“I don’t think so.” He drew out a knife, his boyish features as menacing as the glinting edge. “I have no problem getting through you…by any means necessary.”
He attacked, his blade coming at her in a lethal arc. She dodged and spun, slamming her elbow into his ribs. He howled with pain but came at her again. This time she went low, kicking out and knocking him off his feet. He landed on his back, his blade skittering from his grasp.
She kicked the weapon aside and came toward him, fists raised.
Moaning, he said, “Bloody hell, I give up…”
“You should have done so in the first place,” she said.
She glanced over at Ben, making sure he didn’t need her help, and that was her mistake. Bollinger leapt up with startling speed, plowing into her with vicious force. She hurtled backward through the air. Her spine hit the railing, and a loud crack filled her ears. Suddenly, she was falling into space. She reached out wildly, her fingers somehow grabbing onto the edge of the floor. She held on desperately, dangling four stories above the ground, unable to pull herself up.
She was afraid to move, to even cry for help.
“Hold on, Livy. I’m coming!”
Ben’s voice reached her like a lifeline. Reminded her of everything that she had to fight for. She concentrated on following his command, battling gravity’s powerful pull with everything she had left. She heard shouts and thumps and didn’t know if seconds or hours passed as she clung on. As her fingers began to slip, Ben was there. He grabbed her wrists and hauled her to safety, dragging her away from the edge.
“You’re safe.” His arms closed around her like a vise. “I’ve got you.”
She clung to him, drawing deep breaths until her tremors subsided.
When she was sufficiently recovered, she peered around his shoulder. The servant lay unconscious on the ground. And Bollinger…he was lying on his back as well. His eyes were open, his blade protruding from his chest.
“He grabbed his knife and tried to kill me. We fought. I won,” Ben said flatly.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
He stared at her. “You were dangling four stories above the ground, and you’re askingmeif I am all right?”
She gave him a shaky smile. “Thank you for saving me. Again.”
“I had no choice.” He tucked a loose tendril behind her ear. “Since you told me there was no longer a debt between us, I had to find a new way to bind you to me.”
“Wouldn’t marriage vows suffice just as well?” she said with a muffled laugh.
“With you, they will.” The teasing light left his eyes, replaced by heart-fluttering intensity. “I love you, Livy, and I’m ready to start our happily ever after.”
“I want that more than anything,” she whispered.
As their lips met in a tender kiss that heralded new beginnings, the voices of Angels—Fiona and Glory, that was—floated through the building.
39
Three days later, Ben was getting ready to call upon Livy and the Strathavens, who’d returned from Scotland, when Beatrice arrived unexpectedly. He received his sister in the drawing room. Dressed in a gown that matched her eyes, she was as beautiful and remote as always. As they drank tea in painful silence, he racked his brain for some way to break the tension.
He had been planning to call upon her. He’d put it off because he hadn’t known what he would say. He’d feared that the visit would play out the way it always did…the way it was doing so now.
He said awkwardly, “How are Murray and the children?”
“They are fine.” She took a breath. “But I didn’t come for chitchat. The truth is…I am here to apologize.”
Ben assumed that she’d been reading the papers. Since Bollinger’s death, the police had started conducting an investigation based on the testimony and evidence that Ben had provided. They’d brought Stamford in for questioning, and he had sung like a bird. His account corroborated the theory of events Ben and the Angels had cobbled together.
Masquerading as Fong, Bollinger had contacted Longmere, the most impressionable of the group. Longmere had recruited the others, who were all desperate for money…and for the thrill of the forbidden. Bollinger had read his cronies like a book, using the guise of a “mystical Chinaman” and clandestine games to further entice the Horsemen into doing his bidding. Stamford recalled the group’s excitement over the arrival of the riddle with the delivery places; Bollinger had been the one to solve it when the others failed to do so.
After learning that two of his clients—Baron Winford and John Hagan—had died because of the drug, Longmere had begun to panic. He’d told the group he wanted out and was found dead shortly after.
Before his death, Longmere had shared his suspicions with Stamford: he thought all was not what it seemed with the mysterious Fong. The drug supplier knew too much about the group…as if he were an insider. After Longmere’s demise and the death of one of his own clients, Stamford got cold feet and tried to distance himself from the group. He claimed that he had no idea that the Devil’s Bliss was lethal and that he would have never gotten involved if he’d known.
