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

The horse snorted and started before trotting back out the archway and into the London night.

“Holy Moses,” she finally managed.

Propelling her toward the house, he wrenched open the door— this time unlocked— and roughly pulled her inside, slamming it behind him and throwing the latch.

“We— I— you…” She’d begun trembling in earnest now, unable to stop the deep tide of horror that threatened to tumble her beneath the waves. “We should summon someone— the police? What are you doing?”

His hands were on her, roughly turning her this way and that. “Did they hurt you? Did anything touch you?” He tested her joints and what he could see of her skin, inspecting her like some sort of rag doll.

“No,” she answered immediately, then took a moment to really examine her own body, to clench and unclench each muscle. “No. You never let them get close enough to touch me. But, Gareth… your head.”

Oh no, she felt another swoon come on… or perhaps worse.

She clapped a hand over her mouth.

Blood seeped down the brutal planes of his face from a gash near his hairline. He reached up to touch it and seemed surprised to find the wound.

“I’d forgotten,” he said by way of disgruntled explanation.

She whirled away from him, lurching in his grasp, grateful he didn’t let her go. A second hand joined the first over her mouth as dark spots crept into her vision.

“Miss Felicity?” Mr. Bartholomew and Mrs. Pickering rushed from below stairs, the plump housekeeper reaching for Felicity. “Dear God, child, what’s happened?”

She pointed back at Gareth, the tears streaming from her eyes because of her physical reaction to the blood rather than any sort of emotional distress. “He’s hurt,” she croaked, hoping they’d help him.

“Mr. Bartholomew, you must send for the carriage,” Gareth said as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s still on Barclay Street and must be retrieved quickly. It is imperative that we appear to have left with the rest of the crowd.”

“Bodies!” Mrs. Pickering exclaimed.

“They… they tried to kill me.” There’d been blood spilled in the dark. Her own rushed around, threatening to drown her.

“Who tried to kill you?”

“Hired thugs.” Pulling a handkerchief from his coat, Gareth pressed it to the cut above his eye, bracing against her stumble. “Take her,” he commanded.

Mrs. Pickering’s pillowy arms surrounded Felicity, and she sagged against the woman, fighting to remain conscious. “She’s right, Mr. Severand. You are bleeding rather a lot. Should I call for a doctor?”

“Care for your mistress,” he clipped. “Get her out of that corset so she can breathe properly, and find a cold rag to put to her head. I’ll tend to my own wound.”

“Yes, sir.”

Felicity wanted to call to him as he took the stairs more than two at a time, seeming to escape her without a second glance. Oh, that she could go with him, that she could clean his wounds and stitch him back together.

Why must her body be so treacherous? So weak?

“Do you think they were after you, specifically, Miss Felicity?” the housekeeper asked as she guided her through the house.

“We’ll never know,” she murmured. “Someone threw a knife. He… Mr. Severand. He fought them, he…”

He’d killed them all. In front of her. Two of them with his bare hands. Well… boot, in one case.

He’d done it for her.

“Thank God he was there,” Mrs. Pickering exclaimed. “Thank God. If something happened to you, Miss Felicity, our hearts would be fair broken.”

“Thank you.” Now that the storm had passed. That she was safe in her home, her bones began to quake, and her teeth chattered as the imprint from his body faded.

They’d been after her. Somehow, she knew it. Once again this seemed more like a targeted attack than simple random violence.

So who had known she’d be at the ball? Who had the motive to do something so terribly violent as to send three men with sharp knives and clear intent?

“Let’s get you some brandy and put you in a nightgown.” Mrs. Pickering helped her up the stairs toward her bedroom.

Felicity peeked at the dark doorframe of the washroom behind which she could hear water running from the pumps.

Gareth. “Someone needs to tend to him.”

“A hero, he is,” Mrs. Pickering agreed. “I was dubious about him at first, but I’m glad you followed your intuition and hired the man. He’ll find the brigand behind this.”

Suddenly, Felicity felt sorry for the brigand.

Lord, he’d been such a gentle giant until now, she sometimes let herself forget what she’d hired him to do. He was a man who, by his own admission, claimed violence as his only skill.

He’d conducted that violence efficiently tonight without constraint or hesitation. Seemingly without thought.

Without remorse.

In fact, she recalled the look of savage triumph as he’d crushed the third villain’s skull before the knife aimed at her breast could let fly.

What sort of life must he have lived to amass such expertise? To kill with such ease?

To kiss with such soul-melting tenderness.

A paradox was Gareth Severand.

One she should have feared after such a display.

But she didn’t.

Now what she feared was being without him.

Chapter 8

Gareth swiped a towel over his bloodied face before throwing it into the laundry heap. He paced the expansive washroom floor for several minutes, maybe longer.

He knew the room was tiled in handsome blues and greens, with white marble floors beneath the ornate copper tub.

But he could see none of that through the mien of red.

The bloodlust refused to retract. His muscles remained engorged with violence, with the pure, carnal familiarity he had with it.

He’d killed.

He’d enjoyed it. He wanted to bring those men to life and do it again. Oh, but he’d take his time with them if he had his druthers. He’d baptize them in pain and blood before he sent them to face their eternal reckoning.

His only solace was knowing that he’d meet them in hell, and then he’d teach the devil a thing or two about punishment.

They knew better than to challenge him. At least, two