Tristan.
Dread rolled over her, but she’d spent hours touching Tristan’s body, his face—had spent the night wrapped in his arms. She’d never forget the warmth of his skin under her fingertips, the long, smooth muscles of his body moving over hers.
Sophia’s brain recognized at once it wasn’t him, but her heart wasn’t so easily convinced. It was thrashing about inside her chest like a frantic bird, demanding certainty. She reached for the man with shaking hands, trying to avoid touching his blood again as she searched his face with desperate fingers. His chin, the bones of his cheeks, his lips, gasping all the while with hope and terror.
She might have stayed there all night, her hands moving over the dead’s man’s face, rocking and muttering incoherent pleas and prayers if a sudden dull gleam of light hadn’t fallen over her. Sophia stared down at the features under her fingertips, and her heart rushed into her throat.
Itwasn’t Tristan.
It was Peter Sharpe, blood still oozing from his ravaged throat, his eyes open and staring blankly up at her.
“Shame about Sharpe, innit it,Miss Monmouth?”
Sophia froze. The light that had fallen across Peter Sharpe’s ghastly face had come from a lamp. Again, her first thought was it must be Tristan, but it wasn’t Tristan’s voice. No, there was someone else looming over her, a lamp in his fist. She turned slowly, holding up her hand to protect her eyesfrom the light.
“I been after ye for days, but yer a cunning one, aren’t you?Sneaky, like.”
Sophia couldn’t see his face. The light blinded her, rendering the man before her nothing but a dark, hulking silhouette, his features hidden in shadows, but she recognized his voice at once as the same voice she’d overheard arguing with Lord Everly yesterday morning.
The fourth man.
The man who’d killed Henry Gerrard all those weeks ago. The man who’d let Jeremy stand trial for his crime, and who’d gladly have seen him hang for it.
The man who’d killed PeterSharpe tonight.
Sophia’s mind was sluggish with shock, and she had to grope for the connection between the man standing over her now and the villain who’d made an attempt on her life on Pollen Street two nights ago. Tristan had said he’d had a club, or a stick…
Her gaze darted to the heavy walking stick in his hand. He let it dangle loosely between his fingers, tapping it repeatedly against the heel of his boot with a careless flick of his wrist.
“Knew I’d get ye alone sooner or later, an’ now here ye are.”
He grabbed the brass knob at the top of the stick, and Sophia heard the unmistakable clash of steel being drawn from its sheath. She gasped as a long, wicked blade emergedfrom the hilt.
He run the sword across the man’s throat…
It had to be the same walking stick that had disappeared from the scene of Henry Gerrard’s murder, and inside it was the murder weapon. Jeremy had called it a sword, but the lamplight revealed the deadly edge and the ornately carved hilt of a dagger.
“Looks like yer luck’srun out, girl.”
There was no time to speak, to move, or even to think before he grabbed her by her hair. Sophia cried out in pain when he wrenched her to her feet, but it died to a whimper when he pressed the cold blade of his daggerto her throat.
Sophia reacted instantly, without thought or reason, her defense born of an instinct honed by years spent wandering the most dangerous streets in the grimmest neighborhoods of London.
“No!” It was a deafening scream, pitched high enough to carry to every corner of St. Clement Dane’s churchyard and into the Strand beyond. If anyone was near—Lady Clifford or Daniel, Thelwall, or Tristan—they’d hear it.
The scream had been building in her chest since she’d stumbled over Peter Sharpe’s mangled body, and she gave voice to it now as close to her attacker’s ear as she could manage. With any luck, it might shatter his eardrum.
“Shut yer mouth!”
The man kept his arm pressed tightly to her neck, but the shock of her scream threw his balance off, and Sophia took immediate advantage of it. She slammed the heel of her foot back, connecting with his knee. He let out a pained grunt as his leg buckled, and the arm around herneck loosened.
Sophia tore loose from his grip and fled, her harsh breath drumming in her head as she flew over the uneven ground of the graveyard towards the entranceto the church.
Shedidn’t get far.
Her attacker was a hardened criminal who’d survived much more powerful blows than hers. He came after her, caught her by the hem of her tunic and yanked her backwards, sending her sprawling into the dirt. Another cry left her lips as her head slammed into the ground with a loud,dizzying thump.
“Bloody little bitch,” he spat, and then he was on her, wrenching her to her feet with a vicious tug on her arm. This time he didn’t give her a chance to scream, but slapped a hand over her mouth with such violence she tasted blood as her teeth cut into the inside of her lip. There was no chance for her to bite him, or even to draw a breath before his forearm jabbed into her throat.
