“Fuck.” He kissed her again. “Promise me you will stay here. The coachman will protect you. He has instructions to move if the risk of staying here is too great.”
She nodded, tears glistening in her dark eyes. “Very well. I promise.”
Satisfied, he turned from her and tore open the carriage door.
“Dom?”
Heart pounding, he chanced one last glance at her over his shoulder. “What is it, angel?”
“Stay safe and come back to me.”
He gave her a jerky nod. “I will.”
With that vow, he turned and leapt from the carriage, slamming the door closed. He would try his damnedest to come back to her. But nothing was certain in his world. Promises were broken. Lives were lost. Power and happiness were fleeting.
He shouted further instruction to the coachman, making certain O’Leary would look after Adele and Davy both. Then he raced into the bedlam surrounding The Devil’s Spawn.
There was smoke rolling from the lower hall, but men with buckets of water were everywhere, and the chaos it seemed to be from the outside was actually far more organized within.
“Where is Devil?” he shouted above the din. “And what the hell is happening here?”
One of the men, a sloshing pail hefted on his shoulder, stopped. “Mr. Winter ’as returned, lads!”
A chorus ofMr. Winter, along with some huzzahs, echoed in the hall.
It was a reminder this was where he belonged. These were his men. Men who were infallibly loyal. Men who depended upon him for the food in their bellies and the roof overhead. He had not realized how much he had missed The Devil’s Spawn until he had returned to find it in an uproar.
“Part!”
The familiar growl rose over the din, and the men obeyed, separating for Devil to stalk through their ranks. His brother was sporting an angry-looking wound over his brow—the blade had scarcely missed gouging the eye and costing him his sight.
“What the hell is going on?” Dom demanded.
“The fire is out now. The damage has been controlled. No one was hurt.” Three whole sentences. More than Devil typically said in a sennight.
The blood running down Devil’s face suggested the opposite of his calm proclamation. But this was Devil talking, and Dom knew he would never show weakness before their men.
“Back to your posts, you lot,” Dom ordered the men, needing to speak with his brother alone. “I heard gunshots when I arrived. Are you certain everything is secure? My wife is waiting in the carriage outside.”
“Wife?” Devil’s look of disgust could not be misconstrued. He had warned Dom against his plan.
“You knew I was going to marry her. It was my reason for going to Oxfordshire. Now tell me what the hell is going on. This place is bloody Bedlam, and you are justbloody.”
“Suttons. Do not concern yourself. Jasper Sutton found out you were mucking about in the monkery with fancy coves, playing duke. He took the opportunity to strike. I have been fighting back.”
There was much in his brother’s snarled words which needed addressing.
“First, I was not mucking about in the countryside. Nor was I playing duke. Second, since when have I given you leave to start a war with the Suttons, Devil?” The last emerged from Dom as a bark.
“Seeing as how everything was falling apart in your absence and I had no notion of when you planned to return, it seemed the best course.” Devil scowled at him. “What would you have me do? Allow The Devil’s Spawn to fall into ruin?”
“And how is this not ruin?” Dom snapped. Ordinarily, he was close to his brother and loyal—mayhap even to a fault. However, this…it went beyond. “I have returned to gunfire and flames, smoke billowing out the windows, mayhem everywhere, my own brother bleeding from a wound above his eye…”
“This is not ruin. Ruin would be the whole place in ashes on the ground. Ruin would be you with your throat slit, Jasper Sutton dancing on your corpse.”
“I am going to bloody well kill that worthless fucker for this,” Dom spat.
“Leave it to Blade,” Devil counseled. “The Suttons were behind another attack before this one, which is why I retaliated and burned down one of their warehouses. We will prove they were behind this one as well, and then we will go after them.”
