Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,52

is why I feel some duty toward him. He is a ruthless man, to be sure, but he was kind to her. Even when kindness was never a part of that awful dynasty.”

Cousins.

Not lovers.

That was why Raphael had come to see Mathilde on the day she died. Why he was so fond of her without professing any romantic relationships.

It was why he was so intent upon finding her killer.

Because they were family.

She turned back to the billiards table to find that he’d disappeared, though their men were still at each other’s throats.

Damn but that was an irritating skill of his. Slithering away just when she needed to talk to him.

“I have to find him. To warn him. Whatever he has planned tonight, he has to stop it.”

Felicity grabbed for her as she fled away, but missed. “Mercy, no!”

“You were right, Felicity, to send for Morley. You must go find him now. Must tell him there is a war brewing in this very house that might spill onto the streets of London, and then go home where it’s safe.”

With that, Mercy turned and plunged through a crowd of drunken crowing lads, intent upon searching every room in the house until he turned up.

Oh, when she caught up with him, he’d have more than a few things to answer for. Just how did he plan on finding Mathilde’s killer when he was busy stirring discontent between dangerous people?

Didn’t he understand he was putting himself in undue danger?

Just as she was elbowing through the crowd at the doorway to the ballroom, a strong hand seized said elbow and yanked her toward the dance floor.

One minute she was walking. The next she was waltzing, and the transition had been so seamlessly elegant and effortless, it could only have been perpetrated by one arrogant rake.

“What the everlasting fuck are you doing here?” Raphael snarled against her ear, even as he encircled her in an embrace that could only be considered protective.

Mercy hated that dancing in his arms was about as exhilarating as flying. That she thrilled at every press of his thigh against hers and every subtle flex of his arm or his shoulder as he led her through the steps to the dizzying waltz.

She tried not to notice that his nostrils flared when he was angry, and beneath a mask that seemed to be made of dark serpentine scales, each furious breath was rather endearing.

“What do you think?” She tossed her head with brash irreverence, daring him to dress her down. “I’m looking for Mathilde’s murderer! Which is what you should be doing instead of—”

“I thought we agreed you’d leave that to me.” His fingers almost bit into her back as he pulled her indecently close to avoid being clobbered by a drunken couple.

“You assumed I’d leave it to you,” she bit back, finding herself reluctant to regain a proper distance, regardless of her ire. “I agreed to take my further findings to the police, which I will now that I have further findings. I didn’t before, and so no agreement between us was breached.”

He opened his mouth to reply, and she beat him to it, cutting off any incoming homilies.

“Listen to this.” She squeezed the mound of his coiled bicep in her excitement. “I spoke to the Duchesse de la Cour, who claims she wasn’t after Mathilde but about to run away with her. They were lovers, if you’ll believe it.”

He didn’t miss a step, but remained silent for an entire refrain of music, as if he didn’t know which part of their conversation to address first.

“Mathilde...with a woman? I always thought it was Marco...” he muttered.

“Who?”

“My second in command who was placed by my father before his death. He’s the one most likely to turn on me when—” He paused. “It doesn’t matter. I do know that Mathilde procured most of her vice from Marco. Often those arrangements are...physical. I know she’d angered him lately, and I intended to wrest a confession from him tonight.”

She glowered up at his impossibly handsome, aggravating face. “And you kept that tidbit of information from me? How dare you!”

The look he sent back to her threatened to immolate her on the spot.

Not because it was angry.

Quite the opposite. It was possibly the most tender, honest gaze she’d ever received in her lifetime. “I would die before I put you in the path of a man like Marco Villenueve... The Good Book says never to cast your pearls before swine.”

“Yes, well, it also says never to eat