Tempted By the Night (9 page)

“Well, mistake or not, I suppose we have to find out who you are,” he said, gathering up his belongings and stuffing them in his leather bag. After pulling on his coat, he slung the bag over his shoulder, and then reached down to pick her up.

He grunted at the effort. “She might be a beauty, but she’s no lithe miss,” he joked to Rowan. Not that Rockhurst had ever liked a woman with no figure to speak of—a woman should be rounded in his estimation, with curves and hips and full breasts.

The image of those breasts teased him anew, and he jostled her so they weren’t pressed quite so intimately against him.

He whistled to Rowan, and was about to set off down the alley, when something at his feet caught his eye. Wavering under his burden, he knelt again and picked up a solitary glove—the mate, he supposed, to the one still on her hand. Awkwardly, he tucked it into his coat. “Come along, boy. ’Tis nearly morning, and I’ve
a desire to see what the dawn brings from the comfort of my own bed.”

Hermione lurched awake and almost immediately put her hands on the back of her head.

Oh, dear heavens what a megrim! The sort from too much wine…or having listened overly long to one of her mother’s matrimonial lectures…

But then the images of the night before assailed her. And she remembered.

The blinding light in the alley.

Melaphor’s uncanny red gaze.

And the earl. Tall and strong, his shirt stretched over his muscled back. Sword in hand, he’d turned to her…
Hermione flinched as she tried to remember the rest.
He’d turned to her with a sword in hand and murder in his eyes.

Egads, the Earl of Rockhurst had tried to kill her!

Her eyes sprang open, and she clamored upright, only to find herself in the tiger’s seat of a curricle.

Rockhurst’s curricle, to be exact. For there the earl sat not a foot in front of her. And beside him, Rowan. Much to her chagrin, the hound stared directly at her like a sentry.

She glanced around and realized they were driving through Berkeley Square, her house just across the park in the middle. He was bringing her home.

But then she glanced at the sky, where the first fingers of dawn were starting to part the curtain of night.

Nearly sunrise. She sighed with relief that this nightmare of an evening was almost over. That is, until the
words of her wish echoed like a warning though her thoughts.

From sunset to sunrise…

Just then the carriage started up again, and the earl turned, not toward her house but in the opposite direction.

Toward Hanover Square. To his house.

And when the sun rose, as it was wont to do in about an hour or so, she’d be visible. And worst of all, ruined.

What was it India had said? About the earl’s attics? Heavens, what if her friend was right, and Rockhurst was taking her there to lock her up in some ungodly harem?

Given all she’d seen in the past few hours, she wouldn’t put it past him.

At the next intersection, a heavy wagon was already making its slow crossing, so the earl pulled his set to a stop.

Hermione glanced at the sky and realized this was her chance. Timing her escape just so, as the earl slapped the ribbons over the back of the horses, she made her leap.

Rowan watched her go but did nothing. Thankfully. Perhaps the dog was as glad to be rid of her—as she was to be rid of them.

Without another glance in their direction, Hermione turned and ran back toward Berkeley Square.

Never again
, she told herself. Never again would she follow the earl into the night. Why, it had nearly gotten her killed. She made her way to the back of their town house, where luckily, because her brother Griffin kept
such irregular hours, he’d made a bargain with their butler, Fenwick, to keep a key to the servant’s entrance hanging in the potting shed.

Not that she’d ever had an occasion to use the key, but now, as she let herself in, she was glad Griffin was such a useless scamp.

From there, she made her way upstairs to her own room and slipped into her bed even as the sun rose. Exhausted, she didn’t even bother to look to see if she’d regained her old self—for she fell asleep almost instantly, bedraggled and exhausted, with only one thought.

Never again.

“Mary! Mary! Demmit, where are you?” Rockhurst bellowed as he stormed into his cousin’s house at the unfashionable hour of eleven in the morning. “Mary, where the devil are you?”

He hadn’t bothered to ring the bell or even knock, having barreled in like the hounds of hell were at his heels.

“I’m in here, you beast,” she called out from her library. “And do stop shouting or Papa will think the house is on fire and summon the Watch again.”

Rockhurst pushed open the double doors and crossed the large room. He slapped the glove, which he’d had clenched in his fist since the moment he’d discovered his Shadow had slipped from his carriage, down on her desk.

Not really his Shadow,
he argued with himself. But where the devil had the chit gone? When he’d discovered her missing, he’d driven round and round through May
fair with Rowan loping alongside the carriage. But there’d been no sign of her whereabouts. What if she’d fainted again? Was more hurt than he’d realized? He glanced down at the only clue he possessed as to her identity.

Her glove. A gaudy piece for certain, but there was something about its strumpet charm that intrigued Rockhurst in ways he’d never thought possible.

Besides, there were other reasons to find her. She’d saved his life, and he felt a sort of responsibility for the little handful.

Yes, that was it, a responsibility…

He paused for a second and realized his cousin was staring up at him. No, gaping at him.

“Well, can you tell me or not?” he blustered.

“Tell you what?” Mary took off her spectacles and set them on her desk.

He glanced down and realized he had yet to remove his hand from his prize. Trying to feign a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he pushed the glove across Mary’s desk. “Can you tell me where
that
came from?”

Sitting up, she put her spectacles back on and peered down at it. “I would have to imagine it came from a woman’s hand.”

Rockhurst sputtered something unintelligible before he finally ground out, “Who made it?”

Mary took another glance at the bit of feminine finery and quirked a brow. “Lost another wager, Rockhurst?” She sat back in her chair and looked him over with the same scholarly review as she might some old tract. “You haven’t been home yet. Why, you look the very devil, cousin.”

He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Of course I haven’t been home. I’ve been trying to find her.” He pointed at the glove as if it were the bane of his existence, when quite the opposite. He huffed a sigh and paced about the room.

“Very intriguing,” she said, rising from and moving around the desk to block his path. “Who is she?”

“She’s the owner of that glove.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “My, my. I would like to meet her. For I’ve never seen you at sixes and sevens over a woman.”

He ruffled and blustered. “I am no such thing. Blast and damnation, Mary, I need to know who that glove belongs to.” Gads, even to his own ears the note of desperation in his voice was a completely unfamiliar tune.

Suddenly Mary’s face paled. “You didn’t? Not one of those little fools at Almack’s last night? Is that it? You’ve gone and ruined some innocent?”

“Demmit, Mary, it isn’t anything like that.”

“Then why don’t you tell me how it was?”

“Well, I would if you would stop peppering me with endless questions.” He raked his hand through his hair. “She might be hurt,” he confessed.

Mary took a step back from him. “Rockhurst, what are you saying? You didn’t…?”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, it wasn’t my fault. And even if it was, she’s not…not…”

“Not what?”

“Not one of us.”

She glanced back at the glove. “Oh, dear.”

“At least I don’t think so.”

This stopped Mary. “You couldn’t tell whether or not she was human?”

He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t see her. A spell of some sort. She was invisible. Melaphor could see her, but I—”

“Melaphor?!” Mary burst out. “What has he to do with all this?”

“She
shot him. The chit who owns that glove.” He glanced at it again and tamped down the urge to reclaim it. Tuck it in his pocket and keep it close.

Now there was no doubt about it. He was going mad. He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned his back to the desk.

“Tell me she killed him.”

“Unfortunately not. Though she got the bolt pretty close to his heart, and the force of it knocked him back through the opening.”

“Did you get it sealed in time?”

He nodded.

Mary sighed and shook her head. “This is very troubling. Not just the girl, but…but…” She paused and lowered her voice to finish. “So it is as you feared? Melaphor is the one who’s been causing all the deaths in the Dials?”

“Apparently so,” Rockhurst said.

“Apparently?” Mary’s brow wrinkled, then she took him by the arm and led him to the fire. Pushing him down in her father’s chair, she turned and added more coal. It was a task for a servant, but Mary was too practical to summon a servant to do something she herself
could accomplish in a fraction of the time. Then she pulled an ottoman close and settled herself atop it.

“What happened, cousin?” she asked, her hands primly folded in her lap. “Tell me everything.”

“I went to the Dials last night—”

“From Almack’s to the rookeries.” She smiled slightly. “You do know how to live.”

“Very funny,” he replied. “Cappon sent a note around that someone was opening doors—”

As he related the rest of the evening’s events, the warmth of the fire slowly eased his tired muscles, not that he noticed overly much, for he was as transfixed by the facts he was relating as was his audience. And it helped him to be able to share them with Mary, for she was possibly the only member of the
ton
who knew his secret.

To London society, he was the Earl of Rockhurst. But to the shadowy underworld that clung to the veneer of their modern world, he was the Paratus, a title taken from their ancient family motto.

Semper Paratus.
Always prepared.

And it had been thus for thirty some generations of Rockhursts. They had been given London as theirs to guard and rule by a queen so ancient none but a few scholars like Mary had even heard of her. Beyond the title and riches, the wise ruler had also given her loyal subject, the first Earl of Rockhurst, strength of body and spirit, as well as cunning and intelligence that outstripped those of mere men. These gifts had for the most part protected, though not always, the earls from their enemies, Melaphor in particular.

For the realm they’d been charged with guarding stood between a place of light and magic and an old evil, one that was just as devious and just as determined to return to their former garden as the Paratus was resolute to contain them in their dark prison.

But as the centuries passed, London and its inhabitants had changed, and with them, the old magic faded, and what had once been a matter of fact, that evil could live and breathe, was now considered nothing but legend. Even the Paratus had been shelved and catalogued with those ancient stories, another myth that had no place in their jostling and expanding world.

Except to Rockhurst, who bore with all his heart the family obligation to protect London. Would until the day he died.

“And you have no other clues as to who she might be?” Mary was asking. “Other than that glove.”

His hand flexed, and then cupped to the shape of the breast he’d unwittingly caught hold of. He doubted he would ever forget the way it fit in his hand, the warmth of her flesh. But he could hardly make the rounds about London society catching hold of every likely bosom.

Even for a man of his unsavory reputation, that would be beyond the pale.

“No,” he told her. “Just the glove.”

Mary sat back and sighed. “That isn’t much. Why seeing you and Melaphor was probably enough to send her scurrying onto the nearest mail coach to Penzance.” She leaned forward and studied the glove. “And you say she was invisible?”

“Utterly. Though Rowan could see her, as could Melaphor. He claimed her to be a pretty bit.”

“He thought to make her his nuncheon, so of course he thought her pretty.” Mary rose and adjusted her spectacles, her gaze scanning the top shelves of her prized library. “Invisibility isn’t something that can be conjured by just anyone. It’s a dangerous sort of spell.”

Rockhurst glanced up from the fire. “Dangerous?”

“Well, dangerous enough that this Shadow of yours is either one of them, or she’s come across the ring.”

“The ring?”

“You know,” she said, glancing around and lowering her voice. “
The ring.
”

“Milton’s Ring?” Now it was Rockhurst’s turn to scoff. “You must be jesting. That ring is myth, nothing more than an old story meant to keep the foolish full of dreams.”

“I wouldn’t be so skeptical. Some would say the same of the Paratus. Perhaps you’ve heard the story? Of a great nobleman who spends his nights scouring the worst corners of London—”

He held up a hand to stave her off. “Point well-taken. Say Milton’s Ring isn’t a myth, how did it just suddenly turn up? Let alone grant some miss the power to go about unseen?” He shook his head and looked her directly in the eye. “For that matter, what sort of miss would wish to follow me around?”

Mary laughed. “Given your reputation for moonlit scandals, I’m surprised this is only the first one who’s followed you into the night.”

Rockhurst wasn’t amused. “If it is Milton’s Ring, then how do I—”

“Oh, good God!” Mary suddenly exclaimed, whirling around from her shelves of books. “You must find this girl!”

Taken a bit aback by his cousin’s uncharacteristic outburst, he asked, “Why?”

“If you were to gain Milton’s Ring, you could end your charter,” she whispered.