He waited until the gates clanged shut behind them, and the carriage wheels rattled back along the lane.
Only then did the pressure ease.
St. Alard’s Priory
Near Headley Heath, Surrey
The light was failing by the time Dominic reached St. Alard’s Priory, the last smear of sunset fading behind the black ribs of the broken nave. Autumn had crept in without permission; the air carried that thin, metallic chill that sharpened the lungs and stilled the blood.
He pictured Miss Harland beneath a blanket, chocolate warming her hands, her eyes lifted to a sky not yet dark enough for stars. Had this been a summons from the devil, he would have ignored it. But these men were not so easily dismissed. They were brothers by circumstance, not blood.
His boots struck old stone as he crossed into the roofless chapel. The saints had long since lost their faces, worn smooth by rain and neglect. Men were easier to trust when their virtues had eroded.
He wasn’t the first to arrive.
But they remained in the shadows, behind crumbling columns and fractured arches, standing among the ghosts of the past.
Saint-Clair would be the last to show himself. He was dead to anyone who had once known him by that name.
Not to Dominic. Nor to Montfort or Stanton.
This monthly meeting proved two things. The bond had not been severed. The oath was as strong as the day they made it. Eight years, and still the ton clung to the scandal like carrion birds to bone.
Seconds stretched.
Then he saw it—the glint of a coin in the darkness.Montfort moved without breath or footfall. Pale hair caught what little light remained. His expression was composed, almost scholarly, if one ignored the cold calculation in his eyes.
“You could divest a nun of her drawers and she’d be none the wiser,” Stanton said as he entered the chapel. The Devil of Fleet Street never minced words. His greatcoat hung open, inky hair falling across his brow, eyes sharp and appraising as a barrister sizing up a liar.
Montfort chuckled softly. “As a man devoted to facts, you should know they wear none. Did you not study liturgy?”
Dominic emerged from the shadows. “We were spared the refinements of Oxford, forced to make do with experience.”
“Oxford teaches more than refinements. How to creep past a snoring brute. How to refuse certain invitations after midnight.”
“How a tragedy can unite men as brothers,” came Saint-Clair’s voice from the dark. “Toss your coins on the ground, gentlemen. After all, what’s a pact without a little pomp and ceremony?”
Dominic cast his coin first. He had nothing to prove to these men.
Stanton flicked his with careless precision.
Montfort’s barely sounded as it landed near his boots.
Saint-Clair stepped into view, the gentleman they had hanged in all but name, composure polished to a dangerous sheen. He flipped his coin through his fingers as he had the day they were forged. “Veritas Vincit,” he said in his usual mocking tone. “Truth conquers. If only it could be relied upon.”
They all stared at their bronze discs. The wolf stamped into the metal was Saint-Clair’s idea, a reminder a man must be savage when protecting his own.
Daphne Harland slipped into his thoughts.
Irving was no different from the predators they’d once faced. And Dominic would not hesitate to bare his teeth.
“Business first,” Saint-Clair said.
These meetings always began with a report.
Stanton retrieved his coin and slid it into his waistcoat pocket. He raked a hand through hair as dark as Miss Harland’s. Dominic doubted it smelled of roses.
“There was a sighting of you on Hounslow Heath in last week’sSatirist. Lady Askew claimed you held up her coach and stole her diamond and demantoid garnet pendant.”
