Page 40 of Regent Street Rogue (The Rakes of Rotten Row #6)
SOMETHING VALUABLE
M elanie struggled to steady herself, clinging to the last thread of her composure as the Duke of Crossings loomed before her.
“This is… highly improper, Your Grace,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat. “You have no business in my chamber. I must insist you leave at once.”
Crossings responded by closing the door behind him instead, and then he stepped forward. “Now, now, my dear lady,” he drawled in a patronizing tone. “Let’s not pretend you’re in a position to give orders.” He gestured vaguely toward her hands. “Just give me what is mine, and this need not go any further.”
“These were my father’s.” Melanie’s fingers curled tightly around the bundle of letters. “You need to go,” she insisted, though her voice wavered with the weight of her rising fear.
Crossings shook his head, a slow, condescending motion that made her stomach flip.
Melanie’s heart thudded wildly and she did the only thing she could think of. She opened her mouth and cried out, “Mr. Chesterfield! Help me! Please!”
She would have moved toward the door, but the duke was blocking it.
“Your Mr. Chesterfield has been called away,” he said, his tone almost pitying. He huffed a short laugh, satisfied smile stretching wide. “Amazing what a ten-pound note can purchase these days…”
Her pulse raced, but the anger coursing through her veins was turning into something sharper, hotter than her fear. How dare he think he can wander about her home as though it was his. How dare he invade her personal chamber!
She clutched the bedpost in one hand, the letters in the other.
Crossings gestured toward the bundle. “You know,” he continued, his voice taking on a chillingly conversational tone. “I sent someone else to recover those for me. What a mess that turned out to be.”
With striking clarity, Melanie understood just what he was saying, like the missing piece to a puzzle she hadn’t even known she’d been trying to assemble. Crossings had sent someone after the letters her father had given her the night that he’d died, and when that someone had failed to retrieve them…
Melanie’s breath caught. “The fire,” she said, her voice shaking with outrage. “You caused it. You killed my family for…” Her gaze dropped to the papers in her trembling hands. Could it really be? “For a few letters?”
But even as she asked, Melanie knew the answer. If Crossings wanted these letters so badly, they had to be damning. Damning enough for him to bribe her mother’s butler. To hide in her house and then follow her into her chamber.
And if that was true? They might also finally clear her brother. Clear him of the suspicions that had haunted him ever since the day he’d inherited a title he never should have had.
Knowing that, she couldn’t simply surrender them.
Crossings cocked his head, his smirk as cruel as it was indifferent. “A few letters,” he repeated mockingly. “Those few letters could have saved them. If you’re a smart girl, you’ll use them to save yourself.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew something black and silver, unmistakable in both weight and purpose. The pistol seemed as out of place in her chamber as Crossings himself.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, leveling the weapon at her chest. “Just hand them over.”
Melanie didn’t move except to tighten her grip on the letters, the sharp edges of the paper biting into her palms.
The duke’s eyes narrowed, and he gave the pistol a menacing wave, as if to remind her of its weight, but then he froze.
His brows furrowed at the same moment the acrid scent reached her nose.
At first, she thought it might be her imagination. But no, it wasn’t a fleeting scent carried in from the open window like the smell from this morning. This time, it was coming from…
From inside.
A whisper of smoke seeped through the crack between her bedroom door and the threshold. Crossings noticed it too, and his expression flickered—not fear, but annoyance and confusion—as his gaze darted toward it.
“What the devil—” Crossings muttered, stepping back toward the door, his gun still trained on her. Using his other hand, he fumbled behind him in search of the doorknob.
Melanie waited, her heart pounding a wild drumbeat inside her chest, and when he turned his back to her, with his attention shifted, she seized the moment. Keeping her gaze locked on him, she shoved two of the letters into the bodice of her gown, her trembling fingers working quickly to tuck them away. The remaining bundle was noticeably lighter now, and she could only hope he wouldn’t be able to feel the difference.
Yes, she wanted to protect Reed—she would do whatever it took—but she didn’t want to die! She had a life to live, one she was only beginning to reclaim.
Crossings paused, but then glanced back at her briefly before yanking it open. The moment the door swung wide, both of them could only stare in shock.
Blistering heat and thick smoke surged into the room, and in the corridor, flames licked greedily at the far wall, devouring the wood and plaster, crawling up and across the ceiling.
“ Damn Northwoods ,” Crossings muttered, his voice edged with disbelief as he slammed the door shut again. The room was already growing hazy, the smoke creeping in faster now. Crossings turned back to her, indecision on his face.
Melanie stumbled back, still clutching the remaining letters. But the heat was already pressing around them like a heavy blanket. “We have to get out?—”
But then, without warning, Crossings lunged toward her, clawing for the letters. “Give them to me!” he snarled, his hand clutching at her arm. The impact sent her stumbling, her head striking the wall with a sickening thud. The breath whooshed from her lungs, and her fingers instinctively loosened, the letters slipping free. They fluttered behind her?—
Right out the open window, where the curtains billowed faintly in the breeze.
All seemed to go quiet in that moment, as both of them stared helplessly, watching those oh, so important letters flutter like butterflies on the spring air. They dipped and hovered and then dipped again, and neither Melanie nor the duke said a word as they drifted down to scatter across the street below.
Through the window, a faint sound could be heard—a shout, perhaps, or the distant clang of hooves on cobblestones, which broke the spell.
Crossings turned on her, his face twisted with rage. “You stupid, useless bitch!”
He raised the gun, and just as she turned away, her head seemed to explode in pain.
And then she was on the floor, sprawled inelegantly with her cheek pressed against the carpet.
At first, she felt nothing, just a strange but peaceful calm. Had Crossings… shot her? But no. Her temple was throbbing.
He’d struck her with the pistol.
With the smoke settling on her like a suffocating shroud, she could only watch as Crossings climbed onto the windowsill, gripping the edge of the trellis before he disappeared outside.
For an entire year, she had felt powerless. Trapped by hidden memories, the fire, her fear. But now? Now she was faced with a choice. She could stay here, hoping to be rescued—or…
She could fight.
Melanie rolled over, feeling her lungs begin to itch. Her stomach churned, and she tasted a hint of copper on her tongue.
But she was not helpless. Not anymore. And she refused to die here.
As she slowly sat up, the thick smoke stole into her lungs, making her cough violently, but she forced herself to crawl toward the window.
Windows had shielded her from the world for so long. They had provided her with a quiet refuge, a way to watch when she could not bring herself to be seen. Now this window— her window—was her only escape.
When her fingers found the sill, she clung to it, pulling herself up until she could see outside.
Oh…
The distance between her window and the street below was… farther than she’d remembered.
Through the haze, she saw Crossings. Clinging desperately to the trellis just a few feet below her window, his face contorted with panic. He dipped one leg, searching for a foothold, and the wooden frame groaned under his weight.
In the same instant, a sharp pop cracked behind her, followed by a wave of blistering heat. She turned, dread clawing up her throat. Flames had already consumed her door, the fire spreading with terrifying speed.
Her chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
You have to move, Melanie.
She turned back to the window, leaning out again, gulping a lungful of air.
And far, far below, a handful of riders thundered along Regent Street, the pounding of hooves muffled by the growing din of the fire. And then she saw him, leading the charge.
Malum.
His silver eyes glinted in the darkness, focused, unyielding. On her.
He came.
Her fingers gripped the window ledge, holding on to the one truth that broke through the smoke and panic: Malum was here.