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

Gareth wanted to correct her, but couldn’t bring himself to naysay a kind widow.

His heart had been hard for as long as he could remember. Hard and cold and withered.

“Thank you.” He lingered at the banister at the bottom of the stairs, studying Mrs. Pickering for a moment. If she had anything to do with the nefarious goings on in this house, he’d never trust his instincts again. “If you had to guess how poison could have made it to the kitchens, who would you say was the likely culprit?”

The woman’s dark eyes misted with remorse. “Can’t imagine a one of us doing such a thing. Especially to poor Miss Felicity. Ask any of us and you’ll get the same answer; whoever hurts that angel of a girl deserves to go to the devil.”

“In that we agree.” He turned to climb the stairs.

“Mr. Severand?” Mrs. Pickering called after him.

“Yes?”

“Thank you… for keeping her safe. I wish she could find a man like you rather than those dandies her father would have her stuck with. The two of you would be a right blessing of a master and mistress.”

Gabriel snorted. “You and I both know I’m not worthy enough to lick her boots, Mrs. Pickering.”

“That’s part of why you’re ideal.” She made a caustic gesture. “Most men think they’re God’s gift to women, when it’s actually the other way around. Someone should be so lucky to catch her heart, and that heart was in her eyes when she looked at you tonight.”

He wished she wouldn’t have said that. “You know that if she took up with a man like me, she’d lose everything. You, this house, her security.” Her innocence, what fragile peace of mind she possessed, her reputation and good name. Possibly even her soul. “Good night, Mrs. Pickering.”

“Goodnight, lad.” She sighed, before her words followed him up the stairs. “These Goode girls have all learned that some things are worth giving up…”

He didn’t reply, merely climbed the endless stairs to the third floor with heavy steps.

Not for the likes of me.

Chapter 12

The creak of a floorboard tore Gabriel from a troubled sleep.

Bolting upright, he listened to the dark. Seconds ticked by in silence, and just as he’d begun to wonder if the sound had been in his dreams, he alerted to movement on the stairs.

Leaping up, he pulled on his trousers, punched his fists into a shirt, and seized his pistol.

When Gabriel killed, he’d rather the death be silent. And wet. But he would take no chances with her life, when swift and lethal violence might be more efficient.

Pressing his ear to the door, he heard nothing on the other side, so he burst out and drew down one length of the hall, then the other.

All was silent and still.

He went to her room. Hesitated, and then remembered that hesitation got people killed.

Bursting in, he found her bedsheets rumpled.

And empty.

“Felicity?” He searched every dark corner of her room. In the wardrobe. Checked the windows, finding them locked.

The sound of a door echoed from downstairs.

He leapt into the hall and flew down the staircase in time to see the edges of light disappear from the back of the house. Spinning toward the hallway, he spied a tiny glow in the courtyard through the glass panes in the back entry. He reached the courtyard in seconds.

The glow had dimmed, now that it was contained within the glasshouse.

A lone lantern cast vague shadows of leaves and blooms on the cobbles, interrupted by the motions of a girl in a white nightgown.

Lowering his weapon, Gabriel looked up to see flashes of Felicity as she fluttered around the greenhouse like a trapped butterfly.

When he wrenched open the door, she whirled, eyes wide with a terror he’d never before seen, brandishing a trowel at him as if it were a rapier.

Relieved to find her alone, he stepped inside, the flagstones cool beneath his bare feet.

He pinpointed the moment she recognized him through eyes made opaque by whatever awful force held her in thrall. Breathing as if she’d run a league at full tilt, she dropped the sharp garden instrument and bent over, resting her palms on her knees.

Gabriel went to her, discarding his pistol on the orderly workbench behind her. “What’s wrong. What happened?”

“I can’t breathe. I can’t… I’m…” She shuddered and sank to her knees, trembling and sweating and gulping for air.

Catching her by the shoulders, he followed her down, supporting her weight. “Did you take something? Eat something? Are you ill?”

“No,” she gasped. “No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I— I’m broken. Please leave me. It will pass.”

It will pass. She’d said that in the gardens.

His heart rate slowed several degrees as he realized she didn’t fight a seizure, an injury, or a toxin.

Only her own demons.

She’d told him she had episodes of terror, but he’d never imagined they could be so powerful as this.

She surged against him, burrowing into his chest like a kitten seeking warmth, and he could do nothing but curl his body around her, creating a shelter.

“You are safe. I have you.” He cupped her head to his chest with one hand, the other spanning her trembling spine. “Slow your breath.”

“I can’t,” she gasped. “My skin is on fire and my limbs are so cold. My throat will close, I feel it. Oh, God.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he soothed, watching the pulse jump in her neck like a caged hummingbird. “Just breathe with me.” He deliberately expanded his ribs, then contracted them, urging her to do the same.

At first, her inhales were wobbly. Hitching and much too fast, but she did as he bade her to do. She focused. And after several silent minutes, her breaths matched the rhythm of his with only a few hiccups.

The tremors in her limbs gentled and she melted against him in a boneless drape of exhaustion.

“There now,” he said. “Do you want to tell me what frightened you? Was it a nightmare?”

“I don’t