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“There’s a present waiting for you at the station Locke. Collins has it for now. A present that is going to make this little turn of events very uncomfortable for you.” He glanced at Regina to see her small wrists finally free of the rough iron. “Do you have further questions for the baroness?”

“No,” Locke ground out.

“Then you can get out,” Leo replied.

“Yes sir,” he grumbled turning away.

“‘My lord,’” Leo corrected. He wasn’t in the mood to be gracious.

“You what?” Locke stared at him in shock.

“I am not a ‘sir’, I am a baron. Therefore, you will address me as ‘Lord Starkley’ or ‘my lord’. Any questions?”

“No, my lord.”

“Good boy.”

Locke looked like he was about to explode but instead turned and strode from the room.

“I was only doing my duty my lord,” the young constable murmured nervously.

Leo gave him a curt nod. “That’s fine. Your duty is finished. Leave.”

The moment they were out the door he turned to Regina and yanked her against him wrapping his arms around her as tightly as he could manage. She buried her face in his chest, trembling as her arms came around his waist. “It’s alright devika.”

“Leo,” she whimpered.

“You’re alright,” he murmured rubbing his hands up and down her back.

“I killed him.”

“You protected yourself, you protected them. You did nothing wrong.”

“I thought he was going to take me to prison,” she blurted.

“Like hell,” he glanced at his aunt and cousin. “Alright Bertie?”

He nodded and shrugged. “I’ll live.”

“Are you well Aunt?”

“I think this bit of theatre has stimulated at least two more years of life out of me,” she replied with a tired smile.

He shook his head in amusement. “Are you afraid of The Final Judgement or something?”

“Leo,” Regina scolded, smacking his chest lightly before swiping at the tears on her face.

“She’s fine.”

Aunt Theo laughed. “Take your wife home Lord Starkley.”

He nodded and leaned over to kiss her wrinkled forehead. “We’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have better things to do?” she grumbled.

“What, like making you yet another god child?” He asked.

She grinned again. “You think you can work that quickly?”

He glanced at Regina who was smiling but the shadow in her eyes was still there. “We’ll see what I can do.”

*

Once they were back in their carriage, Leo tucked Regina against his side, one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

An icy sensation had taken up residence in her body and refused to shift no matter how tightly she hugged herself.

No matter how much she told herself she didn’t have a choice but to pull the trigger.

Regina pressed her face onto his firm chest and sighed.

Somehow Leo seemed to understand that she needed him to hold her as tightly as possible.

That she needed him to hold her together and warm her while her mind returned again and again to that scene.

That terrible calm, the surety she felt the split second before pulling the trigger and the horror that filled her when that red dot decorated his brow and she knew she had done what she deemed necessary.

She had never imagined when she awoke that morning that she would have not only faced down a killer but become one herself.

It didn’t feel real. Part of her wouldn’t have believed it had happened, if not for the tremor that hadn’t left her hands as yet, and the queasy sensation in her stomach. She couldn’t get her mind past that moment. Couldn’t help wondering if there was a way she could have avoided killing him.

“You are very quiet devika,” he murmured rubbing her arm.

“I keep seeing him. I keep seeing myself killing him.” She paused. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to forget it?”

“No. You never forget your first. But you’ll stop thinking about it so often.”

“When?”

“When you make peace with it.”

“Is it wicked to make peace with such a thing?”

“If it’s kill or be killed then you had to choose yourself and the people with you. You chose me. He came there with the intention of causing harm, Rajani. He was going to kill Albert. He certainly meant to kill Aunt Theo and me.”

“Do we know that?”

“Know what?”

“That he would have killed people. He could have been bluffing.”

“He murdered his cousins devika. He killed them to get the title and the fortune. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t have killed me eventually.

He made so many threats to me that he was more than capable of carrying out.

He had me tied up and held at the Oriental Club to give him the time he needed to do his business.

The only reason that didn’t happen is you. ”

“But I didn’t know you were kidnapped at the time.

I…I wanted to kill him. I kept thinking of those nightmares I had.

The things he’d said. I wanted him dead, I wanted to kill him.

I can’t help but think that a part of me pulled the trigger not because I had to but because I wanted to.

” It was a relief to say those words to him.

They felt unnatural, as if she were a monster for thinking and feeling those things.

“Perhaps that is true, but I cannot blame you for it. I only wish I had been there to spare you that decision. I wanted him turned into Scotland Yard, I wanted him to be executed by the law. That would have been better. But in my opinion, considering the situation, your choice to kill him was correct. He would never have stopped unless someone stopped him.”

Her eyes were stinging with tears again. It was everything she needed to know, everything she needed to hear. That he wasn’t ashamed of her, that he didn’t think she was a monster. “Truly?”

He nodded and stroked her cheek, gazing down at her with so much love in his eyes it was almost unbearable. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this, devika. And you are no less wonderful to me than you were this morning. You are still my devika, you are still the woman I love.”

She smiled and nodded, pressing her face to his chest again because a sudden thought had her lifting her head. “What would you lie about?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes and kissed her forehead firmly. “Brat,” he mumbled against her hair.

“Do you think that constable, Mr. Locke will cause trouble?” she asked. He hadn’t been pleased with the outcome at all. Had been only too willing to drag her to a cell. Part of her had believed she deserved it.

“If he makes that impolitic choice he will have trouble with me, not I with him.”

She believed that. She had never seen Leo like that before.

She couldn’t explain the thrill she’d felt when he stood up for her, making threats to preserve her dignity and her safety.

There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he would absolutely destroy Locke if he even mentioned her name again.

Her baron didn’t play games when it came to her.

And she wouldn’t with him either. Both of them were willing to do what it took to ensure the other’s best interests.

She didn’t know if she would ever be able to pick up a pistol again, but one thing she did know was that anyone who attempted to harm them would do so at their peril. “Us,” she corrected.

He looked down at her and smiled widely. “That’s right. Us.”