Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

Dark eyebrows drew down in an expression of concern. “Is this a question of a medical nature?”

“No—” She paused. “Well, yes, actually. Maybe… sort of?”

Once again, she was struck by how tense Titus seemed as his gaze skipped around the office rather than landing on her. “A sensitive medical nature?” he asked uneasily.

“Well, I came by to visit someone— a patient— but I’m unable to find him.”

At that, Titus visibly relaxed. “To whom are you referring?”

Suddenly she felt rather itchy, and dug a finger into the tight coiffure beneath her hat to scratch at her scalp. “Um— please don’t think me too inappropriate— but I thought to sit a while with…” The name was difficult to say. It wasn’t the pronunciation she struggled with so much as the man who bore the name. He made her tongue feel heavy and unwieldy. “With Mr. Gabriel Sauvageau. I owe him my gratitude— or rather, I owe him my life. I understand he was injured during the violent chaos of the Midnight Masquerade at Killgore Keep whilst carrying me out of the fire. I was told he came here to seek treatment. I know it’s been several days, and I should have come to call upon him earlier but…”

Felicity looked down at the carpet and did her best to rein in her galloping heartbeats. To control the breaths that threatened to become impossible as a vise tightened around her rib cage. She’d been concussed after a strike from a villain had felled her on the grand staircase, but the real reason she couldn’t visit was because the world beyond her front doors had been too much to bear.

But she’d scraped her courage together today. And she’d been doing so well thus far. Could she not stave off the episode of terror just a while longer? Just until she discharged her duty and her conscience and thanked the man who saved her life.

A long, heavy sigh emptied Titus’s lungs.

“Felicity.” His eyes flicked down to the carpet, his expression troubled. “I’m sorry to tell you this but… Gabriel Sauvageau was shot by the villain Martin Trout. I… was unable to retrieve the bullet from his wound.”

That bit of new information not only slowed her heart but stalled it completely. She’d met Mr. Sauvageau all but twice, and somehow felt as if the news of his demise was a violent blow to the chest.

“What?” she gasped. “That can’t be. I was there when it happened! I— I distinctly remember watching Mr. Sauvageau walk away as if his injuries were not so serious… Did I not?”

Had she hallucinated?

After the murder of Mathilde Archambeau, a woman who’d come to her for help, Felicity had consented to join her sister Mercy at a Midnight Masquerade attended by London’s elite. Not only were peers in attendance eager to debauch themselves, but so were the wealthy merchant class and the darlings of the demimonde. Actresses, authors, and academics mingled with marquesses, madams, and merry widows of the haute ton.

That night, among revelers had also been the royalty of the underworld.

The most notorious of whom were the Sauvageau brothers, Raphael and Gabriel, leaders of the smuggling gang who identified themselves as the Fauves.

Raphael was the suave and carnally handsome rake, and his elder brother, Gabriel, was a leviathan of a man who’d been so thoroughly disfigured he wore a mask in public.

When he went into public, which was almost never.

Apparently the Sauvageau brothers had been planning to leave behind their lives of crime, and because of it, their second in command, Marco Villanueve, had quite violently turned on them.

In the resulting fracas, Marco had mistaken Felicity for her twin and had taken her hostage to use her against Raphael, who’d fallen in love with Mercy.

“I… remember the gunshot,” she breathed, walking through the terror of the moment in her mind. “Mr. Sauvageau did stumble and fall beneath the press of the panicking mob. But then he swept down the stairs and grappled with my captor, who sliced through his mask. I know I fainted after that… but there were moments of semiconsciousness where I remember being carried by Mr. Sauvageau through the burning building and out to the canal. I hear his voice in distant memory. I see his— his face.” She broke off, struggling over a difficult swallow.

“Surely he could not have carried me so far if he’d been fatally wounded.”

His face. His face had been the most terrible memory of all.

The poor man had no nose, no hair, an eye socket so damaged it barely deserved the term, and so many slices and scars on his face, it made speaking visibly difficult.

The sight had been horrific.

Heart-wrenching.

And cumulated with all of the horrors of the night, it’d been what brought on the infernal episode that’d overtaken her, and pulled her back beneath consciousness.

God, she was so ashamed of herself.

“Have I gone mad?” she whispered, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Did I imagine things?”

“You remember correctly,” Titus said gently. “Mr. Sauvageau did indeed conduct you to safety. But people are capable of doing remarkable things in remarkable situations. Things that even seem inhuman or extraordinary. More often than not, pushing oneself like that when injured… it takes its toll.”

Felicity covered her mouth. “Titus. Do you… do you think he might have survived if he hadn’t expended the effort to save me?”

Titus bucked his hip away from the desk and settled two careful hands on her shoulders. “Dear Felicity…” He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Things would not have ended any differently for Gabriel Sauvageau regardless of the circumstances. It’s commendable what he did for you. I— I know he doesn’t— he wouldn’t— regret it.”

Troubled, Felicity bit her cuticle. “Do you know where he’s buried? At the very least I could pay my respects. Or make certain his headstone is properly done. Or perhaps plant something there in his memory.”

“I don’t. I could make inquiries.”

“I’d appreciate that very much,”