Page 17 of One Kiss in the Shadows (Singular Sensation #12)

––––––––

W hen Mallory came back to consciousness, pain pounded through her head. She had no idea where she was, but the immediate area smelled of leather, horses, and expensive perfume. Her wrists were bound in front of her, and the rope bit into her skin, for she’d been snatched from her home and had already retired for the night. The slight chill in the nighttime air seeped through the thin nightdress and wrapper of pale blue silk, and she shivered while her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Ah, I’d wondered when—or if—you would wake.” There was no mistaking that voice. “I don’t want you to miss the end of this tale... or my triumph.”

From her vantage point of lying on a well-squabbed bench in what appeared to be a traveling coach, Mallory frowned at the woman sitting on the bench across the narrow aisle from her. “Why am I not surprised you are behind this crime, Mother?”

“It is not a crime to retrieve one’s own daughter from a dangerous situation.”

“What is dangerous about being married to a duke?” The last thing she wanted to do was argue semantics with her mother, the person who abandoned her, who’d left her as a veritable prisoner in an asylum for the mentally deranged. “Strathfield has more honor in his little finger than you do in your whole body.”

“I rather doubt that. He is a member of the Rogue’s Arcade, and therefore, an enemy.” In the darkness, her mother brushed at a spot on her dark purple skirting. “But it matters not. He won’t be long for this world anyway, and once that happens, you’ll come back under my protection.”

“No.” Mallory shook her head, and the pain therein intensified. “I am my own woman. Even if something dire occurred to my husband, I would still be a duchess of some means and position.”

“Putting on airs is not a good look for you, dear.” There was an edge to her mother’s voice that sent skitters of fear down Mallory’s spine. “We both know your marriage is a sham.”

“It’s not.” She struggled into a sitting position, but her skirts were bunched and twisted uncomfortably about her legs. “While it might have started out as a convenience for both of us, that has changed now into something... encouraging and hopeful.”

“Ah, I see.” Her mother made a sound of derision in her voice. “You fancy yourself in love with the taciturn, honorable Strathfield.” Her laugh contained absolutely no mirth. “How utterly stupid of you. There is no such thing as love.”

“Perhaps for you.” She wouldn’t allow her mother to cheapen what she shared with Nathaniel. “Why did you even marry the earl if you didn’t love him?”

Silence reigned inside the coach.

Then Mallory gasped. “You married Stover because you had to.” It was beginning to make sense. “You were with child when you married Stover, weren’t you? Pregnant with me.” She snorted. “Did your protector refuse to marry you? He was too far on the instep to marry what was essentially a whore?”

Of course, that meant said man was definitely her father, so her bloodline was full of unsavory characters.

“Shut up!” Her mother launched herself off the bench and gave Mallory’s cheek a hard, stinging slap. “You know nothing of it.”

Now they were getting somewhere. If her mother was that upset about news that was nearly twenty-six years old, there must still be feelings involved, and if that were true, Mallory could use them to her advantage.

“Let me see if I can put together your story, hmm?” And because she’d spoken in-depth with Nathaniel regarding all he knew—all the rogues knew—regarding her mother’s history since she’d first started her quest to rub them out of existence, she had an edge. “You were a mistress, of course, since you had the face and form, and enough of an attachment to the beau monde that you were creditable. For whatever reason, you didn’t take in your Seasons. Perhaps your father was in dun territory, perhaps men couldn’t stomach your attitude of desperation, I don’t know.”

Her mother glared in silence with her arms crossed at her breasts.

Mallory sailed onward. There was a certain perverse pleasure in raking her mother’s history over the coals and exposing her sins. “No doubt you met your protector at a society event, the Marquess of Hallerston, correct?” One of her eyebrows rose in challenge, but her mother said nothing. “No matter. So you were Hallerston’s mistress, and that resulted in a pregnancy—me.” At least she knew her real history now. “When you discovered you were increasing, did you implore the marquess to marry you?”

“Yes, I did, in fact, but none of that matters now.”

She scoffed. “Of course it does, because this is the piece of my past I was missing.” Never had she had the upper hand in dealings with her mother that she had in this moment. Though her wrists were bound in front of her, she wriggled into a more comfortable position. “He was already married, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, and he refused to have a bastard child within his midst.”

Mallory nodded. “Which means he already had other legitimate children.” She glanced at the window, but a black velvet curtain had been drawn over the glass. “No doubt you were frightened and risked being ostracized from society, so you quickly seduced the first weak-minded man you could find—Stover. You made certain he bedded you a few times before you announced your pregnancy, and because he was a man, he didn’t know that the timeline was off.”

At that point, her mother chuckled. “I always knew you were quite intelligent, but that also makes you dangerous, especially now.”

Mallory frowned. She ignored that last bit. “You married Stover in a fast, private ceremony, and once I was born—two months early probably—you played it off as babies often came early, and Stover was delighted to have a baby in his midst, even if I wasn’t a boy.”

“Yes, can you imagine that feat, cuckolding him with someone else’s child?” Her mother laughed again, as if ruining other people’s lives was a huge joke to her. “I realized, though, during that whole ordeal that men didn’t respect women, no matter what we did for them, no matter what we give to them.” She blew out a breath. “Stover might be an idiot, but he seems to love me.”

“Yet you took that love and tossed it away ahead of your criminal aspirations.”

Her mother shrugged. “I need funds. I need coin to better take care of myself and set my girls up for a future where they don’t need to worry.”

“Then my sisters are more valuable than I am?” The knowledge burned, but that only set fire to the anger that was already simmering in her chest.

“Your half -sisters.” Her mother sighed. “Those girls have their whole lives ahead of them. I don’t want them dependent on a man’s whims or protection.” A sharp edge had entered her voice. “I want them to have choices and opportunities available to them so they can live independently if they so wish.”

“Why didn’t you want the same for me, then? Why did you abandon me to the asylum?” If she wasn’t careful, she’d allow hysteria and fear to creep into her being, so she shoved down all emotion, biding her time until she could try to escape.

“You don’t matter.” Again, her mother shrugged. “You are a marquess’ by-blow, a mistake on my part, because I was stupid and na?ve once to think that love was the only thing I needed.”

Did that mean her mother was still in love with Hallerston? How interesting, and why she was continuing to use him in her scheming. Then she gasped. The fact that the marquess allowed it might mean he had feelings for her as well. Did they plan to run away together? If so, would that happen once her plans for the rogues happened? “Yet you kept me around.”

“Your father didn’t want you, and it didn’t matter that I did because you were a part of my lover. I couldn’t let Stover know, but I think, in time, he did. And it angered him. He ranted and railed one night after getting in his cups, hit me a few times. You look nothing like him, obviously, so eventually I had to admit to the truth.” She paused, and there was a trace of pain in her voice. “Just another reason I despise being dependent on a man and his temper. Since he was a rising star in parliament and without much of a backbone, he was easy to manipulate, and he became the first tool in my arsenal to build the life I wanted.”

“And you still had to do your duty to your husband.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It took years for me to fall pregnant again for some reason, and even still I couldn’t manage to give him an heir.”

“During those years, did you go back to Hallerston?” It was strange, this conversing with her mother about their pasts as if they were in a drawing room, trying to heal old wounds.

“Not until the girls were a bit older, not until just before I placed you in that asylum.”

“Why?” No amount of tugging on her bonds would loosen them. Someone had done their work far too well.

“Hallerston’s wife died of a lung ailment the year before. He was lonely, wanted a place to stick his wick as it were, but I didn’t care, because his mind was as devious as mine. And his children were grown with lives of their own. Well, two of them. His son perished in the war.”

“That makes no sense. Why would he need to partner with you in these criminal activities?” Then she gasped again. “He’s in dun territory.”

Her mother nodded. “He has a weakness for the gaming tables, so I promised him large amounts of coin if he would join me in my quest to follow in my cousin’s footsteps. I told him I’d warm his bed in return, and in that way, we both had what we wanted.”

“Because you were in love with him, always have been.” It made so much sense. “But you don’t believe in love. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Men are fickle, dear. They promise you one thing and then do quite another.” Her mother played with the strings of her reticule. “I was trapped in my own marriage, but he was free. Didn’t matter that I carried a torch for him over the years, didn’t matter that we are very nearly partners in this enterprise, he still refused to let me make all the decisions, kept pestering me for a larger cut of the take.”

“And when you refused?”

“He started killing people who opposed our plans.” Another chuckle escaped her. “Which brings us back full circle to the Rogue’s Arcade club. I knew all along he was a member there, thought I would exploit that connection once that damned Edenthorpe started being at cross purposes to my vision, just like he and his friends thwarted my cousin, the Duke of Winthrop’s reign over the criminal networks of London. So we planned together to bring down the club.”

Mallory shook her head as the icy fingers of fear played her spine. “And I overheard some of those plans.”

“Yes. That was the day he told me he didn’t care what happened to you, and I had no choice but to send you away, lock you up because you were a danger to my plans, but I couldn’t kill you.” For long moments, her mother remained silent. Then she shook herself and cleared her throat. “Until you betrayed me by marrying Strathfield, one of the damned members of the Rogue’s Arcade. You chose him—them!—over your own mother!”

“And why the hell should I have chosen you after what you did to me?” Her voice rose as her ire did the same. “You locked me up to keep me quiet. You withheld everything from me!” Mallory shook her head. “I didn’t have any sort of life, Mother. I wasted so many years when I could have been married, had a family, found happiness.” Tears welled in her eyes. Was her mother truly that cruel?

“I thought Hallerston would have finally taken notice.”

“Yet he didn’t and you were bitter, angry, took that out on me.” Well, she didn’t need that sort of thing in her life. “When Strathfield came along and rescued me, at the behest of Edenthorpe, I took that chance. I chose freedom, I chose safety, I chose protection—all of which I should have had from you!”

“You had a good enough life. One of challenges, yes, but you survived it.”

“I shouldn’t have had to fight for survival.” Sadly, her mother would never understand because her whole world was colored by her own pain. Perhaps years ago, Mallory would have had empathy for her, but not now. Her mother hadn’t learned anything over the years. “I’m glad that Strathfield came along when he did, for with him, I am finally discovering who I am as a person, as a woman. With him, I have found acceptance, everything I have ever hoped for and dreamed of.” She narrowed her eyes at her mother. “Because of him, I have chosen love. Such a thing exists, and it’s beyond lovely.”

Because there was no use denying it to herself any longer. She was in love with her husband.

“Then you are a fool.”

The driver tapped on the roof of the coach. “Approaching Bunhill Fields, my lady.”

Mallory’s chest tightened. “What is that?”

“A cemetery. One of the oldest in London, in fact. Used to be called Bone Hill in the 1500s, and has a long history of scandal and drama. A fitting place for tonight’s actions.”

“Why?”

“Because I am going to kill you, dear.” Metal glinted in the dark interior of the coach, for her mother retrieved a snub-nosed ladies’ pistol from her reticule. “Even if your husband somehow managed to survive his precious club being blown up this evening, then I will bring him to his knees with your death.”

“What?” Sour bile rose in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said, dear. Hallerston planted a bomb within the main room of the club, set to go off about an hour ago, in fact. Sadly, I’m sure there were deaths involved, but if any of the rogues managed to survive, I will have them hunted down.”

“Even you wouldn’t prove so demented as that.” Yet fear took a violent hold on her. Inside, she was dying a thousand deaths to know that her mother willfully destroyed a club where there were innocent people within. People who weren’t members. And what was more, the woman didn’t care, about anything apparently. “Those men have done nothing to you.”

“Oh, but that is where you’re wrong. Time and time again, they’ve thwarted my plans, have stolen the rare jewels I myself was hunting, have done everything they could so that I would never win.”

“You are a criminal, a villainess! You aren’t supposed to win.” Panic began to rise in her chest as she wracked her brain to find a way out.

“That all depends on the perspective, doesn’t it?” When the coach rocked to a halt, her mother grinned, and it was the most terrifying thing in the shadows. “Too bad you didn’t have a chance to tell your wonderful husband how you feel.”

And now she wouldn’t have the chance. Worry mixed with fear in her chest. An ache set up around her heart. Had Nathaniel survived? Was he even now mortally injured and lying within debris at the club? And what of the other men?

I refuse to let this be where my existence ends. Not after everything I’ve already fought through.

The door to the coach swung open and the driver put down the steps. He assisted her mother out of the vehicle then reached back inside and yanked Mallory out, where she landed awkwardly on her bare feet. She didn’t know how much a person’s balance depended on having hands free.

“Bring her over there where the men are digging a grave,” her mother demanded, gesturing with the nose of her pistol.

No matter how much Mallory squirmed, she couldn’t dislodge the man’s grip on her upper arm. He also didn’t slow each time she stumbled over tree roots or gravestones on the ground. It was quite a spooky and frightening place shrouded in darkness and shadows with the breeze rustling through the leaves of the trees and the chittering from nocturnal animals and birds. How many lost souls lingered around this consecrated ground? How many angry spirits haunted this area because their human forms had been put to death prematurely?

As they climbed a slight hill, following her mother’s leading, Mallory gasped at the sight of a freshly dug grave crammed in the midst of other existing graves, but what made her dry heave was the fact that they’d unearthed an old, decaying wooden coffin, still within the hole in the ground, and when she crept closer, she was able to see a skeleton lying within.

Oh, God. Would her mother shoot her and then push her into that coffin with the remains of what had once been a person?

Two of the men, the ones holding shovels, stepped back as her mother approached. A third man, tall and far too well-dressed to be a henchman or a lackey, stood nearby with an expression of boredom evident in the light from the two lanterns resting on the mountain of dirt. Mallory’s stomach rebelled once more, for she was fairly certain that was the Marquess of Hallerston—her father. The man who had refused to do right by her. The man who’d allowed himself to be used by her mother, all for a bedmate and the promise of coin.

Her mother turned to her. “This is where your story ends, dear, but take heart. You’ll soon join your husband in death. That should thrill your romantic little heart.”

“Please don’t do this.” She shivered from the slight chill but also from fear. “I am your daughter.” Were the pleas for her mother or her father? Did it matter?

“I must.” Her mother’s grin was quite macabre in this setting. “You are a liability now, as well as a traitor since you chose a rogue over your own mother.”

“Why shouldn’t I have chosen him? He loves me, accepts me without condition, where you have never done that in the whole of my life.” Then she transferred her gaze to the marquess. “Neither have you.”

He shrugged. “You weren’t a boy.”

Ah, so therefore not of value, especially when used as leverage in the convoluted world these two were involved in. Panic grew with intensity. “Don’t do this.”

Her mother’s expression remained impassive. “Your death was always part of the plan. I just didn’t think it would be like this, but here we are.”

“How can you ever consider a living person something to throw away like rubbish?”

“I long ago ceased to care about things that weren’t moving me closer to my goals.”

Mallory shook her head. “Have you ever been happy, Mother? It changes everything.”

Her mother snorted. “Once, but then that was taken away by society’s expectations. Once my plans have been laid and I reform how society works, then I will have that.” She gestured with the nose of her pistol. “Climb into the coffin. We’re wasting time, and I have other plans this night.”

“No.” There was no force in heaven or earth that could make her follow that order. “I refuse.”

“Ungrateful brat.” Her mother blew out a breath and crooked her head. To the driver, she said, “Put her inside.”

“No!” She wriggled and tried to break free from the burly man’s grip, but he hung on like old iron. “No!” When he picked her bodily up and then tossed her into the coffin as if she was worth little more than a corpse, Mallory screamed, for the terror building within her was quite real. “No!” As she attempted to climb out of the coffin and prevent the skeleton from touching her skin in the process, the driver kept her inside while the two grave diggers came over. One carried the lid to the coffin while the other had a hammer and a few nails.

Her mother came close, and for one second, Mallory thought she’d had a change of heart. Until she tossed the pistol inside the coffin. “In the event you don’t wish to die of starvation or dehydration, but truth to tell, you’ll probably run out of air far sooner. At least then you won’t feel the actual act of dying.” She frowned. “Perhaps you’ll think about the dangers of defying me while you’re waiting for whatever demise you choose.”

As she retreated, one of the men brought the lid of the coffin down and fit it to the rest of the container. Another scream left her throat, this one completely desperate, and tears fell to her cheeks while the sound of the hammer hitting nails into the lid rang around her. With all the strength she possessed, Mallory shoved at the lid with her palms, to no avail. She curled her bound hands into fists and beat on the wood, but the people who’d put her into the final resting place didn’t care or heed her cries.

Then the next sound that filtered to her ears was the most ominous. Dirt hitting the wooden coffin lid left her cold and shaking. Fear shot through her body into every nerve ending. This couldn’t be happening. How demented did a person need to be to cause their own daughter to be buried alive? She shook from fear and shock but continued to beat her fists against the top of the coffin while more and more dirt thudded against the lid. All the while, she screamed until she had no voice left, screamed in the hope that someone—anyone—might hear her and come to her rescue.

A few minutes later, eerie horrible silence followed. Had everyone left? Was she alone in the cemetery with naught but the corpses and haunts? Her stomach ached. The urge to retch from fear grew strong. How long would it take to die in this wretched place? Could a person faint from fright? If that happened, at least she wouldn’t feel the process of dying...

Pain dug into her back, and she shifted as best she could in the tight quarters of the coffin to move the skeleton’s skull out of the way. The other bones poked and prodded into her body, and she shoved them to the side as much as she could. Her heartbeat pounded out a frantic rhythm and finally she gave up trying to push her way out of the coffin, for that obviously wouldn’t work.

Tears leaked from her eyes to roll down her cheeks. Some of them went into her ears as the complete and heavy darkness pressed in around her. The pungent scent of age and dirt filled her nostrils, but it was the ache around her heart that threatened to break her. How cruel of fate to put Nathaniel into her life, to let her slowly fall in love with him, and then yank her away from that life? It would have been better if she knew whether or not he’d survived the destruction of the Rogue’s Arcade, but since she didn’t, the uncertainty was what she had to struggle with in this horrible place.

Oh, Nathaniel, I am so sorry to have brought such danger into your life because of my mother’s hatred.

All she’d ever wanted besides having revenge on her parent was to live a happy life of contentment and if she were fortunate, love. But she’d only had a glimpse of that, and perhaps that was all she needed. In that, she was luckier than most. Yet she didn’t wish to die in this way!

Panic welled again, and more tears fell. At her side, the nose of her mother’s pistol dug into one of her ribs. Could she end her own life ahead of whatever horrors awaited her in this coffin? As she pondered, Mallory closed her eyes and willed her breathing to regulate in the hopes that it would keep whatever air was left inside the coffin available longer.

In the silence, she summoned memories of every time Nathaniel had surprised her and made her smile. She remembered each moment where he’d shown her that life didn’t need to be what she’d been given by her mother, the way the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled when he gave her that special grin he had, the sound of his voice when reading to her from the collection of fairytales he had in his library, the gentleness of his hands when he’d brought her to release, the way she felt so protected when he held her in his arms.

She didn’t know how long she’d been in that coffin; time meant nothing in the dark. Sweat broke out on her brow and upper lip as the space heated. There was no fresh air underground to cool her skin. The longer she was trapped in the coffin with nothing but her thoughts, darkness, and that skeleton for company, the more her breathing grew ragged.

Then, suddenly, there came a noise in the silence that should never have been there. Over the sound of her breathing, Mallory strained her ears, listening. Was that shouting? Perhaps it was her overwrought brain doing wishful thinking. But then there was another sound that made her pulse tick up with hope—the sound of a shovel being sliced into the dirt.

“Help!” Though her arms felt far too heavy, and her strength was fading fast, she beat her fists on the lid of the coffin. “Help!” Her cries weren’t that loud any longer, for her voice was nearly gone.

Oh, please God, let this be rescue and not a grave robber.

The steady sound of shoveling continued while she waited in anxious anticipation for the result. What if it was her mother, not wishing to wait for a natural death, returning to finish the job? Her lungs began to burn as it hurt to take deep breaths, and tears continued to wet her cheeks as she waited either for death or life.

Then the lid was lifted away. Dirt sifted into the coffin and onto her form, but she blinked against the sudden onset of lantern light. When blessed fresh air wafted to her location, she gratefully took in big lungsful of it but continued to lie there as a shadow-shrouded form, backlit from the lantern, reached out a large hand toward her. There wasn’t even enough strength left to scream, yet there was no need.

Seconds later, the sound of his voice made her cry for a whole different reason.

“Mallory, thank God you’re not dead.”

“Nathaniel?” She tucked the pistol between her bound hands as her husband fell to his knees at the edge of the grave, picked her up into his arms, and then hauled her upward, bundling her against his chest.

“I didn’t come all the way down here to see you die.” Emotion graveled his voice, but she was too exhausted to try and analyze what they were. “I found you in time.”

She didn’t care that another man—was that truly one of the footmen she’d recently come to meet?—stood silently by with a shovel in his hand. Looping her bound wrists around the back of her husband’s neck, Mallory sobbed out her relief into his neck. For whatever reason, he was missing his cravat, and there was much blood and grime all over him, but that didn’t matter. He was alive and so was she.

Despite the odds.

“Strathfield!” The cry interrupted the tender scene. “We’ve got her!”

“Coming!” he shouted back.

“My mother?” she managed to whisper as her heart thrummed into beating again.

“So I assume.” He assisted her into a standing position then he struggled to his own feet with more than slight pain etched over his face. Quickly, he undid the knots of the ropes that bound her wrists, and when she cried with relief, he frowned. “Edenthorpe and Aldren chased down your mother and whoever was with her while Thomas and I came directly here to rescue you.”

“I’m glad.” Her knees wobbled and she still clutched the pistol in one hand. “I want her neutralized, Nathaniel. She has done so much damage to so many people, inflicted so much fear and horror and hurt to innocents that she doesn’t deserve to live a decent life.” Scrubbing at the tears on her cheeks, Mallory continued. “Mother should be locked away in Newgate or at the very least be made accountable to everyone she has ordered killed.”

“Agreed, but are you certain you’re able to see this through?” He glanced up and down her form. “You don’t have shoes on, and your feet seem bruised and cut already.”

“That doesn’t matter. I am quite determined.”

“And the pistol?”

Quickly, she told him why it was in her possession, and with each word, anger filled his dark eyes. “I don’t know, but I’m not leaving it behind.”

He nodded. “Very well.” With a glance at the footman, he said, “Go back to the carriage. Inform the driver what is happening. If all goes well, we should all return home within the hour.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” After tossing the shovel away, Thomas took up the lantern then loped off into the darkness.

“Come.” Before she could protest, the duke lifted her into his arms, and at the last second, she grabbed his cane in her free hand. “I’ll carry you.”

“You’re nearly dead on your own feet,” she whispered as he moved away from the horrible grave.

“Not dead yet, though,” he said with a tight grin. “We are almost done with all this, sweeting, and I won’t stop until I see that happen.”

Her heart squeezed at his use of an endearment, but this was no time to speak about feelings or the future. As best she could, Mallory clung to him and reveled in being back in his strong arms. Everything had almost been taken away from her, and she vowed to herself to never again allow that to happen. But she was saving her strength for the end of this chapter of her life, so she could move forward to the next without fear.

“There they are.”

Mallory strained to look past his shoulder in the dark. One of the men held a lantern; she assumed that was the Viscount Aldren her husband had mentioned. The Duke of Edenthorpe had run down her father and currently had him on his knees near a gravestone and a statue of a weeping angel. Then her gaze landed on the two fallen thugs nearby. Clearly, the two men who were friends of her husband’s had put them down.

And her mother stood somewhere in the middle as Aldren leveled the nose of a pistol at her.

Nathaniel set Mallory onto her feet. He accepted the cane she gave him as Edenthorpe prodded the marquess to his feet and maneuvered him over to stand near her mother. “Is there anything you wish to say to your parents before we secure them and involve Bow Street so they can be sent to Newgate?”

As she thought over the last conversation she’d had with her mother in the traveling coach, she slowly shook her head. “No. I said everything I needed to earlier before she decided to bury me alive.” Since she’d screamed for her life in that coffin, her throat hurt when she talked. “There is nothing left between us.”

“I understand.” As he made his way over to where they stood, his limp was more pronounced than usual. What had he suffered this night? What had they all paid in order to finally capture her mother and end her reign of terror? She came with him, standing so that he was between her and the two people who apparently cared nothing for her and never had. “What have you both to say for yourselves?”

The marquess spat in his direction. “We owe you nothing.”

Edenthorpe huffed. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you enough to invite you into my club.” He was in the same shape that Nathaniel was in with blood, dust, and other debris decorating his clothing.

“Surely you must understand that a society based on benevolence and fairness will crumble sooner rather than later,” Hallerston continued. Clearly, he wasn’t regretful about anything he’d done. “Power and rule need firm hands, not empathetic ones. We are merely trying to restore order in London.”

“That is not for me to say, but it is a start, and my conscience will be clear.” The duke shrugged. “As for your other allegations? I rather think the Regent is more like the two of you instead of like the men of the Rogue’s Arcade, but until that changes, our aim is to help those who are powerless, those who have no voice against being harmed and manipulated by people like you. Merely because no one else will.”

The circle of lantern light wavered as Viscount Aldren switched it to his other hand.

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “And you?” he asked of her mother. “You have ordered the deaths of many people over the past few years, both in conjunction with the now deceased Duke of Winthrop and without him. What have you to say for that?”

Her face reflected a mask of hatred so intense, it took Mallory’s breath away. “It doesn’t matter what you do to me, for I have connections in many places, Strathfield. This isn’t the end of my plans; it is merely an obstacle.”

“You’ll both cool your heels in Newgate until a judge can rule on your crimes.”

“Ha.” Her mother shook her head. “You realize that peers cannot be charged for crimes.”

“Perhaps, but their wives certainly can.” He took a step toward her. “As well as their mistresses.”

“I am so tired of men thwarting my plans!” With some sort of weird battle cry, her mother lunged at Nathaniel. She jumped on him with such force that he toppled over onto his back and apparently had the wind knocked out of his lungs, if the gasping sounds were any indication.

“Nathaniel!” Mallory frantically sprang into action and tried to pull her mother off the duke, but he got off a punch to her mother’s shoulder that left her a bit shaken.

Chaos erupted around her as the marquess used the distraction as a way to deliver his own escape. Quickly, Edenthorpe was engaged in fighting with him, with the viscount going to assist him.

With her heart in her throat, Mallory wrenched at her mother’s shoulder with a strength she didn’t know she could possess. “Nathaniel, take the pistol. Shoot her,” she pleaded with him as she held out the weapon.

“I don’t know that I can kill a woman in cold blood unless she is directly threatening my life or yours.” He clambered to all fours as he gasped to take in breath.

“What the hell, Strathfield?” she asked with a frown. “The woman left me buried alive to die.” She kicked out a bare foot, catching her mother in the stomach and sending her flying onto her back. “That’s enough for me, so if you won’t do this, I will.”

Bang!

The sound of a pistol discharging rang out through the dark cemetery, but she couldn’t take her attention from her mother.

“Hallerston’s down!” the viscount called.

Anger surged through her veins, it messed with her rational thought, but she didn’t care. She planted a foot on her mother’s abdomen and kept her pinned to the ground while pointing the nose of the pistol at her head.

“You deserve to die for all that you’ve done.” The woman had almost killed her husband and his friends, to say nothing of what she’d done to Mallory.

Nathaniel came up behind her. “Think long and hard before you pull the trigger,” he cautioned her in a soft voice. “Taking someone’s life will haunt you forever.”

From the ground, her mother laughed. “You are too weak to do it anyway. Why else do you think I put you in that coffin?”

“Choosing a different path than you doesn’t make me weak.”

Her mother snorted. “I should have killed you years ago instead of locking you in that asylum. You have been nothing but a disappointment.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Slowly but surely, Mallory cocked the pistol. How she knew what to do was beyond her. “But I can’t let my sisters grow up to be like you, and I pray that they will find their own paths after this. Certainly, I can’t let you continue your reign of terror through London and threaten the people I love.”

“Stupid girl. You’ve let a man change you.” In a flash, her mother drew a knife from her reticule. “We are done here.” The light from the lantern reflected briefly on the blade as her mother surged upward.

Bang!

As if by reflex, Mallory squeezed her forefinger on the trigger. The kickback caught her by surprise and jerked her hand backward, but the ball found its mark. A dark stain of blood appeared on her mother’s purple gown in her upper abdomen, and then her mother slumped to the ground with one hand covering the wound.

Her mother gasped as surprise reflected on her face. “How could you do this to me?”

“If you wished to be remembered fondly, Mother, you shouldn’t have been such a bitch to almost everyone you ever met. People aren’t meant to be used as pawns or favors, and I am taking back the power you stole from me.” With a cry of both horror and relief, Mallory tossed away the pistol then turned. Immediately, Nathaniel was there. He wrapped his arms about her, rocked her from side to side and she sobbed against his chest.

“It’s over, love. It’s all over.” Then he pressed his lips against the top of her head. “You needn’t worry about her ever again.”

Relief surged through her veins, and she sobbed all the harder, for it had been a rather eventful night, that would no doubt bring nightmares in its wake. “I want to go home.”

“So do I.” But he didn’t move. Neither did she, and for the time being, she was perfectly content with that.

Perhaps she could finally have the life she’d always dreamed about without the fear of it being taken away by what had been essentially a madwoman.

Only time would tell.