“Good riddance!” a parrot screeched.
“Be quiet, Figaro.” She didn’t share the bird’s sentiment. She wanted to trust the marquess. The title, the wealth, the comfort of a grand house meant nothing. But she would sell her soul for a measure of peace.
Instead, she would spend her life looking over her shoulder, with nowhere to call home, no way of discovering why the past still haunted?—
A sudden thud of hooves on the lane shattered the thought. Her heart leapt to her throat. Had the marquess returned, unwilling to accept her refusal?
Hope guttered like a dying candle as she strained to see through the blackness, catching only a glimpse of a chestnut horse passing beneath a sliver of moonlight.
The rider kept his gaze ahead and continued on, swallowed by the night. The silence that followed pressed all the heavier, and she wished she wasn’t so alone.
Last night she might have settled in the chair, believing herself safe. Tonight, fear stood at her shoulder, and she reached for the pistol on the mantel instead of the blanket.
Dread knotted in her stomach. She crept to the front door and scattered tacks along the threshold, as she had done every night since the first attack at her lodging house in Clerkenwell.
She knew what the blackguard wanted. The valise. He would fight to the death for it, but she had hidden it in the one place no mortal man dared to venture.
Instinct made her snuff out the candle and move cautiously to the window, keeping to the edges of the room. Her senses betrayed her: the rustle of leaves became footsteps, the groan of boughs became the creak of the back door.
Then the darkness shifted beyond the gate—subtle at first, but the shadow thickened to flesh before her eyes. A figureemerged from the night: tall, athletic, dressed head to toe in black. A beaked half-mask hid all but his mouth and the hard line of his jaw.
He had come.
Her faceless pursuer.
The devil who haunted her dreams and every waking hour between.
She turned to the African greys, resting quietly on their perch, and whispered, “It’s time for the play to begin. The countess will care for you now.”
At the clap of her hands, the birds broke into chorus, shrieking every phrase they had ever learned. “Time for an encore. Take a bow. Who’s there? Close the door. Hush now.” On and on they went as she slipped out through the back door and hurried down the garden path, every step mapped in her mind.
The graveyard loomed ahead, an eerie wilderness of stone crosses and moss-cloaked memorials. She passed through the rusty iron gate, opened earlier to silence its groan, and entered the domain of the dead.
The air smelled of damp earth and decay, yet tonight it was her sanctuary. She made for the mausoleum, its crumbling grandeur rising like a forgotten Roman temple, and hid behind a column. A line from Shelley came to her:here peace dwelled, wrapped in silence. A reminder there was nothing to fear. At least, not until the devil’s call sliced through the chill night air.
“I know you’re out here.” The gate creaked, then came the measured clip of boots on the cobbled path, the cold click of his hammer. “This time, there’ll be no second chances. There was nothing but pauper’s paste in your box of jewels.”
She remained as still as those in the coffins, head bent, breathing into her chest to avoid the telltale mist in the air.
“Give me what I want, and I’ll let you live.” The voice came from her left. No, from her right. It was impossible to tell. “I know you have it.”
The irony was that she didn’t know what trinket he sought among those packed into the old leather valise. She suspected he didn’t either. The thought chilled her to the bone. What if the thing he wanted wasn’t there and he hunted her forevermore?
The sudden crack of a twig confirmed he was close.
What to do? Run? Remain rooted? Pray?
Her mind raced through every scenario, but a shadow lunged from the right. A gloved hand seized her wrapper, yanking hard, dragging her onto the path.
Her pistol discharged amid the panic, the deafening clap ringing in her ears as the shot went wide. The acrid swirl of smoke and sulphur did nothing to deter her attacker. He wrenched the weapon from her hand, flinging it aside, then closed his fingers around her throat.
“Tell me where it is.” The reek of liquor filled her nose as he squeezed tighter, thumbs pressing on her windpipe. “I know he gave it to you.”
Desperation gave her strength. She would not die here. Not tonight. She twisted, driving her knee into his groin and wrenching herself free.
He let out a guttural cry, doubling over, and she stumbled to her feet and ran. Branches tore at her sleeves. She slipped on mossy stones, but the gate gaped ahead, and beyond stretched the dark lane.
A sinister laugh followed. “There’s nowhere to run. Saveyour legs and your breath. I’ll wring the truth from you, even if it takes until morning.”
