Tempting Fate

by Kerrigan Byrne

  She’d been shy, panicked, and yet she’d fought the most valiantly for a happy ending. Not only for Nora and Titus, but for everyone who’d been a part of that tense standoff between the Fauves and the law.

  It was her impassioned plea for benevolence that’d melted some of the fortress of ice around Gabriel’s heart. He’d made the decision then and there to give the gold to Titus and Nora in exchange for a favor.

  A favor he currently collected upon.

  Although most men joined a gang such as the Fauves for their own selfish or desperate reasons, Gabriel and Raphael Sauvageau never had that luxury. They’d been born to inherit their father’s power, his fortune, and his enemies. What they hadn’t realized until after their father had died, was the biggest threat to them was posed by their own men.

  Beasts only followed whom they deemed worthy to lead.

  A leader, once overthrown, was almost always devoured by the pack. Ripped apart by teeth and claw, or blade and bullets.

  The Fauves were no different.

  And so, Gabriel and his brother hatched a plan to fake their own deaths and abscond to distant shores with new identities, to enjoy the fortunes they’d amassed from profiteering off of the evil and the elite.

  Who were, more often than not, one and the same.

  Because Raphael had one of the most recognizably handsome faces in London, and Gabriel was possessed of equally identifiable but lamentably hideous features, staying in England was deemed too dangerous.

  Establishing new identities and an escape plan had been effortless.

  However— in the meantime— leaving Mercy and Felicity Goode had become an impossible task.

  Raphael— now living as Remy Severand— was dashing and deviant enough to be able to sweep the adventurous Mercy onto a sapphic duchess’s yacht to travel the world in luxury.

  Whilst Gabriel stayed behind, lurking in the hospital as the genius surgeon crafted him an entirely new face during several complicated— and often experimental— procedures.

  The plan was to meet his brother and sister-in-law in the West Indies, bringing the rest of their hidden fortune along with him by way of America.

  But first… Gabriel had some unfinished business to take care of.

  Finding the villain Marco Villanueve was paramount, as the man was the only one capable of keeping the Fauves at all organized in a way that might threaten the Goodes and their futures.

  Eventually, Mercy and his brother might return to England, revealing the secret identities to Felicity.

  He’d be long gone by then, having discharged his duty.

  Gabriel caught a glimpse of his head in a decorative mirror on the office wall and winced. His healing flesh punished him with stabs and throbs of electric pain at the slightest motion.

  After his third surgery, the bandages surrounding most of his head made him appear like a mummy… one who leaked blood and fluids from beneath his wrappings.

  A secret fear spiked deep within his chest.

  What if he was never anything but a horror to behold?

  Dr. Conleith’s voice broke through his bout of uncharacteristic anxiety.

  “Like I was saying before, once the grafts above your brow and along your cheek are healed, speaking should be a great deal easier and exponentially less painful. Then I believe we’ll finally be able to move on to crafting you a new nose.”

  He approached Gabriel cautiously, his brow furrowed. “It’ll be the most painful procedure yet. I’ll mold the skin from beneath your arm where, blessedly, you haven’t any tattoos. But the skin will have to remain attached to your arm for blood flow. This means you’ll spend weeks in bed with your head trapped to the side and your elbow lodged behind your head. I won’t lie to you. The process will be— well— nothing less than excruciating.”

  Gabriel stared at the door through which Felicity had departed. If he’d been a kettle this morning, boiling with the pressure of boredom and unrelenting, agonizing pain, stress over the lack of news from his brother, and rage at Marco’s betrayal…

  He found himself quite distorted by her unconscious expression of gratitude. Instead of boiling over, he’d felt infused by fragrant tea leaves and rich cream to become something else entirely.

  Her voice made him forget his throbbing head and itching flesh as it knitted together. The sight of her cooled his rage.

  Her mere presence… soothed him.

  What sort of woman could wield such magic?

  “Mr. Sauvageau—” Conleith’s patient prodding broke the spell, bringing him firmly back to the moment.

  He’d murdered men for less.

  Good thing he liked the doctor.

  “I suppose I should start addressing you by your new identity, Mr. Gareth Severand.”

  He nodded his assent, as it would be good to practice being an entirely new person before he had to trot the man he’d become out in the world.

  “I want you to listen,” the doctor said with indisputable gravitas. “I do my utmost to save every life that comes through that door, though I’m patently aware that not every life is worth the effort. I am sworn to not consider myself the judge of that. However, I’m convinced that no matter what your sins are, your life is easily one of the most important that I’ve spared…”

  When Titus Conleith’s composure slipped, and he swallowed twice, Gabriel shook his head, intending to vehemently disagree.

  “You can’t convince me otherwise,” Titus insisted, his voice a bit huskier with unabashed emotion. “If only for what you did for that girl.” He nudged his chin toward the door. “Where my wife has often been considered the crown jewel of the Goode family, Felicity is like… a treasured rosebud. She’s fragile and easily crushed. There are not many hearts in this world as pure and true as hers. I shouldn’t like to think how broken— how indelibly shattered— everyone in this family would be if we lost her. We have you to thank for that.”

  Gabriel told himself he found it impossible to speak due to his healing wounds and not the tightness in his own throat.

  For every moment he spent burning in hell, he’d have this to hold onto.

  He’d saved Felicity Goode, because even heaven didn’t deserve her.

  Chapter 1

  A Year Later

  There was simply nothing so dreadful as a day like today.

  Felicity’s empty stomach rolled and pitched as she used the back of her soiled glove to wipe a bit of perspiration from her brow, then below her eyes, and above her upper lip.

  Sitting back on her heels, she surveyed the damage whilst doing her utmost to take in a deep breath. To keep her heartbeat from galloping away, crashing into her ribs with enough force to break them.

  To swallow around the lump of absolute trepidation in her throat.

  Puffing out a shallow breath, she ripped her gloves off and tossed them in the dirt, fighting the tears filling her sinuses and burning the corners of her eyes.

  Usually, tending her garden was rather cathartic, but not this morning. It would be a miracle if her winter jasmine survived the month of May.

  It would be an absolute marvel if she survived the afternoon.

  With all she had to worry about, all she had to fear, Felicity was unable to fathom why the ruination of her memorial garden was the thing that threatened her composure.

  Indeed, her tenuous grip on her sanity.

  She’d been digging in the dirt since four o’clock that morning, only stopping when the dizziness compromised her balance. Or, when her racing heart threatened to explode through her chest, forcing her to sit on the ground and wait for the spell to pass or for death to take her.

  It never did.

  So, she’d have to face what the day brought.

  Or, rather, whom.

  So many people. Not people… men. She’d have to meet them all. Smile at them, be kind to them…

  And then choose one. Which meant rejecting others.

  What a nightmare.

  Glancing around her iron a
nd double-paned glasshouse at the array of blurred and vibrant color, she noted the sun had climbed higher than she’d realized.

  Oh, that she could stay here amongst the dahlias and crocuses, the hyacinths and begonias. She much preferred their company to that of most people.

  Pushing herself to her feet, Felicity stretched the stiff muscles of her back and reached for the pot of aloe vera. It’d been something of an experiment, as such things didn’t tend to thrive in English soil, but she was determined to give it one more try in the house where the atmosphere was a little drier. Hopefully, she had time to get it inside for a triage, and return to tidy up the greenhouse and ready herself to face the day.

  Carrying it gingerly with both hands, Felicity rushed from the hothouse into the courtyard of Cresthaven Place, her family’s stately whinstone home in Mayfair. She found the courtyard entrance to the rear foyer locked.

  After recent events, she’d instructed her staff to keep all doors secured, and they must not have noticed she’d been outside.

  It pleased her, though, that someone remained vigilant.

  After knocking for several moments to no avail, she realized that the staff must be below stairs attending their own breakfast.

  Which meant she’d need to go to the front entrance and ring the bell to summon her butler, Mr. Bartholomew.

  Lifting her skirts, she scurried toward the deep courtyard arch— almost a tunnel— beneath which carriages passed through to unload their passengers away from the busy London streets.

  The iron gate stood open in anticipation of the day’s bevy of alarming traffic.

  A familiar sensation poured over her, one that had plagued her for several months now. It was different than her general sense of anxiety and unease. Indeed, her flesh warmed and the fine hairs on her body would lift to attention. Immediately an alarm trilled up her spine as if her back had been licked by a demon.

  She felt this sense most often at night, when she was alone. She’d go to her window and look out into the dark.

  And was haunted by the sense that the darkness stared back at her.

  Doing her best to ignore her trepidation, Felicity noted that one of the aloe leaves was broken, weeping its syrup-like substance. She balanced the pot in one hand and did her best to coax the bend of the branch back in without it snapping.

  It might have worked, had she not crashed headlong into the wall.

  The clay pot shattered upon the cobbles of her drive, leaving a strange little oblong mound of dirt upon which was strewn the single plant.

  It absurdly reminded Felicity of a tiny grave. She made a silly sound of amusement as she blinked down at it with something almost like relief.

  Well, there was no saving it now, and she was almost glad she didn’t have to expend the energy.

  She barely had any left.

  Just as she reached down to tidy the pottery shards, the wall moved.

  Felicity jumped back several paces, smothering a cry with her fingers as her brain slowly processed some facts she’d previously missed.

  Walls were not broad and warm and covered in wool. They didn’t smell of cedar chips and expensive tobacco.

  And they certainly didn’t have thick hair that gleamed like onyx glass.

  With a horrified squeak, Felicity retreated several more paces as the impossibly wide man turned to face her.

  He moved deliberately, she noticed, like a mountain or an ancient oak, as if taking care where he arranged his uncommon bulk in a world full of small and fragile things.

  Normally, Felicity would be frozen on the spot, her mouth open like a demented fish as she searched her blank thoughts for something, anything to say to a stranger in these awkward and embarrassing circumstances. She’d be wishing the tiny grave between them was big enough for her to disappear into.

  Perhaps forever.

  She’d berate herself for her blindness, her clumsiness, and her inarticulate nature.

  But something about the way the man stood in front of her, mute and quite unnaturally still, gave her the time to cobble a sentence together.

  It seemed he, too, was frozen in place, stymied into silence by her inelegance.

  “Oh, do forgive me for startling you, sir!” Though she’d put distance between them, she reached her hand toward him in a timeless gesture of mea culpa. “I wasn’t minding my step. Did I soil your coat? Did I cause you any harm?”

  She squinted over at him— or, rather, up at him— and yearned for her spectacles.

  Because of the extremity of her nearsightedness, she had to stand indecently close to people to make out their features without optical assistance.

  She’d have given anything for them now.

  As it was, she could make out no more than an impression of the man rather than an exact vision of him. He was all darkness and brawn, like a storm cloud of strength even in the rare brilliance of this morning. She found it difficult to distinguish between the sharp black of his suit and coat and that of his hair, which meant he kept it longer than was fashionable.

  His eyes were deep— too deep to ascertain color at this distance— his mouth charmingly crooked, his neck and jaw wide.

  Felicity wanted to step closer, to truly take the measure of him. But to do so, of course, to a man to whom she’d not been introduced, would be the height of impropriety.

  And people on this street watched her family for any misstep.

  Especially since the myriad of scandals recently heaped upon their good name.

  Upon the “Goode name,” as it were.

  “It is I who should beg your pardon.” His reply rumbled in fathomless echoes over the stones with a depth she’d rarely before encountered. His accent was measured and cultured and only a little… off? Like he’d spent some time elsewhere besides London, and it’d imbued his speech with the barest exotic tinge she couldn’t quite place. “I shouldn’t have been lurking in your archway.”

  “Not at all,” she rushed to soothe him. “I ran into you. I was trying to save my—” She gestured to the ruined aloe. “Well, it’s not important. A lost cause, that. I’m spared aggravation and failure by this collision. I really should be thanking you.”

  He assessed her for a moment longer than was appropriate.

  Felicity couldn’t read thoughts from his blurred features, but an air of expectancy hovered in the silence. As if he waited for her to say something in particular.

  She wished she knew what.

  Then it struck her, and she put her hand to her forehead in self-reproach. Of course, he was the first of her plethora of meetings today.

  “You’re early, I think.” She winced. “Or am I truly so late?” Her hand unconsciously reached for the timepiece on her bodice above her breast. Not finding it, she smoothed her palm down the line of her body. “My watch was somewhere— I swear I attached it to my apron when I— Oh drat! Have I lost it as well?”

  He distracted her with a strangled sound, something between a cough and a groan. Instead of replying, he sank to his haunches and reached as if to gather up the shards of clay pottery at his feet. “I’ll clear this and take my leave—”

  “On no, please do not bother.” She rushed forward and took his arm, tugging at it with both hands, gently urging him to stand.

  It didn’t escape her notice that she couldn’t span the thickness of his arm with both hands. Nor that the muscles hardened to granite at her touch.

  He didn’t look up at her.

  “This is easily swept into the bins,” she encouraged further. “Follow me inside and let us talk in the parlor.”

  She sensed hesitation in him, and she released his arm, dismayed at her breach in conduct right out in the open.

  Only when she gave him space did he stand, but he followed her as she led him to the front stoop.

  “I’m not usually so prone to clumsiness,” she lied, wondering at her innate need to explain her ineptitude to this stark and monumental stranger. “I’ve misplaced my spectacles somewhere in the g
lasshouse, you see, and I had an extra pair, but they were…” A wave of nerves gathered on the horizon, threatening to tumble over her, and she firmly forged on before it could wash her away. “Well, that story is rather why I’m in need of you.”

  “You need me to… help you find your spectacles?” He sounded genuinely baffled, and Felicity worried that he might be a little daft. His measured speech could connote a lack of cognition rather than an abundance of it.

  “Tell me, are you here in answer to my advertisements in the paper, or did one of your colleagues I contacted refer you to me?”

  “The paper…” His answer almost sounded like a question.

  But at least he was literate.

  Felicity climbed the eight steps to her grand door and pulled the bell that would summon her staff. “Did you bring references?” she queried, glancing back at him.

  He lingered on the walk, one foot cautiously landing on the bottom stair. His hand gripped one of the points of the wrought iron gate, and she wondered if he could simply snap it in twain.

  It was odd to have him looking up at her.

  His hand went to his pocket. “I— do not have references on me.”

  Something in his voice tugged at her heart. Beneath his almost absurd profusion of brawn. Beneath the innate malice that seemed to roll from his shoulders in palpable waves. Even beneath the shards of gravel and glass in his sonorous voice.

  Lingered a note she couldn’t define.

  It echoed from someplace so abysmal she might have imagined it. But to her, it felt like his every word— innocuous as they’d been— was laced with lament.

  With fathomless desolation.

  She had the strangest notion that this was quite possibly the loneliest creature she’d ever met.

  Felicity had always been aware of what a ridiculous human she was. And yet, she stood in front of a dangerous man, awash with the same feeling she suffered when Balthazar, her ancient Labrador, silently begged for scraps of her supper.

  “Do not let that distress you,” she rushed to appease him. “I’m forever forgetting or misplacing things. We can still have our interview and you can give me your papers at a later time.”