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“Yes, well, it also says never to eat shellfish, and I had a cracking huge lobster last night.”
He barked out a harsh, caustic laugh that did nothing to soften the pinched lines of worry casting his features into stark and savage relief. “I don’t know whether to be delighted or infuriated with you.”
“While you make up your mind, hear this,” she plunged ahead. “The Duchesse thinks possibly a member of her ducal family might have hired an assassin once they found out about their plans to leave together. So, you see, you can’t start a gang war right now because we’re so close to finding your cousin’s killer, Raphael.” She paused for a moment to glare up at him. “By the by, don’t forone minutethink you’ve gotten away with implying that you two were?—”
She made a plaintive squeak as he spun her off the floor with such force, they stumbled toward a hall beneath the grand stairs, parting the crowd, unconcerned with another drunken couple stumbling around.
“Where are we going?” she huffed, trying to dig her heels in as he dragged her toward a simple, unadorned entry that branched from the main room.
“I’m getting you out of here safely...so I can throttle you in peace,” he said from between teeth that his coiled jaw wouldn’t allow to separate. “Goddammit, Mercy, you have no idea what you’ve done.”
14
Mercy wriggled, jerked, and flopped about, but was unable to break Raphael’s relentless grip as he tirelessly dragged her up a dark set of spiraling stairs and into a deserted passageway. “How dare you manhandle me, you ignominious arse!”
“I’ve been called worse,” he muttered as he pinned her to his side with one arm, to test several door handles. Finding one unlocked, he shoved her inside and followed in, slamming the door shut.
“Oh, no you don’t! I am not about to be tossed into some—” Just where were they?
Mercy paused to look around their dim surroundings, noting the two small, bare, if neatly made beds, open trunks, and matching spare-looking wardrobes. Unused maids’ chambers, it seemed. Which would explain why the entire part of the house was abandoned, overcome as the staff would be during such an affair as this. They’d be below stairs where the kitchens were located, along with the male servants’ quarters.
Raphael slid the lock on the door and blocked it with all six feet of hard, infuriated male.
The only light filtered in through the thin windows above the beds, provided by several lanterns in the garden. It slanted over him at just such an angle, casting half his features in light and the other half in shadow.
As if the two battled over him.
Mercy stood fast, planting her feet shoulder-width apart so as not to advertise how the very sight of him made her weak in the knees. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing but I demand?—”
“I’m saving you from your own recklessness!”
Mercy was certain the look in his eyes might have caused any number of men to tremble, to surrender. But she would not be cowed.
And God help her, she refused to surrender.
Not again.
“Don’t be absurd,” she scoffed. “If anything,I’msavingyou. I can’t believe you told Lord Longueville, one of the worst men alive, that you took his money. Do you know his enemies disappear in the night? He’s in league with the High Street Butchers! Not only will he be after you, but so will that rather dodgy fellow—Marco was it—that works for you. The Duchesse said they were baying for your blood. Not to mention the police are?—”
He lunged forward, as if to seize her, but at the last moment, he snatched his arms back, his fists clenched so tightly the creases turned white. “I wasn’t supposed to be saved tonight, youmagnificentfool.”
“What?”
She’d seen those stark, savage hazel eyes turn every possible color depending on the light. His emotion. His intention.
But never like this. Flashing with twin lightning bolts in the half dark. Then gathering with thunderous grey clouds.
A storm approached, and it was about to break over them both.
“You think I didn’t knowexactlywhat I was doing?” He sliced the air between them with the flat of his hand. “I know that the Butchers and Lord Longueville are working together. I know they approached Marco, and that Marco failed to tell me, which means he’s already mounted a mutiny of the Fauves against me. The Fauves would have dumped my body at the bloody door of Buckingham Palace and Longueville and his Butchers would have strung me from Hangman’s Dock. Either way these streets were to be my grave tonight.”
“Wait...” Everything inside her went unnaturally still. She stood in the eye of the storm, searching him for the truth. “You’reserious,” she realized with a jolt. “You were intending to perish tonight? To actually die? As in...not exist any longer?”
She waited for him to deny it. Which he would, certainly. Any moment now.
The expression on his face stole her hope before he even formulated a reply.
“My plan calls for a martyr,” he explained in a tone devoid of emotion. “The Fauves still loyal to me will seek vengeance against Marco and his traitors. The Butchers will, no doubt, take advantage of the chaos and rise up to swallow the battling factions whole. The Blackheart of Ben More and Morley won’t allow for such pandemonium, and I’ve anonymously provided enough evidence to search Longueville’s estate, where they’ll find what they need to stretch his neck. And I’ll be goddamned if you’re here to be any part of it. Thereisa war coming, Mercy, and you need to get out before it starts.”