“I’m sorry,” Elspeth whispered. “Please forgive me.”
Then she snapped Evangeline’s neck.
Raindrops had begun to spatter the cobblestones on New Oxford Street when Dominic called, “Here! His trail leads here!”
They had traced Laurent’s scent out of the East End and through London to St. Giles. The skies were opening. If they lost the trail…
Kendrick ran after him, but by the time he had made it to the vacant house, Dominic had already forced open the door. They rushed inside.
The house was empty, its inhabitants fled—except for the body of a woman lying on the floor. Kendrick swore once, bitterly. He could hear no heartbeat, no breath.
Scanning the room, he could identify Laurent’s scent, as well as that of Oxley, the lackey he had encountered in the Ossuary—and one more presence.
Elspeth Gibbins.
“Laurent is Elspeth’s master,” Kendrick muttered.Damn. He hadn’t seen it.
Dominic crouched over the body. “Elspeth’s scent is here,” he said.
Kendrick stared around the room. The patter of raindrops would increase into a downpour in another minute. “Leave the body. Let’s follow their scents as far as we can?—”
“No!” Dominic burst out, his eyes flashing red.
His objection startled them both.
“She is not dead,” Dominic continued in a rough voice.
“Dominic,” Kendrick began, not sure if this had reopened his friend’s wound of grief.
“There is blood here,” he said harshly. “Elspeth’s blood. And the woman’s neck is broken. If I had to guess—Laurent has been manipulating Elspeth through the blood bond.”
“And ordered Evangeline’s death?” Kendrick crouched to examine the scene and mulled that over. “And in a fit of defiance?—”
“We won’t know until Evangeline wakes,” Dominic said, turning back to the woman and carefully gathering her in his arms. He made sure to tuck her head into the curve of his neck.
“Are you sure she will?”
“What was it you said?” Dominic said, raising a sardonic eyebrow. “‘We hope until we find evidence to the contrary’?”
The rain drummed on the roof and found its way between loose and missing shingles to drip down into the house. The trickle had become a deluge, and the trail likely diluted or washed away altogether now.
Kendrick nodded. “Let us go, then. I shall pass the word to the searchers to be on the lookout for Elspeth, if they cannot find Laurent’s trail.” This would hurt Genevieve—badly. His face set in grim lines, he pushed himself to his full height.
“We’ll go to my house,” Dominic said, standing with his limp burden in his arms. He held her close, a protective stance.
Kendrick watched him closely but said nothing as they stepped out into the freezing rain that washed away the muck of London and any hope of finding Laurent that night.
Genevieve dragged herself up the stairs of Fernside, her cloak waterlogged and freezing rivulets of water sliding down her collar as the rain continued to fall. She felt like a drowned rat. If the temperature dropped any lower, the downpour would turn to icy sleet, and she’d be a frozen rat. Genevieve had hunted over much of the East End that night with Joseph as her searching partner, searching for Laurent’s scent trails, going to any locations she recalled him frequenting. But they had found neither hide nor hair of Laurent or any of his cronies, and now, just before dawn, she felt bedraggled and discouraged.
What was she to tell August and June? Dominic’s butler opened the door and ushered Joseph and her inside, taking their miserably soaked outer garments.
“Madam, your husband requested I alert him when you arrived,” the butler said quietly.
“He’s back already?” Genevieve asked, surprise pulling her from her blue-deviled humors. “Where is he?”
“He is below in the cellars with Mr. Penrose. May the staff and I offer a hot brick or a change of clothes?—”
“No, no, that can wait,” Genevieve said. “I’ll go down, if you’ll point me towards the door? Oh—how are the children?”
