Untouchable.
Northwoods, on the other hand…
For the first time, Malum allowed himself to consider the possibility that the plain-looking earl wasn’t as hapless as he seemed.
“Was anyone hurt?” Westcott asked, his voice uncharacteristically solemn.
“Not as far as I’ve heard,” Helton said. “But…” His voice trailed off. “What the hell is that?”
Another darker plume was beginning to rise, this one more distant…
In the vicinity of Regent Street.
SOMETHING VALUABLE
Melanie struggled to steady herself, clinging to the last thread of her composure as the Duke of Crossings loomed before her.
“This is… highly improper, Your Grace,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat. “You have no business in my chamber. I must insist you leave at once.”
Crossings responded by closing the door behind him instead, and then he stepped forward. “Now, now, my dear lady,” he drawled in a patronizing tone. “Let’s not pretend you’re in a position to give orders.” He gestured vaguely toward her hands. “Just give me what is mine, and this need not go any further.”
“These were my father’s.” Melanie’s fingers curled tightly around the bundle of letters. “You need to go,” she insisted, though her voice wavered with the weight of her rising fear.
Crossings shook his head, a slow, condescending motion that made her stomach flip.
Melanie’s heart thudded wildly and she did the only thing she could think of. She opened her mouth and cried out, “Mr. Chesterfield! Help me! Please!”
She would have moved toward the door, but the duke was blocking it.
“Your Mr. Chesterfield has been called away,” he said, his tone almost pitying. He huffed a short laugh, satisfied smile stretching wide. “Amazing what a ten-pound note can purchase these days…”
Her pulse raced, but the anger coursing through her veins was turning into something sharper, hotter than her fear. How dare he think he can wander about her home as though it was his. How dare he invade her personal chamber!
She clutched the bedpost in one hand, the letters in the other.
Crossings gestured toward the bundle. “You know,” he continued, his voice taking on a chillingly conversational tone. “I sent someone else to recover those for me. What a mess that turned out to be.”
With striking clarity, Melanie understood just what he was saying, like the missing piece to a puzzle she hadn’t even known she’d been trying to assemble. Crossings had sent someone after the letters her father had given her the night that he’d died, and when that someone had failed to retrieve them…
Melanie’s breath caught. “The fire,” she said, her voice shaking with outrage. “You caused it. You killed my family for…” Her gaze dropped to the papers in her trembling hands. Could it really be? “For a few letters?”
But even as she asked, Melanie knew the answer. If Crossings wanted these letters so badly, they had to be damning. Damning enough for him to bribe her mother’s butler. To hide in her house and then follow her into her chamber.
And if that was true? They might also finally clear her brother. Clear him of the suspicions that had haunted him ever since the day he’d inherited a title he never should have had.
Knowing that, she couldn’t simply surrender them.
Crossings cocked his head, his smirk as cruel as it was indifferent. “A few letters,” he repeated mockingly. “Those fewletters could have saved them. If you’re a smart girl, you’ll use them to save yourself.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew something black and silver, unmistakable in both weight and purpose. The pistol seemed as out of place in her chamber as Crossings himself.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, leveling the weapon at her chest. “Just hand them over.”
Melanie didn’t move except to tighten her grip on the letters, the sharp edges of the paper biting into her palms.
The duke’s eyes narrowed, and he gave the pistol a menacing wave, as if to remind her of its weight, but then he froze.
His brows furrowed at the same moment the acrid scent reached her nose.
