Page 47 of The Rake is Taken

“You mentioned secure twice, Blue, while forgetting an important element. Happy. Which I realize I’m senseless to envisage when I could be what every girl dreams of being, a duchess with a husband who doesn’t love her.”

“Then we understand each other perfectly,” he returned while his mind screamed,don’t do this, Finn, don’t let her go.

She rocked back on her heels, her gaze leaving his, being torn from his. She waved him away, his shirt slipping down her arms and sending a sizzle through his belly. “If you’d be so kind as to secure a carriage while I dress, minus that chemise you destroyed, I’ll ride gracefully into my future. Leave you to ride gracefully into yours. How about that for understanding each other?”

Finn turned and walked from the room with a force of will he hadn’t known he had in him, although he hardly felt his feet hitting the floor. Mechanically, he resumed his life in measured degrees as he located transport, as he bundled Victoria into the dim confines of the carriage, as he watched it roll down a filthy alley six streets from the appalling hovel Julian had rescued him from, his sorrow backlit by nothing but a brilliant sunrise and an unsteady heartbeat.

He could quickly return to the women and the gambling, he decided as he smashed the wine bottle against his bedchamber wall. To the idiotic horse races and the leaps from widow’s balconies, he resolved as he stripped sweat-streaked sheets from his bed and took his knife to them until they lay in tatters.

To waking alone, wondering what it would be like to share his life with another person.

He brought the torn chemise to his nose and inhaled a last, lingering breath. As Victoria had so eloquently put it, he would return to the tedious mockery of a man he presented to the ton.

Finn made an agile leap from the oak branch to the sloped roof of Rossby’s townhome, landing outside his bedchamber window if the kitchen maid whose mind he’d read had provided proper information. His grief was a living thing, making his skin raw, and his breath painful to catch. He was looking forward to taking out his sorrow on someone. His aura would present a nightmare of color, he suspected, should Piper be able to see it.

He slid the already open window high enough to slip through, landing on the carpet with a dull thump. The room smelled of cigar smoke and port, and a choking, sweet fragrance he didn’t try to name. Maybe opium, which was interesting. The lights were dim, the furniture heavy, the form huddled beneath the coverlet still. Finn had been watching the house for hours, waiting for Rossby’s return. The baron had stumbled from his brougham less than an hour ago, in precisely the state Finn wanted him to be in for their discussion.

The sharp point of his knife was against Rossby’s neck before either of them took another breath. The baron wrenched awake, his bloodshot eyes widening as he scooted up in the bed. “Alexander. What…what the devil are you doing here? I don’t owe the Blue Moon. I paid the note months ago.”

Finn hadn’t tried to disguise his identity. Even with a mask, his eyes would show, and everyone knew those. “Another matter, sorry. I’m here to insist you compose an exceedingly humble missive telling Lady Hamilton’s father you’re respectfully stepping aside so she may marry the Duke of Ashcroft. Because you believe in true love, etcetera, etcetera. It will overflow with positive intention, and I do meanpositive intention.”

Rossby laughed and wiped his wrist across his lips to contain the spittle. “I’ve wanted the girl since I first saw her when she was no more than sixteen. If you think I’m letting her go after all I did to secure her, you’re suited to a spot at Bedlam.”

Finn’s hand twitched, the blade digging into the baron’s fleshy, moon-pale skin. He watched the trail of blood race down Rossby’s neck to mingle with the spun cotton of his nightshirt with absolutely no feeling. “My God, are you making this bad on yourself.”

The baron slumped against the headboard, his hand rising to cover the wound on his neck. It was then he realized this was a game he might not win. “What’s this? Why do you even care about my marriage? About the girl? You’re known to be close to the duke, is that it? Did he send you?”

“Don’t worry about who sent me. Worry about waking to take your daily jaunt through Hyde Park tomorrow.”

“You vile bastard.” Blood seeped through Rossby’s clenched fingers, dribbling to his wrist.

Finn released a measured smile, delighted when Rossby’s skin paled. “Is that the best you can do? Disappointing.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

Finn wasn’t sure he would, either, but for Victoria’s sake, he was willing to risk it. Leaning down until Rossby’s fetid breath struck his cheek, he ran the stained blade beneath the man’s chin. “Oh, yes, I will. Because I know what you have on her father. I knoweverything.”

Rossby’s gaze darted around the room, frantic, before circling back to Finn. His body spasmed beneath the sheet he’d drawn to his chest in defense. “You couldn’t. No one would talk. We have an agreement.” And then, of course, he started thinking about everything Finn could know, what might have been said because you couldn’tfullytrust anyone.

Having never been more appreciative of his gift, Finn closed his eyes, brushed the tip of his pinkie over the ticking pulse beneath the baron’s ear, and let the man’s thoughts tumble through him. Finn shuddered because mixed in with a detailed account of certain reprehensible and quite illegal business dealings, were images of what Rossby had been hoping to do to Victoria.

Finn swallowed hard and removed the blade from beneath the baron’s chin before he made a snap decision and gutted him in his bed. Stepping back, he wiped the knife on his trousers, metal glinting in the moonlight spilling in around him. “I want the file. And don’t argue, because I’m either leaving with it or with a man’s death burdening my conscience.” He shrugged, meaning his next words with every beat of his heart. “It’s completely your choice.”

“You can’t do this,” the baron whispered, but he was rising from the bed, and Finn had ascertained from his thoughts that he was going to retrieve the file.

“I already have,” Finn said with a sigh, snagging his hand through his hair with a dull pulse of misery. “But don’t despair, she’s gaining a duke. An incredibly high step from a lowly baron. Such a benevolent decision you’re making.”

“I suppose you feel good about this,” Rossby snarled and yanked open a drawer on the escritoire desk just visible in the shadowed corner. He pulled a file out and crossing the room, thrust it at Finn. “Helping the duke marry his ladylove. I’d heard you were friends. And everyone knows the Alexander brothers think themselves noble. Tell Ashcroft I won’t forget this.”

Finn grasped the file and turned to the door. He wasn’t leaving through the damned window, he didn’t care how many servants saw him. He held all the cards now. “Remember what you will, Rossby, just know I have this information, and it implicates you in a very damaging manner should I decide to throw you to the wolves. Next week, next year, in ten years. What you’d best understand is thatI’llnever forget.”

Exiting the townhouse, Finn closed the door behind him and sagged against it. He tipped his head to stare at a festal sky filled with winking specks of silver and a low, velvety gray haze. He gulped a breath of the river and coal smoke and the scent of fear lifting from his skin, carriages and people and even a stray dog moving past him, unconcerned with one man’s marginal island of desolation. He felt disassociated from the sounds of life around him. His heart was racing, his skin chilled, his mind teeming with unwanted images. A blinding headache was sitting just behind his eyes, and he brought his hand to his temple to push it away.

If he could only pushheraway.

Rossby had been dead wrong. He didn’t feel good about this.

He only felt his bloody heart breaking.