Chandler woke to darkness sometime after four AM, choking on the same bloody nightmare he'd
always done. His limbs didn't thrash, as some did when they dreamed of death. Nor did he talk or
scream or carry on.
No, his nightmare was a paralyzing one. It captured him like a demon and locked him inside his
darkest places, making sleep a prison and his body his jailer.
Sleep was an unavoidable torment, and he always dreaded the night.
It was why he never slept with a woman, because he never trusted one enough not to use his
paralysis against him.
Just as soon as awareness slammed into him, he'd learned that if he focused on five sensations in
his body, it brought his mind around. He did that now. The covers were warm, but not heavy like his.
And the room glowed with moonlight.
This struck him as odd. He usually slept in absolute darkness. Absolute silence. So that no one
could sneak up on him.
Someone was breathing very close by.
His eyes flew open and the paralysis dissipated instantly as every muscle tensed with combat-
readiness just in time to see a siren stretch in the moonlight.
Francesca's arm lifted behind her head in a mermaid pose as the coverlet pooled only over the
lower half of her.
Christ, he'd meant to wait for her to fall asleep and then be about his business. He couldn't believe
he'd allowed himself to be lulled by the feel of her small body curled into his.
Had she even slept yet? It'd only been a few hours.
Lying on her side, she ballasted her head on her palm as she buried a yawn against her knuckles.
His cock had been at morning attention before he'd become conscious, and now it demanded to be
satisfied.
She gazed down at him with direct and open affection that sent curls of ludicrous warmth to the
coldest parts of him. "You look like him when you're sleeping," she noted shyly.
His mood darkened, the warmth immediately quelled by a cold stab of panic. "Like whom?"
"Declan. Who else?" Her hand moved to rest idly on his biceps before making a curious path of
discovery up toward his shoulder. "Innocent and mischievous all at once, you were, with a healthy
dose of melancholy. I remember always thinking I wanted to make you laugh, but I couldn't because
you didn't know how."
She waited for him to reply, and when he couldn't think of anything to say to that, she remarked,
"You were dreaming, I think. Just now. You were breathing so hard, I wanted to wake you."
He ignored her casual observation, not wanting to discuss nightmares when he'd woken to a
fantasy. "I never should have become Declan. I regret everything that came from my existence at Mont
Claire."
Her caress stalled, and she jerked her hand away as if he'd burned her. "Everything?""Everything but you." He recaptured her hand and set it back where it was before, encouraging her
to finish. No one ever stroked him, not in this way. Without lust or guile. Just … because she so
obviously enjoyed the feel of his skin.
She resumed, but a troubled crease remained between her brows.
A foreign guilt lanced him, and he turned to face her, adopting her posture by propping his head on
his knuckles. "You should have told me your secret."
Her eyes grew round, and her fingers stilled once again. "Which secret?"
He wondered at this. How many were there?
He'd deal with this one first. "Had I known you were a virgin, I could have prepared you. I was
such an animal—" Shame clogged his throat, cutting off his words.
To his utter astonishment, a smile lifted her wide mouth and he'd the sense she was relieved. "If
I'd told you, you'd probably not have done it at all."
He sighed, uncertain if he could claim the nobility she accused him of possessing. "Likely not," he
hedged.
Could he really have turned down what she offered?
He leaned over to kiss her bare shoulder. Only a fool would deny paradise once offered.
He opened his mouth to ask her how she'd fooled the entire ton into thinking her a wanton rakess
when she beat him to the punch.
"Did you mean it? Were you truly unhappy at Mont Claire?" she asked.
They'd been the best years of his life, but he still regretted them. "Does that hurt you?"
She adopted a pensive expression, one that gave way to nostalgia as she looked into the past. "It's
only that, before the massacre, I have nothing but happy memories of the place. Of the festivals in the
spring at the village. The playhouse with the comedies that the university students would stage for us.
The scent of fresh bread beckoning me in the morning to wander to the kitchens to watch Hargrave
pretend not to read the papers as he ironed them for Father…" Her eyes adopted a curious sheen and
she cleared it away with a blink and a cough. "I always loved summers, romping in the maze and
mucking out the fountain—"
"Hargrave ironing the paper?" he scoffed. "Since when did you ever get up before the crack of
noon?" He gave a mirthless chuckle and chucked her chin, his thumb grazing at the indent there. "Pip
and I mucked out the fountain. You only ever watched."
Her lashes swept down over a guilty look, and he instantly regretted saying so. He charted the
curve of her shoulder and drew his hand down the smoothness of her arm until he laced his fingers
with hers. "I'd have not dirtied your hands for all the world." He lifted her fingertips to his lips for a
kiss, and she watched him do so as if it caused her physical pain.
"I only meant that it was hard to have known such happiness and to see it so utterly and completely
destroyed."
She nodded, though she didn't seem quite mollified. "Are we certain everyone else died? It is
quite possible someone else could have survived the massacre?"
He shook his head, remembering that he'd hoped the very same. "I got Pippa out, but they shot her
in the leg and the poor thing couldn't run. I stashed her in the tree and diverted them back through the
forest when they shot me." An ancient well of pain rose within him as the memory of the moment
made the scars on his back itch and ache. "There were many more gunshots, even while I lay there
thinking I was about to die. I heard them conclude that they'd finished off anyone who'd attemptedescape and thrown them back into the blaze."
He'd done his best not to think of poor Pip. After all they'd done to escape the flames, the idea of
her being tossed back to them was simply untenable.
"You never witnessed her death. What if…" Francesca paused, toying at her hair that was more
escaped from her braid than contained in it. "What if she did escape? What if she survived?" The
earnest light in her eyes was difficult to see, and so he looked away.
"Then I hope she is far away from here … and at peace." So she didn't have to face the shame of
what her parents' actions had wrought.
"You were a hero, for saving her," Francesca said. "For holding and comforting her through the
ordeal, for making her feel less alone. Do you … remember her ever?"
A chuff of laughter escaped him. "I remember that she was stubborn and reckless. She was loud.
Unkempt. Wild."
"You don't remember her fondly … then." She sounded so glum, he regarded her carefully.
He'd never wanted to do this. To remember. But it seemed she did, and maybe it was time for that.
Time for trading war stories with someone who'd been through the fire with him. Literally. They'd
been close, Pippa and Francesca, he remembered that.
He wondered if she did all of this for her childhood friend.
Pippa Hargrave. He summoned the girl into his mind's eye. A sturdy thing, on the brink of portly as
her older parents denied her nothing. She'd been fair-haired, overindulged, and endlessly
opinionated. But she'd smiled brilliantly, often with gaps of missing teeth, whenever he entered a
room. As a boy largely unused to his presence being anything but a bother or a burden, he'd liked her
for that. She'd laughed at all of his japes, and she'd done anything he asked of her.
She was a favorite of Ferdinand's, which he always found ridiculous because she outweighed and
outmatched the sickly boy in almost every respect. He'd always imagined their future, her hoisting
little Ferdy around the estates running after a bushel of bastards, as the old earl would have never let
them marry. But Pip … she was the loyal sort, and just about as robust as anyone.
"I was plenty fond of her," he said honestly. "She was like the little sister I—I never got to have. I
recall that she quarreled just as ardently as she loved. She was … fearless until the end, and even
then, she was so goddamned brave."
When he focused on Francesca again, tears gathered like gems in her lashes, and he lifted her face,
though she wouldn't look at him. "She loved you like a sister, that I remember. She would have been
very proud of who you've become, I think."
She just shook her head, swallowing three successive times against his hand. "She loved you, you
know. To an obsessive degree."
He remembered the last time he'd seen her. The moments before her death. She'd flung her strong
arms around him and kissed him.
I love you, she'd whispered.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. "If that is the case … it is better that she died."
"I insist you stop saying things like that." She pushed at him then, releasing her frustration
physically, as he was learning she was wont to do. "What happened to you? Why are you like this?
You're not culpable in the massacre, and you couldn't have stopped it from happening, so why do you
constantly fight such immense guilt? Is it because of Pippa? Because you didn't save her? Because if
that's the case I … I'll tell you—""You are fighting for your legacy, Francesca. To see if it's worth protecting, and that is a noble
thing." He forced a frustrated breath through his throat, hating everything about what he couldn't say.
"I'm constantly escaping mine. I come from nothing. From lower than nothing. And I am doing my best
to … to atone. Does that make any sort of sense?"
Her brows pinched together. "What have you possibly done that needs atoning for?"
He reached for her then, wrapping his hand around her nape and pulling her close so his forehead
touched hers. "The sins on my shoulders are so heavy, Atlas wouldn't trade me his burden."
She pulled back, impassioned. "Tell me," she urged. "I've sinned. I've lied…" Her eyes moved
restlessly in their sockets as she came to some kind of weighty conclusion. "Declan. Perhaps now is
the time to trade secrets in the dark. Like we used to."
She sat up, holding a pillow over her lap, like a shield. Thank God. He'd never have been able to
pay attention if she'd been cross-legged right in front of him. "We'll tell each other everything. Even
if it's painful. I'll start." She cleared her throat against a gather of nerves. "I'll tell you who I really
—"
Driven by years of pain and yearning, Chandler rose and swept her up in his arms, pulling her into
the cradle of his lap and curling himself around her as if he could provide some sort of belated
protection. Shielding her from a world that had already done its worst.
"I'm done with revelations for now, Francesca," he said. "All I want to do is this. Christ, how
often I wanted to do this when I was young, just pull you into me and hold on forever. You were so
pure. So perfect. And I would spend an entire day just waiting to bathe in your grace. To bask in your
beauty."
He smoothed her hair away from her face. Her lovely, angular, elfin features. "And here we are,"
he marveled. "How did you appear just when I was about to run out of hope? When I felt as though
the battles I fought were all for nothing. Here you are. A warrior in your own right. A paladin or
cleric. Joan of fucking Arc." He drew her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin. "I found you,
Francesca. For twenty years, I'd only ever done that in my dreams."
The only dreams he had that weren't nightmares.
"I dreamed of finding you, too," she replied in a voice muffled against his skin. "I looked for you,
you know. Serana and I sifted through the ashes of Mont Claire, salvaging what we could. But I was
secretly searching for your bones, as if I could have even identified them. But you could not have told
me that as a girl." She made a caustic sound, both harsh and soft. "And when I didn't find any trace of
you, I wondered if you survived. A part of me has always held out hope."
"Did you?" Her confession heartened him, melted something hard within at the thought of her little-
girl hope hanging on him.
She nodded against his neck. "Serana insisted that she witnessed you take a bullet, and it would
have taken a miracle for you to survive it."
"And yet, I did." He wondered if he'd ever be able to tell her how he'd done it.
"A miracle," she whispered.
He ran his fingers through her silken strands, untying the ribbon that no longer held the braid.
"Listen to me." He cupped her head in both his hands, loving the feel of her. "I'm going to get you out
of tomorrow night."
"What? No!" She artlessly scrambled out of his lap, her motions doing wonderful things to her
small, pert breasts.He swiped for her, but she evaded him, which brought his predatory instinct to the foreground.
"Francesca, you've been playing such a dangerous game, and you've been fortunate so far. I mean
blind fucking luck. But you have attracted not just Kenway's notice, but his admiration. It is more
dangerous to be close to him than to be his enemy."
"I think I've more than demonstrated that I can handle the danger," she said, uncurling from the bed
to stand. "We will do it together. It's already decided."
He shook his head vehemently. "I won't be able to do my job if I think you're in peril, especially
not now."
She shrugged. "That's your concern. Don't we have this conversation sorted? Use me, Chandler. I
have skills you might not."
Oh, he'd no doubt of that. "You are already his victim, Francesca." He unfolded from the bed and
went to her, pleading with her to understand. "I refuse to allow you to be his casualty as well."
She swung her right fist and punched him full in the jaw. His head snapped back and an instant
temper flared, but he stood his ground, meeting her glare with one of his own.
"The next time you presume to allow or disallow me anything, I'll knock you unconscious," she
spat, stomping to the wardrobe to yank a robe from its depths.
Chandler tried not to smile. He rubbed at what most definitely would be a bruise as he admired the
back of her. He'd been hit with harder, more well-placed jabs, but hers was more than respectable.
And he had a suspicion she'd held back.
That she hadn't truly wanted to hurt him.
A distracting flash of color peeked from beneath her hair covering her shoulder blade, a tattoo it
seemed, but of what he couldn't make out.
"Sometimes I don't recognize you at all," he muttered, regarding her with a perplexed sort of
humor. "You were such a biddable child … one aches for those days."
Her glare went from stormy to tempestuous. "If that's what you want, then I invite you to make use
of that door, because I am not her. Do you hear me? I am not—"
"I know." He closed the distance to her in two strides, stopping her from donning the robe by
sliding his hands about her waist and pulling her close. "I know. And I'm glad."
At his words, she decided not to struggle, standing beneath his caresses as he smoothed his hands
over her like he would an excitable thoroughbred. "You've grown into someone brilliant, bold, and
beautiful." He made a sound of disbelief. "Christ. I cannot believe I was in your bed. That you are in
my arms. That I am the first man to…" He broke off, knowing he revealed too much, but wanting to
say everything he could, in case this was his last chance. "It's as though I've walked into a dream,
and I'm waiting for it to turn into a nightmare."
Tomorrow, if things went as planned, it would.
The storm of her temper died just as soon as it had risen, and she regarded him from a guarded,
careful gaze. He'd pleased her with his confession, and yet … he sensed he'd made her melancholy
as well.
Lowering his head, he took the robe from her grasp and dropped it to the floor. "Dream with me
awhile longer, Francesca?" He whispered kisses over her sharp cheekbones, eyelids, nose, brows.
"Let me have tonight, and tomorrow will be … what it will be."
She went to him with no qualms, following him back to bed almost like a contrite child. He spread
her beneath the moonlight and proceeded to worship and discover this new woman. With his hands.His mouth. Courting her properly this time. Taking his time and discovering all the curves and
hollows of her.
She didn't let him linger on her scars, but she found a few of his, running her hands along his body
as if she could memorize every line and groove.
And then, as the dawn licked the sky with silver, their bodies moved together, making new
memories in the dark.In a world where the Crimson Council existed, Francesca never expected to find the records
pertaining to the Mont Claire Massacre, and yet, here she was.
Her fingers trembled as she exclaimed her unbridled victory with a very unladylike whoop. The
sound echoed off the stone walls of the subterranean records room and frightened a few pigeons that
had gathered around the grimy windows above her head. What little light the solitary line of thin
portals allowed into the warehouse-sized space was consistently interrupted by the legs of passersby.
"Kindly return to me my five pounds," she called as she hauled a dusty box away from a shelf and
dropped it onto a grimy table.
"Bollocks," Chandler answered, closer than she'd expected as his footsteps were muffled by the
packed-earth floor and his own brand of light-footed spy magic.
They'd disembarked for the records warehouse early, deciding to pick locks and trespass rather
than ask for permission from bureaucrats they couldn't trust.
If they were caught, she had her pistol and Chandler had not one but several official identification
papers that would get them out of just about any trouble with the local constables.
In an attempt to make a boring search interesting, they'd wagered over who would find the files
first.
And they both hated to lose.
She'd learned this because it wasn't the first wager of the day.
As they'd lingered over coffee in bed that morning, Francesca had suggested that they ride their
horses through the London throng rather than take a carriage. She preferred this mode of
transportation, and her thoroughbred mare, Godiva, was in dire need of the exercise. Furthermore,
should they need to make an escape from the law, from the council, or for any other reason, a horse
was better equipped for a swift getaway than a coach.
He'd agreed enthusiastically and, as she dressed, they'd quibbled over the fastest route to take
through London to Southwick. He'd insisted the Tower Bridge was likely to be the least populated at
this hour, and she stubbornly contended London Bridge would dump them right into the neighborhood
of the warehouse.
They'd split up as they shot from the gate of her stables, Chandler seated expertly on a charger
named Porthos he'd selected from her fine stock. The sheen of his sandy hair rivaled the brilliance of
his arrogant grin as he allowed Porthos to dance on the cobbles, lifting his hand in a salute. "May the
best man win!" he called.
"Don't count on it!"
Experiencing some nominal discomfort in her newly unvirginal nether regions, she'd regretted her
decision a mere five streets away. Regardless, she'd flown through the city only to find herself
frustrated at Derving Square by an upturned cart. Clearing that, she'd encountered the bridge traffic
he'd alluded to, and was stuck for a good ten minutes longer than she'd anticipated.
Finally, she'd clopped up to the warehouse, distressed to find Porthos already hitched, the doorlock picked, and a handsome-as-sin spy for the crown standing in the threshold wearing a victorious
smirk.
"How kind of you, Lady Francesca, to allow me the time to change my suit." He gave her an
exaggerated bow over a fresh-pressed vest and jacket he must have donned at his Drake residence a
few lanes over from her.
Scowling, Francesca kicked her leg over the saddle and hopped to the ground. Reaching for the
billfold she'd tucked into the breast pocket of her riding jacket, she extracted the applicable notes and
shoved them at his chest. "We'll rematch on the way home, of course," she panted. Her mood, color,
and spirits were high, despite everything.
"As you wish." Once divesting her of the money, he kept her gloved hand and lifted it to his lips
before pulling her in for a playful but searing kiss.
Her irrepressible smile frustrated the length of the kiss, but he was a sport about it as he motioned
for her to lead the way into the dank warehouse.
His breath on the back of her neck had been a warm memory of their previous night as he'd
followed her closely down the stairs, his entire body a conduit for scandalous flirtation. "Promise
you'll protect me if we encounter brigands in here?" he asked in an exaggerated whisper, fondling at
the pocket in which she kept her pistol.
"You are the only brigand I expect to find in my company." She swatted at him as he investigated
the seam of her split riding skirts from behind before pinching gently at her backside. "I insist you
stop that, or we'll never get anything done."
"Yes, my lady." He nibbled at her ear, causing her to hop forward. "You're a peer of this realm,
and I a lowly civic servant. I am, of course, yours to command and dispose of at your leisure."
"Oh tosh," she laughed, shooing at him to no avail as his hands continued their delicious
wanderings.
"I've always found skirts more convenient," he remarked, shaping his hand to the cup of her
bottom. "But I confess I like you in trousers. They display your … assets to great effect."
"Stop being a bother, you cad!" She elbowed him in the chest, and he let out a melodramatic oof as
his hands fell away from her.
She turned to gaze up at him. Even in the dimness of the warehouse, his eyes sparkled with
mischief, and Francesca's heart lurched into her throat.
What fun adventures they might have. What a wonderful coterie of two they made. Generally, after
hours in the presence of almost anyone, Francesca longed for the silence of her own company. Even
Cecil and Alexander would create a need for space, what with their constant academic musings and
infinite emotions. Not so with Chandler. He seemed to have no great need to fill a comfortable
silence but if he did, it was endlessly entertaining.
Instead of impatiently hurrying her through her morning ablutions, he'd harassed and "helped" her,
which almost led to another bout of lovemaking.
He'd been concerned when she'd shyly expressed her intimate tenderness. Concerned … and not a
little conceited. And so, when she'd banished him from her dressing room, he'd made himself useful
by assisting the groom in readying the horses.
A useful man. Not idle or irate. It was an indulgence she'd not been prepared to enjoy.
But enjoy him, she had.
"Do let's hurry." She tugged at him, pulling him farther into the warehouse stacked with rows uponrows of full and dusty shelves. "The croissant we devoured won't last long, and I'm a terror if not fed
at regular intervals."
"One shudders at the thought." He winked and danced away from her swipe at him. "I know a pub
around here that makes excellent meat pies."
"Spend a lot of time in the industrial district, do you?" She lifted an eyebrow.
"A bit," he said cryptically before transforming his features into those of an exaggerated Irishman
with a severe squint. "If we dine there, you'll have to call me Mr. Thom Tew and put up with me
mates from the foundry. We sometimes sneak away and get drunk before the call of the labor whistle."
Thomas Tew, another pirate.
Francesca shook her head at him as he sauntered toward the east side of the warehouse in long,
lazy strides. "Five more pounds to whomever finds the documents first," he called over his shoulder.
"Or should we raise the stakes?"
The question sobered her a little. Could the stakes be any higher?
Three exhausting hours and a ruined riding habit later, Francesca had stumbled upon a box on a
shelf marked UNSOLVED ARSONS. #187 (M) MALDON—MONT CLAIRE.
She opened it with a captured breath, half shocked to find that no ghosts rushed at her from beneath
the lid.
Chandler stopped at her shoulder, gazing down into the box as she rummaged about in papers, ash
samples, statements from neighbors, and even a list of suspects upon which Kenway never appeared.
She glanced over at him, her gaze snagging on the set of his stubbled jaw. Her skin that bore the
abrasions of said stubble prickled with awareness. The insides of her thighs. Her breasts. Her throat.
Indeed, she'd had to wear a high-necked lace blouse just to cover a few love marks he'd made with
his teeth.
She'd made a few of her own.
Biting down on her lip, she firmly planted herself in the task at hand.
His presence was both a comfort and a distraction. Just knowing he was there beside her to lean
on if necessary was such an alien reassurance. One she thought she might just get used to. Chandler at
her side. A solid man with uncommon skills and a curious intellect to match her own. Everything was
better with him nearby. More dangerous, perhaps. More complicated, but less lonely.
And most definitely more passionate.
When they were through with this, she was going to tell him everything, she decided. She'd whisk
him off somewhere remote and exotic. Ride him into senseless oblivion, whisper her secret to him,
and then beg his forgiveness.
She had the sense that he wasn't a man prone to clemency, but he did understand the need for a
good secret … and maybe hers wouldn't knock his planet too far out of orbit.
Then why not tell him now?
She'd tried. So often the night before she'd opened her mouth to tell him.
And something had stopped her. He'd stopped her mostly by interrupting. She enumerated to
herself the many logical reasons to maintain the farce, the chief of which was the unknown human
variable.
When people, especially men, were hurt or deceived, they tended to become angry. An angry man
was generally an unpredictable creature. Often cruel. And while a part of her was a little afraid of his
antagonism, she was more afraid of the consequences thereof. Not emotional, per se—though that wasplenty enough to keep her up at night—but legal.
Even lethal.
In the worst-case scenario, he'd turn his back on her—no—even more devastating than that, he
could turn her in to his superiors. The subsequent litany of charges to be heaped on her shoulders
would undoubtedly lead to the gallows. She was impersonating a dead countess, after all.
It wasn't that she thought he would wish for her death—though perhaps he'd have reason to—but
as much as she desired, admired, and all-out loved this man … she didn't know who he'd become
well enough to predict what he'd do. Everyone had a moral compass, and his was as of yet undefined.
Which was exciting at times, and also terrifying.
First, she needed to focus on the task at hand, to exonerate or condemn her parents in his eyes …
Best get to work.
Francesca whipped through the documents, scanning, dismissing, and handing one over to
Chandler when she'd done so to select another. So far, none of this was new information, as through
the course of her own investigation, she had talked to the same people, chatted with the investigators,
and followed leads to their strange and fruitless ends for what felt like a multitude of years.
And then she saw it. A broken Cavendish seal with her father's tidy scrawl on the outside. Her
heart fluttered, then sank as she reached out to retrieve it.
Oh, Papa, she thought. What did you do?
Ever observant, Chandler sidled closer, reaching for it. "Is that it?" he demanded. "Let me—"
Francesca swatted his reaching hand away and shushed him, feeling rather than seeing his
displeasure at this, though he relented. She opened the missive with trembling fingers and read the
words that he claimed had damned them all.
To Whom It May Concern,
I trust this letter will reach the correct hands, as I feel its contents are of the highest relevance.
Some years prior, we, the staff at the Mont Claire estate, took in a stray and starving boy by
the name of Declan Chandler and put him to work. He's a good lad, solid of stature, respectful
in his interactions, and a dedicated worker, which we all might agree is a missing trait in the
youths of today. Decent by nature, is he. This wealth of moral character is inherent, I believe,
despite his upbringing or lack thereof.
As he ages, it occurs to me that his future is uncertain, and I gather that many a young man
turns to wayward moral turpitude without the guidance of a father.
Fatherhood was a lifelong ardent desire for me, and my only child, Pippa, is my most
abiding joy. I have discussed this at length with my wife, Henrietta, and we share a most
enthusiastic desire to adopt the boy into our family, so he may enjoy the benefits a proper
upbringing can provide.
For the sake of brevity, I will now elucidate my point. I have been unable to obtain any
records of Declan Chandler's birth or parentage, and I would respectfully request your help in
doing so in that I require certainty that my due diligence can be evidenced when I apply for
adoption.
Any assistance in this respect would be very much appreciated.
Sincerest and most respectful regards,Francesca read the words again and again, blinking to clear her vision. She rubbed her fingers
over the faded script with a heart full to bursting.
Until a laugh bubbled out of her chest, she hadn't realized she was crying.
This letter was so undeniably her father. He claimed brevity in a missive much too long and full of
digression. He was both regimented and sentimental, his script perfectly even and neat, his
communication a bit untidy.
His heart as massive as the Atlantic.
"Francesca." Chandler's voice was mostly full of concern, though the threat of impatience hovered
in the periphery. "Tell me, dammit. What's wrong?"
Pippa is my most abiding joy. She caressed the sentence before handing the letter to him, reluctant
to let it go just as much as she was eager for him to read it. To know.
Swamped by emotion, she allowed the tears to flow freely now. She'd seen her mother on the day
of the massacre. She'd watched the devotion turn into sacrifice, and nary a day went by that she
wasn't grateful for and devastated by it.
But her father had been different. Indulgent but proper. Pleasant but distracted and sometimes
aloof, but always devoted. Always. And she'd never gotten to say goodbye. She'd never realized
what an extraordinary thing her happy family was until it was taken from her.
And her father, her lovely father, had wanted to offer Declan Chandler a part of that family.
She'd have begged him not to, of course. Because she'd planned to do it herself by way of
marriage.
Francesca found herself swathed in shame for even doubting her parents. Of course they'd never
been involved in the Crimson Council. Charles Timothy Hargrave the Second would never have
allowed such "moral turpitude."
Christ, she missed them.
She looked over at Chandler, whose wolfish eyes devoured the script again and again. She'd
thought the kindness of her father would warm him. Would touch his wounded heart while absolving
the Hargraves of any wrongdoing in his eyes.
So why did his skin mottle so? The flush splashed from beneath the high collar of his suit. His
aristocratic nose flared with increasing breaths and his brow fell heavier over wild, wide eyes.
Little twitches became apparent on his features. She saw in the lips he pulled back from his
eyeteeth in the semblance of a snarl. His right eye blinked more violently than the left and a vein
she'd never noticed before throbbed at his temple.
It wasn't the reaction she'd expected at all. The opposite, in fact.
Then, quite suddenly, all traces of emotion vanished in a transformation no less than mythical. One
moment he was a man, and the next he was a pillar of stone. Cold. Remote.
Unreachable.
The change terrified her more than any display of temper could have.
"I understand why you're angry," she said, attempting to placate him. "Your intelligence was
faulty, and that wasted a great deal of time." She stepped closer and reached for him.
He backed away, crushing the letter in his fist. "No. No, it fucking wasn't."
"What? Stop that! Give over that letter. It's all that's left of my—of our childhood." She'd almost
said her father.He thrust it at her and she took it, smoothing the corners.
"That foolish fuck," he said with a flat, droll affect.
"I beg your pardon?" The tether on her temper, short and thin as it was, began to slip. "This man
admired you." She shook the paper at him. "He wanted to take you in, to give you a future. What about
that is foolish? You were an orphan and he was an endlessly decent man. The best of men, I daresay."
He shook his head, backing away from her, inching toward the door. "We should leave. Now."
"But—" She took another step forward, and he held a hand up against her.
Suddenly she felt like a child again, desperate and unsure. Brash and hurt by his diffidence. "What
is wrong?" she pleaded. "I don't understand."
Something in her features must have spoken to him because his face softened a mere increment. "I
know." He let out an eternal breath. "I know."
"Let's go to that pub and get that meal," she ventured. "We can talk about this. You can tell me
why you're being so very odd."
He gave his head a curt shake. "I have to go to the Secret Services."
"I'll come with you."
"No."
"No?" she gritted out through ever-clenching teeth. "Have you not yet learned how I react to the
word no?"
For a moment his eyes turned amber and molten, but that disappeared as he spoke to her with a jaw
just as hard and insolent as hers. "Tell me, Francesca, do you have any idea where you are supposed
to meet the Crimson Council tonight?"
Her eyes shifted to the side and she crossed her arms, hiding the precious letter from him.
"Well … not exactly. Kenway said a notice would be sent."
"Wouldn't it behoove us both, then, to have you waiting at your home when it arrives?"
"Yes," she conceded carefully. "But can you not at least share what significance this has—"
"No time for that." He whirled and strode toward the main door. "I'll explain everything when I
return the horse."
She rushed after him, taking quick light steps to his heavy long ones. "When will that be?" she
asked.
"I cannot say."
"Chandler. Can you not at least—"
"I said no, Francesca." The hard ire in his voice echoed off the walls and battered her with
fractals of rejection.
"If you cannot be agreeable, then at least be sensible for once. I will contact you when I can."
Turning, he slammed the door behind him, right in her face.
She stared at the iron ingots in the frame and counted the scratches from untold years of wear as
she finished her sentence.
"Can you not at least kiss me goodbye?"It fucking ended tonight. One way or another, this saga was done, and blood would be spilled. Final
blood.
Chandler kept a stranglehold on his emotion until he'd put enough distance between him and
Francesca. From that goddamned letter.
He wandered at a fast clop through the city, searching for a place for his wrath to land.
When other people ran from danger, Chandler had always found the grit within himself to run
toward it. He was the sort of man to douse a raging fire, or to charge someone with a weapon. He
was the antithesis of chaos and at his best in a crisis. He didn't flinch, he didn't look away from pain,
horror, blood, or suffering. Nothing overwhelmed him, or repulsed him, or disturbed him so much that
he could not confront it.
He'd wager he'd seen just about everything and he found a certain Viking-like freedom in the
knowledge that his stars were cursed. That the fates would fuck him every time he reached for
happiness, and so the best he could hope for was to never again be shot in the back.
When his enemies claimed him, which was an inevitability, they'd stare the Devil of Dorset in the
eyes, and he'd take a fair share back to hell with him.
But for the first time since Mont Claire, he retreated. He ran away. He fled.
His first instinct had been to go to ground. Not because he wanted to hide, but because he needed a
place to come apart. The rage injected into his veins could only be released by destruction no less
than biblical. He wanted to break something. Someone. No, he wanted to dismantle the entire city,
burn the empire to the ground.
And it was from that instinct that he fled, just as much as anything else.
But … where to run to? He had more dwellings than most, one for each of his personas. In any one
of them he could find a hammer. He could topple things, punch them, dismantle and break them. He
could pit his strength against the world and exhaust this need with destructive violence.
He'd start with the mirrors.
Ultimately, he decided against that. Though a temper tantrum of epic proportions would certainly
wear him out enough to make him feel somewhat better, it would weaken him. And he could not
afford to be weak, not if he was going to save Francesca. To sacrifice himself for her.
It was what they both deserved.
Chandler closed his eyes and summoned her to mind. For all she'd been through, all she'd
survived, to reach her age with such vivacious ambition … it was no small feat. When so many
allowed their tragedies to defeat them, she'd become stronger.
Stronger than him in many ways. Certainly, he was physically more powerful, but even that didn't
seem to faze her. She used her grace and skill, her beauty and her brilliance to fell him. And beyond
that, she'd managed to do what he never could.
Not just to survive, but to truly live.
To live safe in the knowledge that none of this was her fault.She might have lost her family, but she surrounded herself with friends just as close. People of
rare substance and quality. She'd a title of her own, a fortune, an education, and the enviable status of
being both the quarry and the heroine.
She'd done it through sheer strength of character.
And what had he accomplished compared with that? He couldn't even claim an identity let alone a
life.
Yes, he technically had in his possession many properties, but he'd never had a home.
He could claim a few things, however. Like the blood of innumerable innocents on his hands, an
accursed soul, and …
A responsibility.
To rid the world of an evil so insidious, the people milling about the streets of his city were not
even aware that it had infiltrated their government, their economy, and their very lives.
And he would. Tonight.
He'd finally be able to, because he would at least be sure that Francesca would be far away from
the Crimson Council. If he was lucky, she'd be home, awaiting a summons that would never come.
He reached into his pocket, retrieving the map that had been left for her in the wee hours of the
morning. Intercepting it had almost been too easy. He'd left her to her ablutions and had snooped
through a silver tray of cards and invitations, hoping it would be there.
The fates, it would seem, were on his side for once.
Because of him, she'd have no idea where the second ritual would be. And because of its unusual
location, she'd have little to no chance of stumbling upon it, even if she searched the entire night.
He'd do what he had to, and it would be over.
But first, he had to rid himself of this reckless rage.
Winding back toward the west boroughs, he found himself at Crosshaven Downs, a posh and pretty
spot where the idle rich came to play at all things equestrian. He let Porthos have his head, hunching
low over his neck as the gelding galloped like a stallion.
He was not a man prone to running away, and so he let the creature do it for him.
He ran from every ghost haunting the ashes of Mont Claire.
Especially the Hargraves.
Hattie, the simple, endlessly pleasant and untroubled woman who always seemed to have extra
food set aside for him.
Charles, who would pat his shoulder every time he gave him a job to do. Who'd never truly smiled
with his stern mouth, but always conveyed amusement with the rest of his face.
The man would have offered to be his father.
With a raw command, Chandler spurred the horse faster, letting the wind whip at him as he ate up
the ground.
He ran from the soft, clinging arms of Pippa Hargrave. From her trusting, round face and toothless
smile. From her peppermints and her punches and her little-girl love. From the hole in his heart that
belonged only to her.
She was his greatest failure. His most profound regret.
Most of all, he ran from his nature, his choices, and his very name.
He ran until the distressed snorts and breaths of the athletic horse beneath him permeated the fog of
rage and pain and loss.Reining in the steed, he walked the horse around the downs for several laps, cooling them both.
The race hadn't exactly the desired effect, but then, he'd not expected it to. If life had taught him
anything, it was folly to try to outrun the past.
And impossible to outrun the truth.
The Mont Claire Massacre had been his fault.
Francesca had built part of her pain tolerance from the years and years spent suffering beneath
Serana's tending of her hair.
Though her locks had darkened from the silver blond of her youth to a darker gold, she never
caught a glimpse of the undergrowth before the Romani woman hustled her into a chair and ground the
terrible-looking and foul-smelling paste that stained her hair such a vibrant red into her scalp.
Tonight was to be important, and since Francesca was perhaps the most impatient woman on the
planet, she decided that she could busy herself with the necessary evil of personal grooming while
she waited for the directions to the next Crimson Council gathering.
Devotion had been a heavy thing to witness. But tonight was desire …
At least she wouldn't have to put on an act.
After just one taste of Declan Chandler, her desire had turned from a curious hunger to an
insatiable craving. She'd picked the right stag, of course … a stag that was still missing, even as the
afternoon hour turned late.
"Were you careful, Francesca?" Serana's Eastern European accent had never quite faded, even
after all this time in England. Her blazing gold eyes skewered her from the mirror as she pinned her
pasted hair tightly to her head with ruthless jabs.
"I'm not certain to what you're referring, but the answer is more than likely no." Francesca busied
herself brewing her own concoction of sodium bismuth, vanilla, coconut, and a few other exotic oils
that would strip her hair of the smell once the henna dye was washed away.
"I'm asking if you took measures to make certain you and the tiger did not make a child last night."
Ever since learning of Declan Chandler's survival, Serana had taken to calling him "the tiger," as she
did not like to keep track of his innumerable names.
She'd insisted none of them belonged to him, anyhow.
The woman seemed pleased, though, to hear that she'd been wrong about his death.
Francesca didn't look up as the woman nearly finished toiling behind her, reaching for a scarf to
wrap around the muck as it set in the color over a few hours.
"No," Francesca admitted with a rueful twist of her lips. "We were not careful."
"Ah, I see." Though Serana rarely ever made her thoughts known, she was a woman Francesca had
always found easy to read. Not that she needed to guess now, as the woman made her judgments
perfectly clear by the brutal knots she pulled in the scarf, jerking her head this way and that.
"I will make you tonic," she said crisply. "There will be no child."
"Wait." The word escaped Francesca's lips before she could stop herself. She and Serana stared
at each other in the mirror, holding silent court.
Serana reminded her that she'd never wanted a child. That her life was strictly inconducive to
motherhood. That every day she lived as Francesca Cavendish was borrowed from a lie, and if thecouncil didn't get her someday, the Crown might.
"I know," Francesca said aloud. "But just … wait."
"Where is your tiger, by the by?" The brackets of age around the woman's mouth deepened as she
frowned. "You could be called away at any moment by your enemy, and he has left you without a
word all because your father once desired to be kind to him? To offer him a home?"
Francesca itched a place where the paste dripped against her scalp, puffing out a beleaguered
breath. "It's more than that…" It didn't take a genius to realize why he'd escaped her company a few
hours ago. He'd learned not only that his entire hypothesis had been incorrect about the Mont Claire
Massacre, but that he'd gained and lost a father before he even knew about it.
For a man who'd survived such a litany of such tragedies alone … she couldn't imagine what that
had meant to him. Of course he would need to sort it all out in his thoughts and his heart. It was a lot
to contend with. "It's … complicated," she finished lamely.
Serana made an affirmative grunt, giving the scarf a final yank to secure it.
Francesca looked at her reflection. She might have been a maharaja with such a fine turban, save
for the fact that she was neither male, a king, nor Indian.
"He'll be there when I need him," Francesca assured, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded.
Serana slid her a sideways look. "I do not think the gods would ever have allowed your father to
adopt him," she declared. "He never was meant to be your brother, but your fate."
Francesca opened her mouth to ask her to clarify when a metallic jangle pealed from her bedroom.
Holding up a finger to signal that this conversation was not over, she went to the receiver box of her
telephone and lifted the earpiece.
"Lady Francesca?" Even through the tinny wires, Lord Ramsay's brogue was unmistakable.
"This is."
"I am calling on behalf of my wife to give ye a firm talking-to," he said without a trace of firmness.
"Stern!" She heard Cecelia call from somewhere in his vicinity. "I said stern, not firm."
His breath was a long-suffering gush against the mouthpiece, and it carried his regret over the
miles between them.
"Ye lied," he accused in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You'll have to be specific," Francesca remonstrated, trying to cull the strange compelling urge
she had to yell her words into the receiver. Not because she was irritated, but because they really did
have to travel a great distance, and she wondered if they needed an extra push.
"The Kenway ritual," he clarified. "It isna at the estate tonight, as ye informed us."
Drat. She'd been caught. "Oh?" she feigned innocence. "Have they moved it? I haven't received
the invitation for it as of yet. I think it will come later and we'll have to leave immediately."
"That surprises me, because everyone else has one, including yer lover."
Francesca clutched the phone with hands gone suddenly cold and clammy. "What?" She didn't
fight the yelling now. "How do you know?"
"That he has an invitation? Or that he's yer lover?"
Francesca took the earpiece from her ear and made a nasty face at it. "Both," she gritted out.
"Either."
"I cautioned him against having you two watched!" Cecelia called from the ether. "But he's quite
like you, Frank. Stubborn. His agents saw Chandler go into your house last night … and not comeFrancesca could just see the couple glaring at each other.
"I've had everyone watched," Ramsay admitted with no trace of shame. "Kenway, his household,
people I recognized leaving the council soiree last night, names I've gleaned from the council
members ye'd already given over to us. They are all being followed. And ye'll thank me for my
stubbornness when ye hear what I have to say."
Ramsay took a fortifying breath, and because he was so much like her in nature, Francesca found a
place to sit down. If this was unpleasant for the Scot to impart, she wasn't going to like to hear it.
"I did some digging on Chandler Alquist, Lady Francesca," he started reluctantly. "He's not just a
spy, he's a ghost. There are no records of him existing anywhere except for when he gained employ.
He's assigned to the most dangerous of cases, suicide missions and the like, and has been after the
Crimson Council for some time. He's done … terrible things, Francesca. Things that would make
even a man such as I hesitate."
Francesca let out a deep breath, clutching at the window seat beneath her. "I know," she
murmured. "He's told me as much. And isn't it said that one doesn't send a saint to capture a sinner?"
She patently refused to believe that he was anything but a good man. "Chandler acknowledges that
he's a monster, but he's shown me someone different, Ramsay. He is an agent of justice, and
sometimes justice is brutal."
"I doona ken if you understand what I'm saying to ye," Ramsay interjected carefully. "Chandler
isn't a monster. He's the man they send to kill the monster. He's death's own emissary from the
Crown, and if he's on a job then people end up in the ground."
"You mean to say, he's an assassin?"
"I mean to say he lied to ye, Countess. He was never delivered an invitation to the ritual tonight,
but ye were. This morning. My man witnessed it happen, and if ye doona have it, then I suspect
Chandler does, and that he's keeping it from ye."
"That rat bastard." Francesca swiped at a vase on the table next to her, sending peonies and other
select flora flying as the crystal shattered on the floor. "He means to keep me from my revenge, does
he? The high-handed cretin. I'll fucking teach him a thing or two about—"
"About trying to keep those ye care about away from a dangerous situation by being dishonest?"
Ramsay cut in, a note of amusement gentling his censure.
Guiltily, she traced the grain of wood on the table top in front of her with a fingertip. "That was
different. I don't want Cecelia and Alexandra caught up in this. Francesca is my lie. It's my fight."
"We doona want any of ye Rogues caught up in this," Ramsay grumped.
"Is this the royal we?"
"Redmayne and I, the duchess, and Cecelia. We'd have ye let Chandler … whoever he is … deal
with this. He obviously wants to keep ye safe, and the man has more than enough expertise. Sending
him into the lair of the Crimson Council is akin to dropping an explosive into a room and shutting the
door."
"If I'm not there tonight, I think Kenway will suspect why. He has as many eyes in this city as you
do, and I'm not naive enough to think I haven't been watched by him, as well." Though she'd been
careful not to be tailed through the city that morning. "I think Chandler will be in danger if I do not
attend this." Anger and concern warred inside her stomach with such force, Francesca wondered if
she might chuck up her lunch. "Do you know where they're holding the ritual?"
The silence on the other end of the line stretched a moment too long.
out.""Goddammit, Ramsay. If you know something tell me."
"Do ye have anything to tell me, Countess?"
Francesca worried at an escaped tendril of hair at the nape of her neck. "Chandler might be the
most dangerous spy in the realm, but Kenway has an army of devotees that would throw themselves in
front of a bullet for him. Kenway is deranged, Ramsay. He's more sordid than you could have ever
even suspected." She spilled all the information about the night prior. About her father, the
Cavendishes, the Lord Chancellor, and the rituals. She told him what she knew of their creed and
what the council might be planning to do with it.
Once she finished, he said nothing for a moment, and then, "I wish we had more evidence. The
kind to put this treacherous—nay, traitorous—council away for good. But as it stands, even if I set up
a raid, I'll have little more than several dozen charges of gross public indecency, and no peer of the
realm has remained imprisoned for long for an orgy. Not in this day and age."
"Even a seditious orgy?" she wished aloud.
"There'd have to be proof. Testament. And I'm afraid hearsay from ye and Chandler just wouldna
be enough. We need something to tie them to the massacre, to the kidnapping of those girls, to the
murder of the Lord Chancellor. And, most important, specific plans for an overthrow of the monarchy.
Can ye provide me any of that?"
She shook her head, forgetting for a moment that he was unable to see her. "The Lord Chancellor's
bones are fodder for the dogs by now, I'm afraid, and Kenway is much too clever to keep
documents."
"And he obviously has agents in the government." Ramsay expelled another of his long, hissing
breaths, and Francesca could all but see him pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is even bigger than
we all thought."
"I know," she said, worrying at her lip with her teeth. "Tell me where Chandler is. Tell me what
you know about tonight."
"I doona think I should." He hesitated again, and Francesca surged to her feet. "I have a sense of
duty to protect ye."
"Don't let the fact that I'm a woman fool you, Ramsay, I am just as passionate and possessive as
you are. Chandler is mine. I've loved him for decades, and my love is no less fierce than yours. You
desire to see a monster? You want to see an agent of death? Look no further than me, you
sanctimonious son of a bitch. I'd never think to keep you from Cecelia if she was in a similar
position. So help me, Ramsay, if you keep me from him by some misguided notion that I'm the weaker
sex and in need of protection from my own decisions, it'll be you I come after next."
This time, the silence on the other side of the phone was more astonished than hesitant, and she
could hear the muffled sounds of Cecelia's voice.
He drew a long intake of breath, holding it for a beat. "I've gathered a small amount of information
from the men ye've already turned in to us. I have a few names. When pressed, they might have let
spill that there was talk of holding one of the rituals in the catacombs off Isambard Tunnel in the
Underground."
Trying not to choke on her guile, her desperation, and maybe a little of her hurt, Francesca nodded
for a while before realizing he couldn't see her.
"I'm … obliged to you," she forced herself to say.
"Och," he replied with his own brand of curt fondness. "And let me tell ye, Lady Francesca,woman or no, ye're as fierce and formidable as any general. I'd follow ye into battle anytime."
"Well…" If that didn't take the tempest out of her sails. "Thank you." This time, the sentiment was
more genuine and easier to express. "How does tonight sound?"
"Fair enough … Francesca?"
"Yes, Ramsay?"
"I'm going to help ye get yer man and get out of there."
"But how—?"
The line went dead, and Francesca stared at it for several furious moments before slamming it
back on the receiver.
She swept aside the shards of glass as she went to prepare for the evening.
"Where are you going?" Serana asked.
"To rescue Chandler," she said darkly. "So I can murder him, myself."Objectively, it was the perfect place for a cultish ritual, Chandler thought, a forgotten underground
chamber with access to the newer Tube stations branching out in three different directions. From what
he'd read in the blueprints, it had been dug and buttressed as a hub from the Thames in 1863, but a
drunk and wayward architect hadn't delved enough into the earth and so it spent perhaps a month of
the year submerged in knee-deep water.
In the summer, however, when the river was low, it remained dry and the raised walkways that
might have been train platforms rose from the groundwater. The grooves plowed for the tracks made
perfect trenches beneath which Chandler and his two fellow operatives Benjamin Dashiell and Theo
Howard would station themselves.
Logistically, it left everything to be desired for a police raid, as three different tunnels converged
into the unfinished space. This not only left nowhere for a force to hide, but allowed plenty of means
to escape as smaller passages branched from almost every tunnel, some of them nothing more than
ancient walkways or Jacobite escape paths dating back to the Tudor era.
With the unsolicited help of Lord Ramsay, Chandler and the Secret Services had hatched a plan.
Three operatives would be sent in with three low-grade, fairly harmless explosive devices, and place
them in each tunnel. When the raids began, they would be detonated in little more than a percussive
nightmare and billows of smoke, corralling the cultists and signaling the police to surround and
isolate the gathering in a sweeping arrest the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Inquisition.
During the day, trains would shake the very ceilings of this place, but at half eleven at night, the
Underground was nearly deserted by all but vermin.
Vermin that wasn't limited to rats and roaches.
Signs of danger made from no official office had been posted on the gates to dissuade any lurkers
in the tunnels from becoming curious.
And to guide the cultists in the right direction.
The gates had been latched, but none of them locked, as Kenway was too clever to block his own
escape.
Chandler and his contingent of two agents swooped in from the north tunnel, drawn by the sounds
of low, rhythmic humming and a lone drum. There was no chamber music tonight. Nothing that would
draw attention from the main passages.
The festivities had only just begun.
And the Crimson Council would be finished before the night was out.
There weren't any footmen this time, though piles of cold food and drink lined a table against the
far south wall where it was obvious excavators had simply stopped their work in the middle of it.
Depravity did work up an appetite, and these were not people who were used to suffering a desire
left unfulfilled for long.
Confident that their movements were little more than shadows in the dark, Chandler, Dashiell, and
Howard slithered about like indefinable serpents in a pit, setting the charges to detonate on command.They took cover behind a wall of brick that might have once been laid in the hope of becoming an
underground vendor for the likes of candied nuts or newspapers.
The humming of the devotees was louder here, a refrain that sounded exotic, Indian perhaps.
Dashiell, a veteran in his late forties with a grievance against variables and an unflappable nature,
pulled his watch from a vest pocket. He was careful not to catch a glimmer from the numerous
candles flickering from the platform upon which maybe forty souls groaned and groped at each other
with increasing fervency.
"Ramsay and the Chief Inspector should be in place within a quarter hour," he whispered through
an impressive mustache, confident they wouldn't be heard over the humming some several yards
away. "I suspect that'll give this … gathering a bloody good start." He scrunched his eyes to peer at
the goings-on with no little interest. "I've been at this a long time," he breathed. "And I've never seen
the like."
Howard, a fair-haired man who was barely old enough to grow a beard, stared with round,
unblinking eyes.
Chandler questioned the intelligence of bringing him, but the spy had a special skill with
explosives.
"What punters, eh?" He nudged Chandler in the ribs. "I mean, I wouldn't mind being invited to the
odd orgy someday, but this … it's diabolical."
Idly, Chandler grunted as he glared. Something held the cultists back. They writhed together,
kissed and fondled, all the while keeping up their incessant, throaty chant. But nothing went further, as
if their lust was on a leash, waiting to be released by the command of a master.
His lip curled in disgust.
If one provides the weak-willed and small-minded a trifle they've been denied, something they
hunger for, they'll put on their own chains and call it freedom.
His father had told him that once, a lifetime ago.
Dashiell shook his head. "Only the toffs would do something like this. It's all that inbreeding, says
I."
Howard nodded, sagely. "Makes one wonder how many bastards are gotten at such things, and
passed off as nobility."
Unable to stand the wait, Chandler rubbed at the back of his itching neck. "Something's off," he
muttered.
Howard sent him a quizzical look. "This whole bloody affair is daffy."
"Kenway isn't here yet. Could someone have warned him?"
Dashiell shook his head, ducking back down to sweep a look through the darkness of the trenches,
as if he could see anything. "Not even the bobbies know what they're getting into."
Still, it didn't feel right. "Let's split for our respective tunnels, just in case. No one in or out."
"What about Kenway? What if he's just … tardy?" Dashiell queried. "We could scare him off if he
sees us on his way in."
"I … don't think so." Kenway was never late, unless it was by design.
A troubling thought lanced his blood with ice. What if, by some impossible construct, Kenway was
one step ahead of him? What if he'd been drawn away so that the fucking bastard could get at
Francesca?
He'd left her protected, and it was not like she was helpless.But still …
"Sure thing, boss." Howard touched two fingers to his forehead in a subdued salute. "I'll stay at
this tunnel and … uh … monitor the … er … festivities."
Chandler shared a look with Dashiell before he hunkered into the trench and angled north. He'd
have to cut up, over, and back to avoid risking a dash over the dais. Anyone with a careful eye might
see a shadow and investigate.
As he was about to turn a corner, he noticed an opening in the stone wall big enough for a man to
fit through if he turned sideways. Frowning, he passed it. It would be difficult to cover both exits, but
it could be done.
Three yards up the trench, he spotted another passage. And another a few after that.
Bloody. Fucking. Hell. These hadn't been on the blueprints. How many were there? And where
did they lead?
Who did they hide?
He'd barely thought the question when the answer presented itself.
Or, rather, himself.
Across the way, Kenway appeared as if he'd stepped out of the very stone. He was followed by
seven stags.
Chandler had imprisoned one, Marcus Fettlesham, before he'd taken the lad's place as a stag at the
previous night's spectacle.
Who, he wondered, had replaced him?
Chandler knew what many did not … Luther Kenway had always preferred stags over does, which
was why his interest in Francesca was so confounding. She wasn't possessed of a voluptuous
physique. Indeed, her slim body's attributes were stunning in their strength and symmetry, but neither
was she mannish.
No, she was all woman.
None of it made any sense.
A smile toyed with the corner of his mouth. With neither he nor Francesca in attendance, a wrench
had been thrown into the evening. He imagined Kenway was scrambling to explain the absence of his
main attraction. Maye he'd lose a bit of face with his followers, before he lost everything.
God, he couldn't wait to watch the man choke on his own guile.
The crowd parted for him as he strode in his lion mask to what they'd formed as the top of the
dais. Women broke from the crowd, padding to trunks beneath the food table to extract cushions,
blankets, and pillows to strew about the hall.
Chandler looked down at his own watch. Ten minutes. Plenty of time for Kenway to say something
treasonous in the earshot of the other agents.
The earl raised his hands as though he were Moses parting the sea, and the humming ceased.
"Tonight, we pay homage to desire," he said. "The second precept of freedom. Tonight, nothing is
forbidden you, as it shall be when the walls of our oppressors will crumble, and we will govern the
empire by right of might. Power will not be born into, but seized. And to the powerful, nothing will
be denied."
Chandler curled his fist, pumping it with a little motion of victory. There it was, enough to damn
him in the eyes of the law.
Kenway held out his arm to another split in the wall. "Come forth, vixen, and I shall do you thehonor of serving as your proxy, as well as any of these eager stags."
No vixen mask emerged from the darkness.
But a dragon did.
The swell of victory shriveled as Chandler swallowed his heart.
The woman in sheer red robes floated down the path Kenway had previously taken. Though her
dragon mask was made after the same fashion as the others, it didn't at all belong. Teeth bared and
eyes wide, it threatened the seductive tone of the entire gathering with its ferocity.
Still the devotees worshiped her, as if this deviation was a lark.
She passed him at one point, and he ducked lower into the trench, beneath where the candlelight
didn't reach.
His growing fury didn't need visual affirmation of just who glided up the path. He didn't need to
see the tattoo on her back, nor the nearly nude form he'd become so intimately acquainted with the
previous night.
He recognized the grace of her stride, the set of her shoulders, the strength of her purpose.
Francesca.
It took everything he had not to snarl her name as insolent rage welled within him.
How dare she defy him? How dare she profane herself with the filth of this place? Had she no
sense of self-preservation? Did she delight in putting herself in this kind of danger?
Alone. And without weapons.
For fuck's sake, he could see everything from the sharpness of her shoulder blades to the cleft in
her ass.
And so could his men.
Five minutes. Five minutes and the might of the Scotland Yard would descend on this place.
Chandler's mind raced with alternatives as she approached the dais, an uneasiness hitching the
confidence out of her stride.
"Where is my chosen stag?" she demanded in a strong voice.
Chandler would have given his eyeteeth to see Kenway's reaction.
He'd always hated strong women.
"He deemed himself unworthy," the earl said. "I will service you in his stead."
The stags descended in lines of three and encircled her, closing in as if to crowd her toward
Kenway.
She stood her ground. "But I didn't select you. What do you mean he was not worthy? What did
you do to him?"
Kenway put a hand to his own in the parody of a wounded heart. "Why, nothing, my dear. He
simply … vanished. Now come."
When she didn't move, the two men nearest to her drew up beside her. Too close. One of them
looked as if he would push her forward.
Murder shredded Chandler's self-control and sent him reaching for his asp.
If they put a fucking hand on her he'd—
"What do you mean, vanished?" she insisted.
Kenway put up a staying hand to the stags, his robes cascading behind him as he stepped toward
her. His lion head cocked to the side in a doglike assessment. "Do you know this stag of yours,
Countess?" he asked.No one could see her face, but her angst was apparent. "I think you know I do," she said, her voice
containing more daggers than she'd ever strapped to her body.
"Let me put your mind at ease, my dear, he is unharmed." Kenway reached out and touched a
tendril of her hair, gently examining it in his hand.
Red filtered Chandler's vision, spilling liquid, molten rage through his veins.
"You will come to me, Countess." The command was intentionally wicked, and Francesca jerked
away from him.
The stag on her left seized her elbow, shoving her forward.
Chandler leapt out of the dark, clearing the platform and sprinting toward the dais.
He'd broken the hand that touched her before the first cultist had time to scream. With a roar, he
picked the man up and hurled him into the dark. The crack his body made on the unused rails was a
beautiful sound.
The six other stags surrounded him, locking Francesca into their circle with him.
She yanked off her mask and hurled it at one of them before whirling back to face Chandler, panic
and relief warring with wrath in her eyes.
He retrieved his asp from his belt and readied himself. He was going to beat to death every one of
the men who'd threatened her and see the foolish woman to safety.
Then he'd deal with Kenway once and for all.