and stake my claim. They’ll be fabricating all sorts of ills to have you examine them.”
“You’re patently ridiculous.” He dropped an adoring kiss into her hair. “We should leave,” he whispered. “I’m already bored of this.”
She laughed, knowing they both would stay for the duration, and collapse in a depleted heap at the end of the day. It was a game of theirs, to plan their social escapes. One they’d started to play when the anxiety of a gathering would overwhelm her in the early days of her return to society.
She scanned the crowd milling about. “All we’d have to do is melt into this alley. Where should we go, husband? Should we ride in the park?”
“I’d love a ride,” he growled against her ear. “But we might get arrested for indecency if we do it in the park.”
She swatted his chest, then froze.
“What is it?” he asked, instantly on alert.
Instead of answering, she tugged on his sleeve, gesturing with her gaze, across the way to the fringes of the gathering.
A hooded figure stood staring right at them, his preternatural stillness seeming to make him invisible to those who teemed around him.
Gabriel Sauvageau.
Titus stared back, not in challenge but in acceptance. He dipped his chin in greeting.
Gabriel did the same before melting into the crowd and disappearing into an alley.
“What do you think he wanted?” she asked. “We’ve not seen or heard from the Fauves since Sheerness. But I worry about them sometimes… about what they’ll ask you to do.”
Titus shook his head, still staring at the corner around which the man had disappeared. “They didn’t have to leave the gold. I don’t care who needs medical attention, I would give it to them. It’s my responsibility to treat a wound. Doesn’t matter what sort of person they are, that’s for better men than I to judge.”
“There is no better man than you,” Nora said, rising on her toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek so she could whisper in his ear. “You stitched my life back together when I thought no one could…and that, dear husband, is why I will always love you.”
Sneak Peek: Dancing With Danger
Chapter 1
London, 1881
The man blocking Mercy Goode from the murder scene was an incomparable idiot.
And yet he had the audacity to sneer down at her in that condescending way menial men did when granted a little bit of authority. His shiny badge declared him Constable M. Jenkins. A tall but scrawny bit of bones scraped together between comically overgrown mutton chops.
“If you don’t vacate the premises now, I’ll see you sleeping behind bars tonight, and make no mistake about that.” He narrowed beady eyes and loomed in an attempt to intimidate her.
Mercy glared right back. Since she was entirely too short for a proper loom, she bared her teeth to do him one better in the foul expression department.
She’d been more frightened by an errant bee than this blighter with his ridiculous feathery mustache. From the moment he’d arrived, he’d tried to get rid of her, and that she would not abide. She refused to leave until she could be certain justice would be done.
“See here!” Mercy poked him in the chest. “I’m the one who found the body thus murdered and sent for Scotland Yard. Therefore, I’m a valuable witness at best and a possible suspect at the very least. If you advise me to leave before a detective inspector arrives, he’ll be furious. You could lose your position, which…” She trailed off, scanning the man up and down for any possible signs of capability. “If you want my opinion, might do both you and the London Metropolitan Police a favor.”
The slack-jawed blighter blinked in mute amazement, his dull brain taking an inordinate amount of time to process her statement.
Mercy used his dumbstruck torpor to sweep around him and slide into the stately, feminine solarium where the corpse sat propped in a high-backed burgundy velvet chair.
Poor Mathilde.
She swallowed a lump of regret so large, it threatened to choke her. They’d both known a violent death was a possibility. They’d discussed it at length when Mathilde—bruised, battered, and quite drunk—had come seeking shelter at the Duchess of Trenwyth’s Ladies Aid Society. They’d hatched a plan to ferret the woman out of the country as soon as humanly possible.
But, it seemed. Not soon enough.
Mercy’s fingers curled into fists. If only they had made other arrangements for the woman.
If only she’d skipped her weekly appointment last evening and squired Mathilde away under the