Dancing With Danger

by Kerrigan Byrne

  “Then I ask you again. What were you doing there? Were you Mathilde’s lover?”

  A muted clang caused them both to jump, and Mercy let out a little cry of surprise as the back of the carriage dipped slightly.

  She couldn’t say if it was the movement or her own instinct that shifted her body closer to his warmth.

  To his strength.

  Even though he smirked down at her with no little amount of masculine smugness, his gaze searched hers for something.

  For permission?

  An inner voice warned her that if she opened her mouth, it would be granted.

  She lunged away then, scooting to the far edge of the bench in time for the door to swing open.

  While they were still moving?

  A mountain of a man in a dark coat and a hood slid inside and closed the door behind him. He turned his head toward her, but in the dim coach, she couldn’t make out anything that resembled a face.

  Only a dark abyss was visible in the oval of shadow left by his low hood and his collar.

  He stared at her from the darkness, though.

  Nay, examined her like one might scrutinize an insect before crushing it beneath his shoe.

  With wicked claws he scored that instinct that lived in every human. The one that screamed a warning into her soul that she was not safe.

  Her bones veritably crawled beneath her skin to escape him.

  If Raphael was dangerous, this man was...well, he defied description.

  “What took you so long, Gabriel?” Raphael hissed. “Ten minutes more and it would have been too late.”

  Raphael’s brother said nothing. He studied her for the space of two more discomfiting blinks and then gave her his massive back, bending toward his brother.

  She’d been dismissed.

  It would have offended her, were she not so relieved. It was as if she’d disappointed him, somehow.

  As if he’d been looking for someone else.

  He produced thin metal instruments from his coat and deftly—for a man with hands as large as his—went to work at the lock on his brother’s manacles.

  Mercy could count on one hand the times she’d been rendered speechless.

  Gabriel Sauvageau had picked the padlock of a police vehicle and slid inside while it was moving without raising the alarm or even alerting the drivers.

  How was this done?

  While he worked to free his brother, he muttered in barely perceptible French, his voice a rasping whisper that hinted at a baritone as dark, deep, and smooth as moonlight over marble.

  The very devil might have a voice like that.

  Mercy had always been a terrible student. She wiggled too much, her brain pinging from one thing to the next until so many of her thoughts threatened to tumble everywhere like a litter of unruly puppies.

  But she’d retained a rudimentary understanding of French.

  And if she wasn’t mistaken, Gabriel had said something to the effect that they’d rescheduled a meeting at the zoo to the following Wednesday at...three o’clock?

  “You’re being unspeakably rude,” she admonished them, hoping to hide that she comprehended their conversation.

  Well... sort of comprehended it.

  Raphael had the decency to look chagrined. “In this case, I must beg your forgiveness, mon chaton, as my brother speaks very little English.”

  “Why do you call her your kitten?” Gabriel asked in French.

  “Because I like her claws.” Raphael replied with a look at his brother that ended any further discussion on the subject.

  Gabriel freed one hand and went to work on the opposite wrist. “What happened with Mathilde?”

  Raphael flicked her a glance and narrowed his eyes as if assessing how much she understood.

  A certain level of fluency was expected from educated women of her class.

  Mercy found something fascinating on her own manacles, refusing to look up at him.

  After a pregnant pause, he said. “We will discuss it later. Where do we meet Marco?”

  “By the Loo.”

  Mercy searched her French vocabulary for the word loo and found nothing. Did they mean the washrooms? She wrinkled her nose. Did they say that for her benefit? To throw her off maybe? The toilets were not a very fitting location for high-brow clandestine intrigue to take place.

  But then, who was she to tell criminals where to convene?

  “We have to go, we’re almost to the bridge.” Gabriel freed his brother’s other wrist.

  “You go. I’ll lock up.” Raphael motioned for the padlock, which Gabriel tossed to him before sliding out the door just as smoothly and silently as he’d arrived.

  The springs depressed just slightly when the cart was alleviated of his weight. The Goliath of a man stepped off the tall carriage with the same grace a dancer would stride away from a curb onto the cobbles.

  The ceiling of the cart was too short for Raphael to stand, so he stooped toward her as he reached his long, muscled arms out to the side in the stretch of a free man.

  “Here.” Mercy lifted her wrists. “Release me!”

  Instead of taking her manacles, he gathered the hands she offered into his large, rough palms, his thumb running over wrists made raw by her struggles.

  And just like that, they were no longer in a cage. No longer was she shackled by iron...but instead a velvet rope wound its way around her limbs, cording and knotting her to him.

  She felt at once vulnerable and invincible.

  Safe and in peril.

  The fresh, expensive scent of him overpowered the staler odors of the carriage. His eyes were mesmerizing, taking up the entirety of her vision, forcing everything else to fall away.

  Forgotten.

  He moved with such swiftness, and yet when his lips sealed to hers, the press of it was astonishing in its gentility. His neck corded with tension, his shoulders bunched, and his grip tightened.

  But his mouth. Oh, his mouth. It sampled her with a series of light strokes, restraining his ardent passion with well-practiced skill.

  Mercy forever displayed the wrong reactions to stimuli. This time was no different.

  Any space in her temper for anger or aggression was overtaken by an abject exhilaration. An undeniable excitement that bordered on impatience.

  Though it was increasingly cold, they built their own fire, igniting something between them that had a portent of inevitability.

  An inarticulate sound vibrated from somewhere deep within him, quickening her heart and rushing the blood through her veins with an injection of heat.

  She surged closer, her fingers gripping his collar as the kiss deepened of its own accord. She couldn’t tell whose mouth opened first, but their tongues met and danced.

  Sparred.

  In this moment, they had their own language. One that was as lilting and lyrical as any that existed. It was guttural and tonal and it gathered responses from her she never thought herself capable of making.

  She knew there was more. More of this wild storm building between them. More of this man she wanted to explore.

  More of the world she wanted to see.

  Wanted him to show her. To teach her.

  Dangerous. A voice warned from somewhere far, far away. Someplace buried so deep in her psyche, she might have forgotten it even existed.

  Her reason. Her wit.

  He’d interred it beneath the avalanche of desire tumbling through her, tossing her end over end until she couldn’t decide which way was up.

  Danger. You’re in danger.

  The warning was closer now, more urgent. Enough to draw her back, breaking the seal of their lips.

  She only had a moment of gratification at a similar haze unfocusing his stormy eyes before the clouds parted and he blinked down at her with an expression both alert and regretful.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, releasing the lock on her shackles and letting them fall to the floor.

  She looked down at them in mute astonishment,
not having even noticed he’d been working on them.

  By the time she’d registered that he moved, he’d slid out the door and pulled it shut and secured the padlock just as she lunged for him.

  “Wait!” she cried, wrapping her fingers around the bars. “You’re going to let me rot in jail while you go free?”

  Now that they were in a busier part of the city, she could hear the astonished gasps and exclamations of the passersby.

  He hung from the carriage by one hand at the hinges of the door and one foot on the ledge as he grinned into the cart through the barred window.

  “I know who your family is, Mercy Goode, you’ll be back home in time for tea.” His eyes were no longer glinting, but ablaze with silver light.

  Rage surged inside of her, fueled by the heat still thrumming and throbbing through her.

  “You know nothing about my family, you merciless cad,” she hissed. “You’re lucky I’m locked in here or I’d—”

  “You’d do something reckless, no doubt, like follow me...” He said this with a confounding sort of fondness. “And that’s too dangerous. Even for you.”

  Frustrated. Furious. Mercy shook the iron bars once again, then shoved her hand through them, attempting to claw at his eyes.

  He leaned back just in time, the thick locks of his hair fluttering in the draft coming off the roof of the moving coach as he barked out a laugh.

  God, he was handsome when he smiled. Especially when his lips were glossed and a bit swollen from kissing.

  She could cheerfully murder him.

  Swinging back, he brought his face close to the bars, his eyes drilling into hers with that dizzying change they made from mirth to sobriety. “If we see each other again, Mercy Goode...” he warned in a voice made of sex and honey.

  “Be ready for me to taste the rest of you.”

  Chapter 3

  The reasons the jailers took a wide-eyed second glance at Felicity Goode were threefold.

  The first being that she was exceptionally lovely today in a lavender gown threaded with violet ribbons and a matching velvet pelisse. The latter, cinched too tightly at the waist, accentuated the dramatic indent of her figure, and created a lovely backdrop for her cascade of flaxen hair beneath her smart hat.

  The second was that the stunning midnight-haired woman on Felicity’s arm was the wife of their most revered and respected Chief Inspector, Sir Carlton Morley.

  Prudence, their second eldest sister.

  This would be the first time these men might have seen her lately about, as she’d been kept frightfully busy doting on her infant twins, Caroline and Charlotte.

  She was still apple-cheeked from pregnancy, her glowing dark eyes happy, if half-lidded by the sort of exhaustion only known to new mothers. She’d wrapped herself in burgundy velvet to make up for the pallor of her complexion.

  And third, Felicity was the unmistakable mirror of Mercy, who stood facing her from the other side of the dingy iron bars. Their resemblance was uncanny.

  Most twins had a hint of identifiable difference. A freckle here, a jutting tooth or a divergent shade of hair.

  For Mercy, to look at Felicity was to look in a mirror. Even their parents had an impossible time telling them apart.

  Which, in Mercy’s opinion, spoke volumes about them as parents.

  More out of blindness than concern, Felicity squinted into the cell where Mercy had been blessedly alone for the better part of two hours. Though she’d terrible vision, she was urged to not wear her spectacles in public, as they were considered unflattering. This time, however, Mercy knew she’d eschewed her spectacles for a different reason.

  One that was Mercy’s own fault.

  “Imagine, if you will, my surprise when a constable came round the house to inform Mama and Papa that I’d been arrested,” Felicity huffed.

  “Please don’t be cross with me,” Mercy begged her twin, wincing with shame. “I knew that if I gave them your name, someone would be more likely to come fetch me. Everyone likes you better.”

  “That isn’t at all true,” Prudence protested, tossing her curls with a saucy snap of her lithe neck. “You are both our beloved treasures. Now wait here whilst I fetch Sgt. Treadwell to unlock this cell so I can take you home and murder you in private. You’re bloody lucky my husband is in court today.” With an impish smirk she swept away, the train falling in gathers from her bustle, swishing with her efficient strides over the well-worn wood.

  “Thank you, darling!” Mercy called after her, wrapping her fingers around the cold iron bars. The sooner she had her freedom the better.

  She hadn’t taken a full breath in hours.

  Felicity, eyes wide with rapt incredulity, laced her fingers over Mercy’s until they knotted around the bars together in a complicated grip. “Are you all right?”

  Mercy nodded, though her beloved sister’s affection was nearly her undoing. “Are Mama and Papa furious?”

  At that, Felicity brightened a bit. “Actually, I received a postcard today in lieu of their arrival. They’ve decided to extend their stay on the Riviera another month, perhaps two. Perhaps if we can whisk you out of here without a scandal, they’ll never have to know.”

  “You couldn’t have brought me happier news!” Mercy blustered in relief. The Baron and Baroness Cresthaven, their parents, were two of the most pious, pinched-faced fuddy-duddies to ever hold a title. Any time they spent away from the house was like a ray of sunshine on a frigid, grey day in late winter.

  Like this one, for example.

  “Did you really strike an inspector?” Felicity whispered, glancing around to see if anyone stood nearby.

  “Martin Trout.” Mercy spat the words as if they tasted of his namesake. “He told me Mathilde deserved what her husband did. I barely swatted him.” Mercy rolled her eyes as righteous indignation tightened her rib cage. “And he repaid me tenfold.”

  Tilting her head to display her bruising cheek, she enjoyed Felicity’s clucking and tutting over the wound, now that she didn’t have any handsome, smirking men to keep her chin up for.

  “I have a poultice of parsley, arnica, and comfrey that will rid you of the bruise in half the time it would take to heal on its own,” her twin promised. “Titus even had me make some for him to disseminate to his patients. Wasn’t that wonderful of him?”

  Mercy’s forehead wrinkled at the breathlessness in her sister’s voice when Dr. Titus Conleith’s name was spoken. He’d been a coal boy in their household when they were small, then a stable hand, and a footman as he’d grown into a man.

  Though he was a few years younger, he’d loved their eldest sister, Nora, with a singular passion since the day he’d met her.

  And, Mercy suspected, Felicity had loved him with the strength of a little girl’s hero worship.

  Titus was handsome in that rough-hewn, somber kind of way. Studious, deferential and ruthlessly clever. He was a man of unflinching principle and a fathomless well of patience. The very picture of a gentleman with the shoulders of a war hero and a reputation of the most respected surgeon in Blighty.

  But to Felicity, he was the boy who’d squirreled away books for her to read and didn’t poke fun when she used to pronounce her R’s as W’s.

  “I hardly want to believe Mathilde is dead.” Felicity’s features crumpled with sorrow.

  Mercy answered with a nod, gripping her sister’s fingers tighter.

  It was Felicity who’d met Mathilde first. She volunteered at the hospital sometimes, reading to the infirmed and holding new babies. Helping Titus mix tinctures or taking stock of the pharmacy.

  She was as much a liability at the hospital as she was an assistance, since she fainted dead away at the sight of blood. No one had the heart to suggest she go elsewhere, for fear it would make her feel unwanted.

  Felicity had spent the crux of her life being told that, as the fourth and last daughter in a string of disappointing female births, she’d been the reason her mother could have no more children.r />
  And there would be no heir.

  However, when Gregoire Archambeau had fractured Mathilde’s wrist, landing her in the hospital, it had been Felicity who had coaxed the woman into seeking help with the Lady’s Aid Society where Mercy volunteered her time.

  The twins had decided then and there that they were genius to split their attentions thusly. To be able to provide women and their children comprehensive help both medical, emotional, financial, and even offer protection and relocation if necessary.

  Felicity put a white-gloved hand to her heart as if the news of Mathilde’s death had pierced it. “Did she...did she do it herself? Or was it an accident brought on by too much drink and—and such?”

  They both knew what and such stood for. The cocaine and opium Mathilde had become a slave to.

  “She was murdered,” Mercy revealed with a grave frown.

  Felicity gasped. “It couldn’t have been Gregoire; I watched him mount the gangplank to the ferry and he didn’t disembark again. He’ll be in France by now.”

  “I know.” Mercy pursed her lips. Lips that still tasted of Raphael, even hours later. Lips she kept pressing her fingertips to, remembering the pressure of a startling—searing kiss.

  No. She couldn’t let that indiscretion derail her. She had a murder to solve. Even Detective Eddard Sharpe didn’t allow the sultry Miss Georgina Crenshaw to distract him in the middle of a case.

  “You...found Mathilde’s dead body?” Felicity sniffed as if holding in a torrent of emotion. “Are you all right? Was there blood? Did she suffer?”

  Mercy wanted to spare her sister the answers to her rapid-fire questions, but her twin always knew when she was lying. “No blood. But yes, her death was... a violent one. Someone throttled her, and broke her neck.”

  Felicity released her hand to slide her fingers to her own neck. “Do you think it was her lover? Did you ever find out who he was?”

  “You’ll never guess,” Mercy said, admittedly gorging a bit on the drama of it all.

  “Tell me.”

  “Raphael Sauvageau.” The name tasted lush on her tongue.