Francesca wanted to stand back and watch Chandler work. It was almost a thing of beauty, to witness
the grace and speed at which he could inflict pain.
Any blows that landed on him seemed to glance off the shield of his near-demonic rage.
The last time she'd seen him, he'd been a cold mountain of ice. Bleak. Remote. Unfeeling.
Now he was a volcano.
His motions were controlled, his determination absolute. He hit for maximum damage and
economy of movement. Like a machine calibrated for violence.
Bones crunched, flesh split, blood flew.
And she had to do something to help.
Francesca ached for her pistol, but when she'd seen her costume for the night, she'd been
chagrined to notice there was nowhere to put it.
That had been by Kenway's design, she thought. He wanted them all not just naked, but bare.
Defenseless. Vulnerable.
However, just because she had no weapons didn't mean she was helpless.
As the stags focused on Chandler, she took advantage of their underestimation of her as a woman
to turn for Kenway. He scurried to the south, away from the tunnels, followed by some of his people,
to whom he paid no heed.
Men like him always saved themselves first.
No doubt he planned to escape to another of the portals that led from this cavern. They'd been built
to drain water, she imagined, and if Kenway followed them, he would end up exactly where he
belonged.
The sewers.
She needed to stop him before he escaped.
When she lunged after him, a burly man rose up from the panicking cultists and made as if to stop
her. She drew her arm back to gather power and drove the flat of her hand into his nose, feeling the
bone give way beneath the blow.
He collapsed instantly, and she turned back to where Kenway had last been seen.
Chaos had erupted, and two other men in suits had joined the fray, lawmen, it seemed, trained to
capture and kill.
They shouted commands as they fought to regain control over the anarchy.
In the distance, whistles pealed, and footsteps echoed like cannon blasts on the granite.
The police!
People were scurrying everywhere, some frantic beasts, others pale-faced and terrified, having
divested their masks as they made for the various tunnels.
She couldn't worry about any of them. She had to get to Kenway. He'd almost disappeared.
Thunderous sounds drove her to her knees. Not cannon blasts, exactly, but deafening in the echoes
of the underground. She covered her ears with a cry of distress that was lost in the din.Strong hands lifted her, and she turned to strike out before she looked to find that Chandler had
swept her from the floor and was conducting her—half running, half dragging—toward one of the
very tunnels that were now filled with smoke from whatever charges they'd set.
"Kenway." She pointed to where he'd slithered out, coughing against the smoke.
"Fuck Kenway," he snarled. "I'm getting you out of here." He shoved a handkerchief over her nose
and, for the second time in their lives, led her through acrid smoke to safety.
The ringing in her ears disoriented her enough to make her stumble, and so Chandler picked her up
and carried her through a distressing maze of catacombs. Every time he took a turn, he stomped out a
candle that seemed to have been purposely left to illuminate a personal escape route.
He'd always been so endlessly clever.
Eventually, he paused where an ancient-looking passage gave way to a larger, more modern one.
Gas lamps replaced the candles at the far end of what she assumed was the way to an active
Underground station that had been locked and gated for the evening.
Which brought up a problem. She was still wearing the sheer robes. Gathering some of her wits,
she squirmed to be let down. "Wait. Where are you taking me?"
"Home, where do you think?"
She was able to go slack enough to squirm to the ground, but there was no escaping his viselike
grip. "But Kenway. We have to go back. What if he escapes?"
He turned on her, his expression one she'd never seen before. "You were not supposed to be
here," he thundered before forging ahead, still dragging her in his wake.
"Wait," She tugged against his grip.
"I cannot imagine what possessed you," he puzzled furiously, as if to himself. "How did you even
find out?"
"I said stop!" She dug her heels in. "I can't go out there. Not like this!"
He whirled on her, his teeth bared in a snarl as if he were a beast who would bite her, no doubt
ready to thoroughly dress her down.
But there was no need. She was already mostly naked.
And she could tell the exact moment that fact reached through his single-minded anger and arrested
his notice. The fury never drained from his eyes, but it transformed into something else. Something
equally as violent and ultimately more perilous.
What she read in his gaze caused her to step back.
Had she not retreated, she might have been safe. She might not have activated the primal, predatory
instinct inside of him.
But she had.
He lunged, knocking aside the hands she'd held up to ward him off as he gripped the back of her
neck and pulled her in for a punishing kiss.
Francesca trembled as his arms locked her against his inflamed body, one hand behind her head,
threading into her hair, and the other ripping at the single cord that kept the diaphanous robe secured.
The thought occurred to her somewhere in the back of her mind that she should stop him. That there
was a raid going on in the distance, and they might be discovered. She wanted to know why he hadn't
informed her of his plans. To demand where he'd been all day.
And why he'd lied to her.
But as his mouth devoured her with almost violent ardor, he kissed the questions out of her headand she felt helpless to do much but allow him to meld her body to his in wordless demand.
Sometimes, submission was the best strategy.
The moment she became pliant, his kiss didn't gentle so much as it altered. He made wet, delicious
promises against her mouth with animal sounds. His heart pounded in his chest like a sledgehammer
against her breasts. His body was hot and hard even through his clothes, and she felt a frenzy in him
that was barely human.
He needed to claim her. And she needed to let him.
He growled as she began to kiss him back, his hand curling in her hair, pulling her head back and
imprisoning it there.
He broke the seal of their mouths, his eyes appearing demon black in the near-darkness.
He was a man who owned the dark. Who wore it on his skin and wrapped his soul in it. And
Francesca knew in that moment she was going to meet his darkness; he was about to pour some of it
into her.
She had it coming.
He lowered his head to run his mouth down her neck, using his teeth in little scrapes that made her
gasp and jerk.
They had so much to say to each other. So much anger to analyze and enmity to examine, but
first … this. None of it would matter until this was satisfied. Until she no longer drowned in a pool of
her own longing.
A pleading sound she never would claim as her own escaped her throat and snapped whatever
tenuous tether he'd had on his self-control.
Much as he'd done the other night, Chandler lifted her, wrapped her limbs around his waist, and
staggered forward a few paces until he could press her against the cold stone wall.
His arm around her back shielded her from as much of the grit as he was able, even as his body
ground against her.
Without preamble, he reached between them with his free hand and wrenched his trousers open.
His knuckles brushed against her sex as he did this, and even that insignificant touch electrified her,
releasing a flood of moisture in readiness.
She wrapped her arms around his straining shoulders, her nails biting into his long, predatory
muscles as the blunt head of his cock drove into her with such force, her body gave a feeble
resistance.
She arched toward him, needing to have him, to take him all, creating incredible friction.
A low, desperate noise rose to the stones, echoing back at them with ephemeral fractals of
pleasure and pain. She couldn't tell which of them originated the sound.
And it didn't matter as he began to move.
Before he drilled her against the wall, his hand rose to cup the back of her head, protecting it from
the stone.
It touched her, his tenderness in the midst of this turbulent encounter.
His strokes were long, brutal, and lovely. She cinched her ankles behind his lean hips and took
him. Took from him. All the lust and loss, the pleasure and pain. She drank it in like a delicacy
meeting the mindless need in his movements with matching strokes.
Something else lurked beneath his fury. An almost reverent incredulity. A raw awareness that
reminded her of someone lost in a dream, fully aware that he could wake at any moment.So she kissed him, hoping to ground him in the moment. To assure him that she was here. With him.
That she wasn't going anywhere.
Groaning, he hiked her higher up the wall, repositioning his hips so his thick shaft would angle
inside of her in such a way her breaths became pants of exquisite torture, then vulgar demands.
His sex was like a bolt of lightning, suffusing her with electric sensation that scraped her nerves
raw and laid her soul bare. Even as she all but climbed the wall to escape what she knew was going
to be a life-altering climax, he never changed his demanding pace. He plunged inside of her with
single-minded efficient grace.
Then, oh God then, he broke their kiss to lick his finger and plunge his hand between their bodies.
The moment his thumb brushed her clitoris, the entirety of her world combusted into shards of
crippling pleasure. The pleasure moved past awe inspiring to incomprehensible. Unrelenting.
Overwhelming.
Vicious.
His bark of mirth was almost cruel in its victory as the pleasure became so intense it spilled over
into pain.
Only then did his movements lose their grace, taking on a jerking violence before he locked into
shuddering tremors.
His teeth scored the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck, pulling the pleasure out of her
sex and diffusing it into the rest of her body.
They locked together for an unparalleled moment of suffusion. It became unclear which movement
belonged to which body, so clearly could she feel every twitch and pulse of his pleasure.
Finally, Francesca collapsed against him, wrapping her long limbs around the bulk of him as
slowly, incrementally the rest of the world returned. The cold of the rock against her back, the heat of
his shaft still inside of her. The scruff of his jaw locked against hers.
Her muscles uncoiled and her fear seemed to drain away, replaced by a sense of peace. Of calm.
Of rightness and gratitude.
She ran her nails through the shorter, softer hair at the nape of his neck, enjoying the little
sensations of aftershocks thrilling through her belly.
After several quiet moments she realized his experience was nothing like hers. He remained taut.
Shuddering. His hands biting into her thighs as he held her aloft with trembling, unsteady fingers.
Troubled, she ran the flat of her palms over his back, wishing she could reach the straining muscle
beneath the suit.
"Chandler?" Her whisper of his name was overloud in the cavern. "What is it? Are you—"
His withdraw from her was immediate and stunning. His hands were barely gentle as he let her
feet touch the ground, and he turned away immediately to set himself to rights and refasten his
trousers.
Not having that option, Francesca stood there, naked, staring at him in wide-eyed confusion.
Bending, he retrieved her garment, such as it was, and shoved it in her direction. His features were
distorted with emotions she couldn't even begin to fathom.
She clutched the garment to her as he plunged a hand into his hair and pulled, his expression still
tormented.
Francesca had the sense that even though she was undressed, the man before her had never been so
naked. So exposed."Chandler," she ventured, still struggling to reclaim her breath.
"He's not to touch you again. Do you understand me?" He swiped a hand back toward the
darkness, his voice breaking against the stones. "That fucking demon goes nowhere near you. Never.
Never again. Do you fucking hear me, Francesca?"
Those eyes were still black with rage and … terribly familiar.
Both physically and emotionally raw, Francesca wrestled her temper, feeling as though she would
lose at any moment. Now wasn't the time, a part of her knew that. She'd never seen him like this. This
angry. This out of control.
Murderous.
"You do not command me." She was proud that her voice remained somewhat level as she said, "I
will give you a chance to explain yourself before I tell you to go hang and let the devil take you
straight to hell."
The sound he made was so full of pain, it could have been a sob, but he was not weeping. "I'm
already there, goddammit." He bit his knuckle and strode several paces away, as if he couldn't bring
himself to touch her, and also couldn't stop himself from doing so. "I was born into it and no matter
how hard I try there is no escape for me."
She stepped forward. "Chandler."
He shook his head. "Now that we're … that this is … It's fucking incestuous, his desire for you,
and I think he knows it. I don't know how but he does."
She flinched, then gaped. "You mean … Kenway?"
"Yes," he snarled. "Luther fucking Kenway, the king of the ninth level of hell." He whirled to her,
the raw agony contorting his features into something altogether unrecognizable.
"My father."Hours later, Francesca lay on her belly, stretched next to Chandler as he ran rough fingertips over her
bare back still slick with the sweat of their sex.
They'd still not discussed his revelation.
In fact, they'd said very little to each other as he'd wrapped his jacket around her and carried her
up into the night. He'd commandeered a police carriage, set her inside, and took her home. All the
while furiously, inscrutably silent.
It had taken one more bout of frenzied lovemaking to settle him. And now, they lounged naked in a
puddle of tousled blankets, gathering both their breath and their thoughts.
His finger worked in a familiar pattern at her spine, tracing the symbol eternally etched there.
"So fierce," he murmured, pressing his lips to what she knew was the dragon, a white animal with
red accents in the scales and claws. "I see you identify with the dragon, so why depict the tiger, I
wonder?"
She stretched in a full-body arch, shuddering a bit before she turned to face him. He watched this
intently, allowing her the space to do so. When she settled back in, he brushed her hair away from her
back, revealing more of the portrait and resuming his idle caresses.
"I spent some time in Hong Kong after finishing school," she answered, loving the warmth of him
next to her, relishing a story she could tell with no secrets attached to it.
"To unlearn everything you were taught there, I imagine."
"To train." She nudged him with her shoulder and smiled at the fond teasing in his voice. "I met an
old man begging in the street, who asked me if I would hear a story he was supposed to tell me in
return for some coin, and so I paid him."
"He was supposed to tell you?" Chandler cocked a quizzical brow.
"It's probably the most mystical thing that ever happened to me, before you, I mean."
"How so?"
"Serana used to say that I was a dragon and you were a tiger."
"She did?" His eyes had lost the darkness she'd seen in the catacombs, and had become whiskey
and moss once again. They shone with interest as he propped his head in his hand. "I never knew that.
How does this story of the dragon and the tiger end, I wonder?"
"It doesn't."
His fingers stilled at her answer, and he couldn't seem to meet her gaze, so she continued.
"In the story, the tiger is a being of ferocious energy. He is hard, brute strength and raw power. His
attacks are straightforward, aggressive, and unrelenting, all claws and teeth. The dragon, she is
smaller than the tiger, so she must understand movement. She must be defensive and circular. Soft but
indomitable. She is the representation of all creatures, and is the keeper of secrets and treasure. She
must have agility, flexibility, and cunning."
"You are a dragon," he said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
"The Chinese man said that many believe the tiger and dragon must be locked in eternal battle. Thetiger like stone and the dragon like water."
"Really?" His gaze sharpened. "Stone and water?" He repeated this as if it were significant, and
she was pleased that he followed.
"This battle between them, many believe, balances everything. Light and dark, east and west, good
and evil … order and chaos."
"Male and female?" he suggested with a wicked tone.
"Precisely." She pushed back on her elbows to regard him. "The man said he doesn't believe that
the tiger and dragon are fated to battle eternally. Instead of fighting, they might be falling, spinning,
perhaps … becoming."
"Becoming what?"
"They are spirits so vastly different, and yet so wildly similar that their destiny is intricately
linked. He said the battle is won when they find a way to come together and create wholeness. Then
the hard and the soft find a place in the universe to live in harmony."
He stared at the tattoo for a long moment, his gaze pensive before he said, "I think this man was
trying to sleep with you."
She made a sound of mock outrage and shoved at him. He chuckled and fell back dramatically.
Rolling away, she took the sheet with her to pluck a knife from a silver tray on her nightstand and
skewer an apple from the repast of cheese, fruit, wine, and cold meats she'd rung for earlier.
Interested, he rooted closer to her, accepting the wine she handed him and taking a careful sip.
Arranging a wealth of pillows so he could both recline and drink, he sat back to watch her with heavy
lids as he rested his hand in her lap. He looked like some bacchanalian god, replete and reclining.
She'd have donned a robe and worshiped him, of that she had no doubt. A body such as his begged
a devotee, and what they did to each other was something like a religion.
Or a blasphemy.
"In all seriousness, I appreciate the analogy. What it means to you, what you think of me…" He
seemed to lose what he wanted to say next in a furrow of abstraction as his gaze turned inward for a
moment.
Burning to hear his thoughts, and to ask him a thousand questions, Francesca summoned her lacking
stores of patience and busied herself by peeling the flesh off the apple.
His faint rumble of amusement gave her pause. She looked up to find him scrutinizing her intently.
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "What?"
He lifted his hand behind his head to cup his own neck, and the movement did something
distracting to the muscles in his arms. "You just reminded me of something I'd quite forgotten."
"Something good?"
The bracket on one side of his mouth deepened as a memory lifted it. "Something … rather sweet."
He reached for the peel hanging from her apple, examining it in the lamplight before he ate it.
She made a disgusted sound. "You just ate the peel by itself?"
He lifted his shoulder. "It's the best part."
She made a face and then prompted, "Tell me the memory. Am I in it?"
He swallowed, his gaze swinging back to hers. "I always had terrible nightmares as a boy … I
still do sometimes. At Mont Claire, I used to sleep in that room behind the boiler for warmth, and Pip,
she would hear me cry out and flail in my dreams. Ears like a hawk, that one."
She stilled, a slice of apple halfway to her mouth when she noted the lamp cast something likefondness on his features.
"Pip'd sneak something from the larder and come down to wake me up," he continued. "I'd wake
with all the gentility of a hibernating bear, because the nightmares would steal me away from myself
and—" He swallowed and didn't finish the thought. "Well … she stayed with me, through it all. And I
never told her I appreciated that. I didn't want to go back to sleep. I … didn't want to be alone. She
might have sensed that, I think."
Yes. She had.
Francesca returned her slice to the small plate. She couldn't have swallowed past the lump of
emotion in her throat.
He didn't seem to notice her reaction to his story, so lost was he in the memory.
"One time," he continued, "she brought more than one knife, and she gave it to me. We played at
being buccaneers, and she told me something as she ruthlessly stabbed my apple, peeling it much like
you've just done. She said, I'm going to steal your heart one day, me hearty, and ye'll never get it
back."
He was quiet for a moment, long fingers digging into the covers as he visibly battled emotions both
bitter and sweet. "I thought—I thought she meant it as a threat at the time. I was a boy, it was all
blood and battle for me then, and she was just the kind of little savage that would rip a heart out and
lock it in a box."
The thought made him chuckle, and had her swallowing convulsive emotions.
Then his smile fell. "I should have been kinder to her. Looking back with a man's eyes … I think
she meant to do exactly that. I think she wanted to steal my heart and keep it. That … she might have
considered it a treasure."
Francesca cleared the emotion out of her throat and looked down so he couldn't see her heart in
her eyes. She had a feeling if he truly looked at her in that moment—he'd know.
Would that be so bad?
"Do you think she could have?" she whispered. "Stolen your heart, I mean."
"Hard to imagine it, she bothered me so much." He gave a wry chuckle and took another sip and
was quiet for a few breaths. "I guess we'll never know." His voice hardened. "My father took that
from us."
Quite suddenly, he folded at the waist as though he'd been punched, startling her as he sat up and
threw his legs over the opposite side of the bed.
Francesca stared at the scars in his back. Little holes left by the pellets of a shotgun at long range.
One whose trigger might as well have been pulled by his own father.
"God, how can you even look at me?" he agonized. "I'm the bloody reason your entire family is
dead."
"No." She abandoned the knife and crawled across the bed to him, wishing she could close the
distance she felt growing. "No, no, you can't think that." She pressed her cheek against his back,
locking her arms around the breadth of his shoulders and smoothing the mounds of his chest.
She could hear his heart. God … was it real? The rhythm she'd thought was forever lost to her
pounded at his back with suppressed emotion.
"I wondered why the letter from Hargrave piqued you so…" She readied herself to broach this
subject, hoping he finally would. "You were … hiding from your father at Mont Claire, weren't you?
And the letter, however innocently meant, revealed you to him."He nodded, his jaw clenched too tightly for speech for a moment. "Mont Claire was burned to the
ground for the sole reason that it sheltered Luther Kenway's last remaining son and heir. He murdered
everyone only to send me a message. To tell me nowhere was safe from him. He was—" His voice
broke for a moment, and he grappled with his composure before finishing. "He was calling me
home."
"I'm glad you didn't go." She pulled back, but his hands caught hers, as if he wasn't ready for her
to pull away from the embrace.
"We still don't know the certain reasons for the attack," she soothed, pressing her body closer to
him, settling her breasts against his back and her chin against his shoulder. "The Cavendishes were a
part of the Crimson Council. Did you know that Lady Cavendish was once courted by your father?"
He shook his head. "I didn't. When I was a boy, I was ridiculously ignorant of anything like that."
She went on, eager to assuage his guilt and pain. "I've subsequently found out that the Earl of Mont
Claire was Kenway's fourth cousin, and the countess chose him over Kenway rather publicly. That
must have rankled a man like your father to no small degree. He could have been taking revenge on
Mont Claire on her behalf."
"I must have known, somehow, that our families were linked. I must have been to Mont Claire
before, though I don't remember when," he said.
"Chandler." She hesitated. The question hovering on her lips kicked her heart faster. "I read a
great deal about Kenway when I investigated him. I combed through reports and found one on …
Kenway's countess. Your mother? It reported that she … drowned her three children."
His jaw worked to the side for a moment, and he turned his face from the light.
"She did."
A hard pebble of grief landed in her middle, and she steeled herself for this conversation. "I
always remembered their names," she ventured. "William, Arabella, and—"
"Luther." He said the word as if it tasted of ash and filth on his tongue. "Luther Beaufort de
Clanforth-Kenway."
The magnitude of this knocked the wind from her. "De-clan-forth," she echoed, her heart aching.
"De-clan."
He nodded.
"You … didn't drown?"
He made a gruff, caustic noise. "No, no, I did. I remember it well. I fought the water in my
nightmares." He put a hand to his chest and filled his lungs, his wide ribs expanding as if he had to
prove to himself that he was still able to inhale. "I still do."
"It's why your mother died in the asylum."
"Yes." His chin returned to touch his shoulder, brushing against her fingertips as if searching for
solace. "She was a fragile woman, my mother. Kenway liked to toy with her, to torture her with his
cruelty, without even touching her." He gave a suspicious sniff. "I remember she thought she was
saving us from him. She said as much before she … pushed me under."
"Holy God," she whispered. "How did you … How are you still…?"
"My father found my mother, I was told. He grappled her away as the servants pulled my … the
children out of the tub and dragged her somewhere else, I'm not certain where. I wasn't conscious."
She could tell the story agonized him. His muscles twitched and his fingers were restless. Cold
sweat bloomed on his skin, and his breaths were slightly uneven.Crushed by the horror of it all, Francesca could only hold him as his secrets spilled forth, hoping
they purged something in the telling.
"Two of his … well, I think they were henchmen … found me. They pressed the water from my
lungs. I don't know how. And after I coughed up everything, I was spirited outside. I remember that.
Maybe they weren't part of the council, or maybe they'd just been struck with a fit of conscience on
that day. I'll never know. But they bundled me up, wet clothes and everything, put me in his carriage,
and told the driver to take me somewhere safe. Somewhere else."
"How did you end up at Mont Claire?"
"The carriage stopped at the priory for the night, and the driver made noises about taking me home.
So I ran."
"Bronwell Priory?" she gasped. "That's miles away from Mont Claire."
He lifted his shoulder against her chin. "I just remember running, my legs and lungs burning. My
wet clothes filthy and cold. So fucking cold … everything hurt…"
"Stop." The word tore from Francesca in a low, raw wail. Her tears flowed freely now, dripping
from her chin onto his shoulder. "Stop, I cannot bear to hear more. The thought of your suffering. Of
the nightmares. God, Chandler, they made you clean out the fountain at Mont Claire." She let him go
so she could cover her eyes, as if that would blind her from the memories, from the images of that
little boy staggering up to the manor house. "I would wonder why you were so pale. Why you dreaded
the water so … why you bathed in the lake instead of the tub…" Her sobs came harder now, flowing
from some fathomless well she was unaware she'd had. "Oh God, oh no," she chanted, the prayer one
of desperate dread. "I'm so sorry."
Chandler turned at the waist and dragged her into his lap, crooning soft and comforting things into
her hair as she cried.
Francesca was distraught, but also embarrassed. She never cried. Never. Not during all the hard
times. Not when Serana had blessed the ashes of Mont Claire, of her parents and her friends. Not
when she'd had to bury her best friend's rapist at finishing school. Not when she broke her wrist in
Argentina or when she was beat down in training by men who were bigger, stronger, and meaner than
she was. She'd fought more tears in the last two weeks than she had in the last two decades.
And now, the storm of her grief for him turned into a flood, and she sobbed twenty years of sorrow
against his chest. Sometimes, when she could manage it, she would hiccup a soggy apology. "I'm
sorry. God, I'm sorry." And she was. She was so fucking sorry. Sorry that he'd suffered so. Sorry that
he was the one soothing her when it was him in need of comfort. Sorry that—
"I love you," he said against her hair.
She snapped her mouth closed, lifting her head away from the wet mess she'd made of his chest.
He dragged his knuckles down her cheek, his expression as peaceful and tender as she'd ever
seen. His eyes glowed with a light she dared not identify, and it searched her face with a reverence
she found both humbling and terrifying.
She blinked up at him, and he answered her unspoken question.
"I love you," he repeated, as if she hadn't heard. As if he couldn't believe it, himself. "I think I
was halfway in love with you before I even realized I was falling."
Francesca's tears turned to terror and she scrambled from his lap. "You—you can't say that to me.
Not right now."
He searched his empty arms as if they befuddled him. "Why not?""Because…" She swallowed an instant confession, any sort of courage abandoning her. "You
don't. You don't love me. You love who you think I should be. Who I was as a child. You are
annoyed with me more often than not and—"
"I love you," he repeated in an infuriatingly calm voice.
"I'm telling you. You don't know me. Not really," she insisted, turning to look for a robe, for
something that would make her feel less naked. She'd left one on the back of the chair this morning
and now it was gone. Damn her staff for being so efficient. "Think about what you're saying. You
keep telling me what not to do. You insist I must be other than I am. I've seen love, and that isn't it."
He was behind her in an instant, turning her to face him. "You misunderstand me, Francesca. I love
who you are, but I insist you stop risking your life, that is all. I want a future with you, so you have to
stop putting yourself in danger." He gathered her close, burying his face into her hair. "You are mine,
Francesca. My woman. My dragon. I … love you."
Bloody hell, she was going to start weeping again. "But—"
"I love you, dammit, now stop arguing." He pulled back, his command tempered by a soft light
shining on his features and a determined set to his hard jaw. "You're the hope I have for happiness.
The light at the end of this dark tunnel. Can't you see that? I am irate when you put yourself in danger
because you have to be there at the end, or it was all worth nothing. I can't lose you, Francesca." His
fingers tightened on her, a fervent—no, desperate—emotion pushing to the forefront of his gaze. "I
won't survive it a second time."
Francesca.
She froze as still as the ice needled through her. Was now the time to be honest? And if she was,
would he be glad to hear it? Or would she be the woman to kill Francesca all over again? He'd hate
her for that. And maybe it would … cause him greater pain. What was the kindest thing to do?
What was the right thing?
He brushed at her cheek, now dry and itchy from the salt of so many tears. "Do you remember what
I said that night in my carriage, back before you knew who I was?"
She searched her memory. "That I'd ruin you?"
"I knew you would. You would ruin Chandler Alquist and Declan Chandler and Thom Tew, and
Lord Drake, Edward Thatch, all of them. I knew, somehow, that you would forge someone new.
Someone real. That you would scramble about the sun and stars until I could no longer find them in
the night sky without your help. You would make me care about something other than myself. Other
than my revenge. That you would become someone to die for. Would give me something to live for. I
think I knew, even at the first kiss…" He looked at her lips as if seeing her for the first time.
Francesca stared at him, unable to move. Unable to breathe. Her nostrils flared and her eyes
pooled, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to say anything.
After a long moment, he seemed to read the torment in her eyes and let her go. "You … don't feel
the same way."
The confusion and uncertainty in his voice broke her of her paralysis, and she clutched at him.
"Of course I love you, you bloody dolt." She shook him a little for emphasis. "I loved you the
moment you wobbled onto the Mont Claire estate and I never stopped. I loved you as a boy, and as
my hero, and as a ghost. I loved you even when I was angry enough to murder you. Chandler, there's
been no one else for me in the entire world but you. Why do you think I remained a virgin until I was
nearly thirty? To touch someone else seemed like a betrayal, so I—"His lips were on her before she could finish, and his hands were everywhere. He crowded her
back to the bed where they fell together in a heap of limbs and love.
Francesca forgot about any truth but this. Chandler loved her, and she loved him. The rest would
be sorted out later, when they had a moment to breathe and grieve and tell truths when their love
wasn't so new. So vulnerable. When other truths were not so painful and Kenway and the council had
been dealt with.
For now, a dragon would guard her secrets and his heart.
Because she'd finally stolen it, and wasn't ready for the chance that he could take it back.A sound Chandler had never heard before pulled him out of a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep.
"What the devil—"
It jangled his nerves. It … jangled, like a little bell repeatedly pealing.
He leapt out of bed and was reaching for a weapon when Francesca's plaintive moan broke him of
his panic.
"Telephone." She pressed her hands to her ears. "Off with its head."
"How do you have a telephone?" he demanded, blindly making his way to the corner where it was
located. "I thought they were only used for business and government."
"That's why I have a telephone," she said, as if that were any answer at all.
Chandler picked up the receiver, rubbing his shin where he'd kicked the edge of some furniture in
the dark.
"We have the fucking devil, Lady Francesca," growled a familiar Scottish brogue through the tinny
circle at his ear. "We have Kenway in a cell and, if I have anything to say about it, he willna see the
light of day again."
Chandler closed his eyes, a torrent of relief and darker, more complicated emotions swamping him
in a cascade of strange sensations. He'd known he had much to answer for once morning came. That
by abandoning the raid with Francesca, he'd risked Kenway going to ground. He risked the priorities
of the raid, and that wasn't the decision he'd have made in the past. But if it came down to who he'd
rather get his hands on, his father or Francesca …
He peered at her across the room, watching the glow of the city slant across the pristine white of
her bed, turning her into a tangle of pink flesh and red hair. The woman who'd brought color back to
his life.
Somehow, she'd become more important than his vengeance.
"Countess…" An uncharacteristic hesitation crept into Ramsay's voice at the silence. "He's
making some incredible claims … I ken this is an indelicate question, but is Chandler with ye?"
"I'm right here," he rumbled.
"Christ, man." Ramsay almost sounded relieved that it was he and not Francesca on the line. It
didn't even seem to faze him to find him in her residence at—he glanced at the mantel clock—half
past three AM. "Kenway is either a maniacal genius or a raving lunatic."
"Both," Chandler grunted, rubbing an exhausted hand over his face.
He'd have thought the news would rouse him, but it served to only deflate him. Not with
melancholy, but with a deep, soul-weary reprieve. It was as though a war had ended, and the idea of
it was a bit disorienting.
"He says … well, he insists, really, that ye're Luther Kenway the Second, his son and heir. Does
he speak the truth?"
Francesca made another plaintive noise and stretched like a cat before rolling over to grope for the
lamp. Chandler didn't want the light. He didn't want any of this. He merely wanted to be allowed tocrawl back in the white clouds of her sheets, pull her close, and sleep until noon.
"Yes," he sighed.
A slew of rather guttural Gaelic curses had him pulling the receiver from his ear as Francesca
finally lit the lamp and blinked over at him. She looked as bleary as he felt. Bleary and beautiful. The
tousled tangles of her hair created a halo of scarlet around her face and shoulders, reminding him that
she was no angel, and he preferred it that way.
"Is it Ramsay?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Did he apprehend Kenway?"
Another nod.
Ramsay let out a wicked breath. "With a father like that, no wonder ye never claimed yer
nobility."
The man's words thrust a pang through his middle. He'd expected censure, not understanding.
"There's nothing noble about that man," he said darkly. "The world is better off without him."
"Of that I have no doubt. But first…"
"Was anyone hurt tonight? Dashiell and Howard, are they all right?"
"One officer was stabbed, by Kenway, if ye'd believe it." Ramsay seemed less than perturbed by
this.
"Bloody fucking—"
"Och, it was only in the hand. He'll live, with a commendation no less."
"I should have caught the bastard myself. It's only that…" Chandler trailed off, feeling a
complicated form of remorse for how little guilt it caused him that he'd come for her first.
"Doona be too hard on yerself. No man could have kept his head were his woman in danger like
that. Least of all me."
Chandler shook his head, wondering if he was dreaming. Was the Lord Chief Justice, high justice
of one of the highest queen's benches, calling him on Francesca Cavendish's newfangled telephone in
her bedroom? Absolving him of almost treasonous dereliction of his duties for the Secret Services,
all because he was in love. How did the bloody Scot know of his feelings in the first place?
Chandler remembered the ferocity with which Lord Ramsay fought for Cecelia. He'd abandoned
his post on the queen's bench and swept her into hiding. And then he'd enlisted Chandler's aid to
save her life and that of those seven young girls.
If anyone understood Chandler's own motivations, it was Ramsay.
"I could have stashed her and come back." He'd simply been too angry. Too afraid to let her out of
his sight. Some sort of primitive need to claim her had overtaken all sense of reason.
It was dangerous what she did to him.
What she made him capable of.
"Bah." Chandler imagined Ramsay waving his words away. "We are none of us blameless.
Francesca could have stayed home and allowed us to do our jobs. I could have not told her where the
ritual was going to be, knowing full well she'd go after Kenway. After ye. In my defense, she's a
dragon when provoked, and her need to avenge ye moved me. Alas, that is what affection does to us
fallible humans."
"Alas." Chandler shared a short rumble of amusement with Ramsay before releasing a long,
troubled breath. "What will happen to him?"crooned. "So supple and skilled. Ruthless, like us. Brilliant, wouldn't you say? And beautiful. Those
long, lean legs that seem to go on forever—"
"I'm hanging up now, you fuc—"
"Those legs are not so smooth, my son. If you venture lower than what's between them, you'll find
a scar on the left calf, just below the knee … a scar my men put there twenty years ago as the both of
you ran from them into the woods."
Chandler dropped the receiver as if it burned him. The chill of fear solidified to ice. Hardened in
his veins and in the very fibers that knit his soul together.
"What did Ramsay say?" she asked anxiously. "Was that your—"
Chandler lunged forward, ripping the coverlet off her still-naked form.
Startled, she instinctively bent her leg up and crossed it over her body to cover her nakedness …
Displaying a shallow, faded scar to ultimate effect.
"Chandler! What the devil are you doing?"
A bleak, icy rage colored the night with an azure hue. Not red, not like murder. It was hotter than
that, blue like the flames that burned at the highest temperature. Like the deepest parts of hell that even
the souls of the damned couldn't reach.
The chamber saved for the devil, himself.
He seized her calf, bending closer, letting his thumb test the knitted flesh. Someone had stitched it
long ago, when the bullet had grazed it while they both ran for their lives.
He let it go as if the flesh had burned him, nearly flinging the offending appendage away from him.
"Pippa." Her name was an accusation. A curse. Nay, a profanity. How could she fucking dare?
She rose to her knees on the bed, and he stared at her nubile form with more assessment than
appreciation. Pippa fucking Hargrave? The short, chubby little blonde with the round cheeks and the
talent for driving him mad. She'd turned a tragedy into a personal triumph, and had stolen the legacy
of an entire bloodline. And for what?
"I can explain," she whispered, reaching for him.
He reared away from her, turning to search the room for his trousers. "There is no excuse in the
world good enough for what you've done."
"I know!" She astonished him by agreeing. "I wanted to tell you from the beginning, but I—I didn't
know it was you at first, and then … I wasn't sure whether or not you would turn me in to the Secret
Services."
He snatched his trousers from the floor at the foot of the bed and shoved his legs into them. "You
were afraid that you'd, what, lose her title? Her fortune?" he demanded as he fumbled with the
fastenings. "That's so fucking diabolical."
She pulled the sheet to her breasts as if it could shield her from his words. "How can you think
that? I was afraid I'd lose her revenge. Our revenge. I was afraid I could lose my life! I did this for
you most of all—"
He whirled and stabbed the air with his finger in her direction. "Don't you fucking dare say that."
"Why? It's the truth." She kept having to turn as he stalked around the bedroom, gathering his shirt,
his shoes, his cravat. "You were dead, Chandler. Everyone was dead and your father stood in line to
inherit everything. I couldn't allow that. I didn't think I'd hurt anyone by keeping it from him, so I
reshaped my body with training and discipline, I dyed my hair, and…"
"And you fucking took Francesca's fucking life?" He punched his arms into his shirt.At that, her features lost some of their fear and replaced it with obstinacy. "No, I didn't. Tuttle
took her life, that bloody American, right in front of me. He slit her throat while I was still holding
her hand. I have to live with that. I have to see that when I close my eyes. You don't." She crawled
from the bed and wrapped the sheet around her. "Yes, I claimed Francesca's identity, but only to go
after the council."
"And look what a disaster you made of that," he said with a snide curl of his lips, doing up the cuff
at his wrists.
This time she recoiled. "What the devil does that mean?"
"I told you to stay away from this. How many times did I tell you that you're not a goddamned
spy?" he demanded. "When people like you get involved, innocents get hurt. Just like they did tonight.
A fucking officer was stabbed and more of the council escaped than were caught."
Her hands went to her mouth. "Is he … did he live?"
"No thanks to you."
"It isn't fair to lay that at my feet!" she hissed, her advance impeded by the long sheet she began to
gather into her arms to keep off the ground. "I would have been a help to you if you hadn't left me out.
You shouldn't have taken my invitation. You should have informed me of the raid. You should have
trusted me!"
"Trusted you?" he scoffed. "God, I can't even look at you!" He retrieved his shoes and stalked to
the door.
She chased him, dragging the sheet like a wedding train until she blocked his exit by throwing her
body against the door. "Chandler. Chandler, listen to me." Her pose was one of submission,
supplication, and he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit the ice over his heart didn't crack just a
little at the pain and desperation in her eyes. "I love you. I love you and you love me. I know you do."
He shook his head, searching for that love and finding nothing but a yawning well of numbness and
humiliation. His father was listening to this. He hadn't disconnected the fucking line. That reality was
the last straw.
"Neither of us knows anything about the other, that's blatantly obvious now."
She swallowed and pressed on. "That isn't true. I never was like Francesca, not then and not now.
This entire time we've been together, you've been with me. You've spent time with me. We've
laughed and worked together. We fought and we—made love—"
"We fucked, that's all it was."
Her head wrenched to the side as if he'd slapped her, but she took a deep breath and summoned
that will he'd admired so much.
"I know tonight didn't go how either of us would have wanted. But … Chandler, we have our
revenge, despite everything. You said that you were half in love before you knew you were falling.
And you fell for me. I am who I am right now. Francesca is just the name I go by. It is the woman who
lives in this body you fell in love with, and that is not a lie. Please. Come and sit with me. Give me a
chance to—"
Chandler shook his head and held up his hand, silencing her effectively. "It was her memory I was
in love with. I see that now."
"What?" She shook her head, denying his words.
"Now that she's truly gone, I feel nothing. I suppose I should thank you for that." Now he was the
deceitful one. It was all there somewhere, locked in a vault down deep in the blackness of his soul. Avast chasm of pain and loss and dark, dark despair. He'd feel it, eventually. When everything didn't
seem so very bleak, so very far away. He'd take her betrayal out of that vault and examine it. Before
he threw it away.
"Nothing?" she echoed in a pained whisper. "After everything we shared, the sheer magnitude of
it … how can it be so easily reduced to nothing?"
He shrugged as if there was nothing to be done. "I'm not even that angry anymore, which tells me
everything I need to know."
Her eyebrows slammed down, temper flaring in her emerald gaze, a green he didn't remember or
recognize, not even from their shared childhood. "I don't know what right you have to be angry in the
first place," she said vehemently. "You lied about your father, your name, and your very origins. And
I understand why you would. We both had reasons to hide who we really were … but I forgave you
your falsehood. Why am I held to a different standard?"
It was everything he could do not to punch a fist through the door. Mostly because the truth of it
flared a new, defensive ire. Rather than giving in to the urge, he backed away. "It wasn't your
forgiveness I wanted, Pippa. It was hers." He pointed out the window, as if Francesca's ghost
lingered there in the wisps of the draperies. "And you stole that from me. Stole her from me. Again!"
She was a bundle of energy and emotion behind him, and he knew he had to escape her. Escape
this house and this bedroom, and the impediment between them that could never be usurped.
"I understand your emotion, Chandler, you're entitled to that. But I don't understand your
hypocrisy. How can you, the man with no name or identity, stand and call me a liar for claiming the
identity of someone I loved? For helping to avenge her and Ferdinand both!"
Seeing his chance to escape, he turned to the door and yanked it open. "I warned you I was a
monster. You should have listened, and I shouldn't have been so blind."
He slammed out of her room, but she opened the door not a second later.
"You were never a monster," she called after him, her voice chasing his retreat down the marble
stairs. "Do you hear me? You were not a monster, not until tonight."