beyond Nicolas. What kind of ruination did she want? It had been a little over a week since that night in the gardens, yet the raw, sweaty dreams he’d had of her since only revealed the kind of ruin he wanted to deliver.
“Are you staring at the plain creature in the spectacles?”
“She is not plain.”
David cast him a glance of surprise. “You are staring at her. Why?”
How befuddled his friend sounded, yet he made no protest as Nicolas descended the wide staircase. She hugged Lady Ophelia in farewell, then Lady Maryann met with another young lady before they headed out into the lantern-lit gardens. Ignoring the scandalized stares thrown in his direction, Nicolas allowed for a measure of stealth as he mapped her movements and followed behind her discreetly.
“Why are we following her?” David murmured from the side of his mouth.
“I am following her, and you are tagging along to be a thorn in my side.”
David scoffed exasperatedly. “Fine, why are you following her?”
“She is the sister of Crispin Fitzwilliam.”
His friend sucked in a harsh breath. “Have you ascertained that he was involved?”
The wolf, the dragon, scarred lips, and the black Dahlia, Nicolas silently mused, I am coming for you all, but who are you, black Dahlia?
Five men had destroyed something precious—The Stag with the Lily, The Wolf, Scarred Lips, The Dragon, and the Black Dahlia. All were monikers created by a girl who in her despair could only name them so in the letter she left behind.
Nicolas had already ruined the man Arianna referred to as “the stag with the white lily,” a nobleman known in the ton and beloved as Viscount Barton.
And I promise the others will soon fall. Nicolas would never stop hunting until all the guilt and hatred in his heart had been appeased. He was playing the long game of revenge, methodically and mercilessly exacting his brand of justice. Nothing quick would do for those despicable blackguards. Their destruction must be profound, and there would be no rising from the ashes of their pain.
Nicolas knew all their identities except this black Dahlia. And that was the mystery which gnawed at him with relentless force. He closed his eyes, capturing Arianna’s image, the one that had been fading from his memory no matter how much he desperately tried to get her to stay. Miss Arianna Burges…a friend, a girl whom he had loved with the reckless passion of youth, and one he had bitterly disappointed.
The eagle soars indifferent while the wolf betrays the dove.
The very first line she wrote in the letter she had left, before plunging into the raging river to her bitter death.
He stopped walking as the memories crept upon him like specters in the night, his heart thudding and sweat beading his upper lip, but he did not shy away from those ghosts. She deserved much more than that. While it was agony for him to recall how much he had failed her, what had it been like for her to be at the mercy of those much more powerful than her, physically and by the prestige of their birth? Men who only met with the likes of Arianna to take cruel advantage.
“Nicolas,” David prodded at his silence. “Was Lord Crispin there?”
Nicolas still recalled the first time he’d seen Arianna. He and David had been playing by the lake when they spied her humming a song and picking flowers. They had only been lads of ten years, but that bright spring morning, they had both felt the blush of first love.
“I do not know as yet,” Nicolas said, and resumed following Lady Maryann.
Silence fell between them as they wound their way through the small maze-like gardens. As she hurried farther into the alcove, she moved elegantly, her step light and gliding.
“Surely you do not think the girl had a hand in Arianna’s misfortune?”
“Of course not.”
“Strange,” David said provokingly. “Methinks you are following this lady for an entirely different reason. It is merely a coincidence she is Lord Crispin’s sister. I declare I am rather eager to hear this incredible reason.”
Ignoring his friend, Nicolas faltered in the shadows of the garden, close enough to see her curious pixie-like expression revealed by the glow of the lantern hanging in the tree above her head. He stared at her, distantly aware there was an increased pounding in his heart. Lady Maryann was not beautiful in the conventional sense, but she was most certainly not plain, as his friend implied.