“You’ll find, my darling woman, that I am a man of many faces, many disguises. It is my specialty.” He grinned. “That, and a few others.”
He’d impersonated a footman and tried to kill Lord Quickner? Even if she believed something so unlikely, there was no reason. “Why?”
“He interrupted our walk.”
Did he mean that time they’d met at the lake? The depth of her situation set in.
Her brain stalled for time to come up with a plan. “Why did you want me away from them?” she asked carefully.
His face brightened. “I have a gift for you.”
The change in subject threw her. “A... gift?”
The spark in his eye was terrifying. “I saved the best for last.”
With a flourish, he bent down and opened the drawstring of the bag at his feet, revealing a body stuffed unnaturally inside. A dead body.
Hawkins.
The cuts across his face and throat were vicious, but the angles and depth were a perfect match for two others Camille would never forget. Terror leeched the warmth from her body. “Youkilled Flank and Grey?”
Nic turned Hawkins’s face towards him with the toe of his boot. “They were in the way. This one kept spouting how he would get revenge for his men. He thought to lure you here and make you suffer. Hawkins never even considered it was someone else picking off his friends.” He shook his head, his gaze sliding over her like snakes in the grass. “Mindless idiot. To think someone as perfect and righteous as you would need to lower yourself to wash your hands in their blood.”
He’d been the one hurting people the entire time. The one stalking her. Her thoughts blurred with focused anger. “You went after Syd.” Seeing how crazy the man in front of her was, she didn’t believe for a second the man hadn’t meant for Syd to fall. Near splattered her friend on the cobblestones for what? A relationship?
He continued his monologue, taking no notice of her inner struggles. “I’ve known you were special from the beginning.” He laid his hand over hers on the bar, his skin cold. “Watching you run with that dislocated shoulder was marvelous. And when you turned to face them with nothing but a rock... sublime!”
Her skin crawled where his fingers squeezed hers, his manic delight like oily ice seeping into her body. “You were there in the alley? When Hawkins came after me?”
“Who do you think set those morons up to it?” He waved his other hand as if his inaction wasn’t relevant. “It was just a spot of fun, and you were another helpless victim at that point.I thought you were another rabbit to watch die to pass the time. But you were more than I ever imagined. You attacked like a devil, going straight for the face. I fell for you then and there.” His smile turned into a sneer. “And then that fool went and stole your victory from you.”
Renard. Camille’s body froze. Nic wanted Renard. There was no way this lunatic wouldn’t go after him. Was that why Hamish and Charlotte had been targeted too? Their connections to her?
“Once your brother agrees on a sizable dowry, both he and his duchess are forgiven, of course,” Nic said, as if they were discussing an outing to the theatre. “Neither will have need to fear my justice after things are settled.”
Camille’s brain stuttered.“Settled.”Did he mean... “Marriage?”
“A strange sentiment for me as well. Never understood the practicality of binding oneself to such worthless whores. But we will get along famously,” Nic said. “A woman of your intellect will require little condescension on my part.”
Marriage. Then the snake didn’t know everything; he must have escaped his cell recently.
Renard and she hadn’t told Charlotte or Hamish about their vows. When word reached the populace, Nic would know there was only one way to break her ties with Renard.
Camille backed into the shelf of liquor bottles behind her, needing the room to breathe. His insanity had taken over all available air. He’d somehow formed a fictitious connection between them, one obsessive and dangerous enough the man couldn’t see his desires had no hold in reality.
Not missing the distance she put between them, he frowned. “There’s no reason to doubt me.” He indicated Hawkins’s body at his feet. “I brought proof of my affections.”
Flank, Grey, now Hawkins—gifts, he’d called them. “Like flowers or confectionery.”
“Of course.” His expression changed with a tilt to his head and a subtle country accent. “No worries, miss. I made them suffer for what they did to ya.”
Rapid-fire images bombarded her conscious mind. Camille clutched the bar, the sinking in her stomach doubling with the worst kind of obliviousness. Glass shards dug into her boots, but she felt nothing.
“You were my driver to the Quickners’ estate,” she whispered.
He nodded, seeming pleased at her connection. “I’d been preparing to assume that marquess’s identity for months for another job. I knew the real Lord Slasbury had no wife, no attachment. He hadn’t returned from his travels in ages. And it happened to be the perfect cover to get close to you.”
She couldn’t breathe.
