistance evaporated as she succumbed to the mouth that had haunted her thoughts
since the last time he'd stolen a kiss.
Chandler's heart pounded with such force, he wondered if it would seize. He was distantly aware of
her sound of surprise as he roughly pulled her shock-stiffened body against his. He pried her pliant
lips apart with his mouth and plunged inside to feel the velvet silk of her. To taste what he'd craved
for weeks now. He kissed her with exacting thoroughness, licking into her mouth in sure glides,
enjoying the spar of her tongue and the instant reaction of her entire body.
She came alive in his arms, returning his kiss with unabashed pleasure and hungry inquisitiveness.
Dare he suppose she'd craved him, too?
Her hands worked their way beneath his coat, exploring the ridges of his ribs before working over
the winged muscle of his back.
He hadn't brought her out here to kiss her. It'd just—happened. When he'd seen her earlier, in the
arms of the devil … a primal need had taken hold. A need to stake his claim.
He reached for her wrists and gently drew them from inside his jacket, bringing them together
between their bodies before he tore his mouth from hers as if fighting a powerful adhesive.
Before he took this any further, he needed to know one thing …
"Tell me ye've never taken Lord Kenway into your bed." He'd meant it as an order, but it escaped
closer to a plea.Her eyes turned from liquid to gem-hard in a second, narrowing with suspicion. "I do not see how
that is any of your business."
Could she not be stubborn for the sum total of one breath? He drew himself up, meaning to
intimidate the answer out of her if need be. "Tell. Me."
"I owe you no such answer."
"Francesca," he growled.
She wrenched her hands out of his grasp and ducked under him, out of the nook and back onto the
veranda. "Why does it matter to you so much who I've taken as a lover? I'm sure you've heard I've
had many, as have you."
It mattered. It mattered so bloody much.
"Not. Him."
"I never assumed you slept with Lord Kenway," she said flippantly.
"Dammit, woman, this is no time for japes." He was so utterly affected, his accent almost slipped.
"Is he or is he not yer lover? Tell me or…"
"Or you'll what?" She stood highlighted by the night sky, moonlight shimmering off the scarlet silk
of her gown that did nothing to dim the vibrancy of her hair. She might have been an ancient goddess,
demanding her blood sacrifice.
One he might have been eager to give, if she were who she claimed to be.
She licked her lips, her eyes affixed to his mouth as she repeated the question. "Or you'll what,
Lord Drake?"
"I'll leave." It would have been a ridiculous threat, if he didn't see the answering lust in her eyes.
"The door is right there." She called his bluff.
Damn her.
Instead of making good on his threat, he strode forward, gripping her arm. "Promise me ye willna
be with him." Not the man who was responsible for the Mont Claire Massacre.
"I'll make no such promise, and furthermore, I'm still stymied by the fact that you would presume
to care. We are almost strangers, you and I, regardless of the intimacies we've shared."
Chandler stared down at her, transfixed. With her slim nose flaring and glare snapping with
emotion, her energy crackled around them as if she could pluck it from the ether and use it against
him. She wouldn't be seduced. She wouldn't be intimidated. And she packed one hell of a powerful
punch for a woman so slight.
For anyone, really.
So how did he get through to her?
Chandler changed tactics, trying something he almost never did.
The truth.
"Francesca … Ye don't know me, but I'm a monster. I am a man with dubious contacts, limitless
legal protections, and power in almost every corner of this city from the lowliest rookery to the very
throne room, do ye ken?"
Her eyes flared, and she nodded, but she remained silent as if she knew he wasn't finished yet.
Power, he remembered, was something she was attracted to. Seduced by.
"I'm dangerous, woman, can ye not see that? I'm a wealthy man whose currency is not just money
but secrets and blood. Do ye understand what I'm saying to ye?"
"Stop asking me that, I'm not an idiot." She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but this time hedidn't allow it. "Are you trying to frighten me?"
"Yes, dammit!" He shook her a little. "Because ye should be frightened."
"Of you?"
"If that's what it takes." He released her and made to run his hand through his hair before he
remembered the wig and let his fist fall to his side. "If a man like me tells ye to stay away from Luther
Kenway, ye should obey."
"Oh. Bey?" Her jaw jutted forward, and a stubborn line appeared between her brows. Her own
small gloved hands knotted into fists. "Obey?" she repeated with no small amount of incredulity.
"He's a criminal, Francesca. If I'm any kind of monster, then he's a nightmare. One of which you
could never conceive. He'll rip ye apart just to see what ye have inside."
Instead of afraid, she looked … intrigued. "How do you know this?"
"He'll go through ye like a tempest, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake," he pressed on,
ignoring her question. "Women are not people to him, they're not even whores. They're just …
insects. Butterflies maybe, to be skewered and displayed in a shadow box." Unable to keep himself
from touching her, he seized both of her shoulders, this time with the tender restraint she deserved.
"Please. Please, if ye never follow another man's edict in yer life. Just heed this one. Never be
alone with Lord Kenway. Not for a minute. I will not allow—"
"Not allow?" The muscles of her arms tightened as if she was preparing to resist. "Who are you to
presume to tell me what to do?"
He dropped his forehead to hers, a gesture incredibly intimate for a stranger. If they were, indeed,
strangers.
And yet, despite her claim and the truth of it, he didn't want this woman to fall victim to Kenway
as so many others had.
"Francesca…"
"No." She wrenched away again. "You answer my questions, Lord Drake. What aren't you telling
me? Why do you care?"
"Because I want…" He dropped his hands, unsure of how much more truth he could give her.
"You want to fuck me, yes, you've made that abundantly clear."
"I want to protect ye," he thundered after taking the space of a blink to recover from the crass and
intriguing word tumbling from her mouth. "I think ye're flirting with a danger ye don't understand."
"Then tell me, in no uncertain terms, so that I understand." She made a gesture for him to go on
before crossing her arms over her chest. "Tell me what you know."
"All I can tell ye is that I know enough to warn you away from what you're trying to do." He'd
never been so frustrated by his charge, so uncomfortable with the lies his vocation required from him.
"I'm trying to celebrate my friend's forthcoming baby announcement. I'm trying to make the most
of being a wealthy, unattached countess in a world that would confine me in every fathomable sort of
prison." She stepped toward him, her gaze turning soft and liquid. "And if you'd stop telling me what
to do for two goddamned seconds, I'd try to seduce a rather suspicious Scot."
He froze. "Ye'd … What?"
"You are dangerous, so you claim. So powerful?" She raked him with a sneering glare. "Prove it,
Lord Drake. Show me just exactly what you can do."