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

withering glare. “None of us knew his existence would mean a jot to you, nor that you would end up so scantily clad with him in the middle of the night.”

Felicity wrenched away from her sister, her fists balled tight and her face breaking out in a bloom of angry red. “I was the only one of you who didn’t know? You— my own twin sister! My closest confidant. You kept it from me?”

“Only to protect you,” Gabriel blurted, suddenly able to crawl out of the tar pit of guilt that’d nearly dragged him under.

She whirled on him. “I don’t need protection.”

He pressed his lips closed, knowing that now wasn’t the time to disagree.

Her expression flattened as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I realize I hired you for your protection physically. But I don’t need to be protected from information, is what I meant.”

“But, Felicity.” Mercy stepped forward, her hands reaching out in a penitent gesture. “You’d just been through something so traumatizing. The fire at the Midnight Masquerade. Being shot at, kidnapped, and attacked. The subsequent head wound. We didn’t want to burden your delicate constitution with anything that might add to your fear.”

Gabriel wished she’d yell. That she’d lose her temper and throw things, berate and abuse them; it was what he deserved. Instead, her shoulders sagged and bitter tears sprang to her eyes.

“I know I am always afraid,” she said in a voice all the more devastating for its softness. “But that doesn’t mean I cannot be brave. I fear the unknown most of all. It is a cruelty to keep me in the dark. I thought you knew that, Mercy.”

She whirled away from her sister before she had to endure an explanation or an apology, pinning Gabriel with her pain.

“I— I mourned you.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it. “I planted a flower for you in there, and tended it in your name. What a gullible, infantile fool you must think I am. A complete idiot.”

He stepped forward. “Felicity, I—”

“How did I not know? Where is your accent?”

Deflating, he decided that from there on out, he’d never again tell her a lie. “I practiced an English accent while I was recovering from all the surgeries… I couldn’t sound like myself if my identity were to change.”

She nodded as if she understood, though the look of pure misery threatened to crush him into the dirt before she covered her face with her hands in mortification. “We would have… You were going to… And I didn’t even know your real name.”

“Felicity…” He reached for her, but she shrank away.

“I can’t look at you. At any of you…” She shoved past him, fleeing into the house.

All three of them flinched as the door clicked shut. She’d not even slammed it. It wasn’t her way.

Something inside of Gabriel hollowed out. His life had been a slog through so much gore and horror and inhumanity. People had been afraid of him, spat at him, humiliated and reviled him.

But not until today had he ever felt small.

Raphael stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. “What are you doing here, Gabriel? With her?”

Mercy marched around to face them both, looking like a furious school mistress. “Are you lovers?” she demanded, her eyes sweeping over his state of dishabille.

Gabriel was not in the habit of explaining himself, but in this case, he knew one was owed. “We are not lovers.”

“That’s not what it looks like.”

“We kissed, that is all.”

“What did she mean about protection?”

Right, her letter would not have reached them in Iceland, if they’d decided to sail home.

“Someone left a threatening letter in the house, and she was accosted in the streets a few weeks ago, so she hired me— well, Gareth Severand— as a personal guard.”

“Who accosted her?” Increasingly distressed, Mercy paced this way and that. “Who sent the letter? What did it say? No one knew of this!”

Gabriel sprang to her defense. “She wrote to Reykjavík to tell you. But Sir and Lady Morley were in France, and she didn’t want to visit her troubles on Conleith and his wife, who I understand is suffering a difficult pregnancy. So, while she was left to her own devices by her family, to select a husband from the twats in the ton, she put an advertisement in the paper through a security service.”

“And you answered it?” Raphael asked quietly, understanding dawning in his eyes. “To protect her.”

Gabriel dragged a hand over his tense features. “I was— in the neighborhood and she assumed I was one of the applicants. She hired me on sight, but she did not recognize me. I… thought it would be safer if I did not divulge my identity.”

“Safer for whom, exactly?” Mercy snapped.

“My plan was to leave when I— removed the threat, and she’d be none the wiser.” He sent Raphael a grave look. “We were attacked last week at a ball. I… I fought Honeycutt and Smythe.”

“You gutted them, I hope.” Mercy sliced right through his attempt at discretion for her sake.

“I crushed them, and we were long gone before questions were asked. No one would even look in Felicity’s direction.”

“You don’t think Marco is sending old Fauves after you?” Raphael queried.

“I don’t see how.” Gabriel blew out a breath. “But I’ve been wondering the same thing. If he didn’t before, he might now, as I’ve made a few inquiries. I refuse to sit and wait for the next attack. I’ll bring the war to him, if that is the case.”

Raphael shook his head, squeezing at tension in the back of his neck. “How would Marco Villanueve even know we’re alive, let alone that you’ve been watching Felicity?”

“What do you mean watching her?” Mercy’s eyes narrowed on her husband, then turned on Gabriel, flaring with temper. “In the area, were you? Have you had designs on Felicity all this time? Have you been lurking about, waiting for the chance to swoop in on her affections and seduce a sweet, vulnerable,