“I know it’s you under that veil, Mary.”
He reached for it, and Mary gave full rein to the panic seeing him had induced inside her. Dropping the weapon, she pushed him with all her weight. He grunted and stumbled back, then tripped and fell onto his bottom. Mary ran.
She could form no rational thought but one. Flee! She sprinted down the path. To her horror, the hackney was rolling away. Gripping handfuls of her cloak and skirt, she ran as fast as she could.Home,she had to reach her home. She’d be safe there. Zachariel Deville could not get to her. Could not ask her why she was here.
“Faster, Mary,” she urged herself on.
The thud of feet in the distance told her he was following. Zach would want answers, and she had no intention of giving them. He would demand she stop doing what she did. Demand she go back to being the lady he thought she should be. Her life started when she joined Alexius. No one was taking that from her.
“Mary, stop!”
She darted left and across the street. The lamps here silhouetted her. She needed darkness. Wrenching off the hat and veil so she could see clearly, she ran on, ignoring the pain in her side and gasps coming out her mouth. Mary saw it then, a narrow lane between two buildings, of which there were many in London. Ducking down, she looked for a place to hide. Somewhere to wait until he stopped searching for her.
She could not hope to outrun him. He was bigger and stronger.
Hauling in a deep breath, she saw the stairs up the side of the building. Seconds later, Mary was climbing as fast as she could. Reaching the first level breathless, she then crouched low and tried to calm her breathing.
She focused on what Monty had taught her. Inhale and exhale slowly. Don’t think about the angry Deville below. She wanted to peer down but didn’t move. Stayed curled in a ball and focused on not making a noise.
Zach being at the church was the confirmation she needed that he was indeed part of Alexius, and it was likely that he now knew she was too and that she was Madame Lucienne. Or was him being there tonight just a coincidence?
Don’t be a fool, Mary. You know he knows, and now you have to work out what to do.How to avoid talking to him and having him tell her she couldn’t do what she loved. That he might even tell her family and the trouble that would plunge her into.
Frustration and fear competed inside her, and she bit back the tears.
I’m strong and will deal with this. He is not taking Alexius from me.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Zach had lost precious seconds after Mary pushed him over. That little shrew had taken him by surprise, but that would not happen again. Pocketing her pistol, he’d followed.
She was part of Alexius. The thought was so unbelievable he couldn’t grasp it. She was Madame Lucienne and plunging recklessly into danger every time she left the house at night.
He sprinted after her down the street. She was fast and had a good head start on him.
“Mary, stop!”
She didn’t, of course, but he’d had to try. She ran across the road, and Zach lost sight of her. He followed and then slowed so he was not making a noise. Walking softly, he searched for the woman he was going to throttle when he got hold of her.
She wasn’t running now. He’d have heard her footsteps as the street was quiet at this time of night. She had to be close.
Just thinking about her out here alone made his body turn to ice. Anything could happen.
He’d sent the note in Geraint’s name because he’d needed a definitive answer to her being part of Alexius. He got it when he’d watched her leave her house dressed in that cloak and veil.
Zach had still had a niggle of doubt until that moment. He’d wanted to be wrong. Now he knew he wasn’t.
He’d shadowed her to the hackney and then hailed one and followed her to the church. Fueled with rage, he’d walked up the stone path he’d trodden many times with his brothers and found her knocking on the door.
“Where are you?” he whispered into the dark.
She’d clearly found somewhere to hide, knowing that when he caught her he’d start yelling.
Mary would think that if she could reach the safety of her home, then he would not make a scene because the next time he saw her she’d be surrounded by family or friends, which she would endeavor to do from now on.
She was wrong. He would be making a scene, but it would be tonight. First he had to find her because being a woman alone out here was dangerous.
Where was she?
