Page 65 of Courting Trouble

She scanned the crowd milling about. “All we’d have to do is melt into this alley. Where should we go, husband? Should we ride in the park?”

“I’d love a ride,” he growled against her ear. “But we might get arrested for indecency if we do it in the park.”

She swatted his chest, then froze.

“What is it?” he asked, instantly on alert.

Instead of answering, she tugged on his sleeve, gesturing with her gaze, across the way to the fringes of the gathering.

A hooded figure stood staring right at them, his preternatural stillness seeming to make him invisible to those who teemed around him.

Gabriel Sauvageau.

Titus stared back, not in challenge but in acceptance. He dipped his chin in greeting.

Gabriel did the same before melting into the crowd and disappearing into an alley.

“What do you think he wanted?” she asked. “We’ve not seen or heard from the Fauves since Sheerness. But I worry about them sometimes… about what they’ll ask you to do.”

Titus shook his head, still staring at the corner around which the man had disappeared. “They didn’t have to leave the gold. I don’t care who needs medical attention, I would give it to them. It’s my responsibility to treat a wound. Doesn’t matter what sort of person they are, that’s for better men than I to judge.”

“Thereisno better man than you,” Nora said, rising on her toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek so she could whisper in his ear. “You stitched my life back together when I thought no one could…andthat,dear husband, is why I will always love you.”