Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,9

me,” he whispered, releasing the lock on her shackles and letting them fall to the floor.

She looked down at them in mute astonishment, not having even noticed he’d been working on them.

By the time she’d registered that he moved, he’d slid out the door and pulled it shut and secured the padlock just as she lunged for him.

“Wait!” she cried, wrapping her fingers around the bars. “You’re going to let me rot in jail while you go free?”

Now that they were in a busier part of the city, she could hear the astonished gasps and exclamations of the passersby.

He hung from the carriage by one hand at the hinges of the door and one foot on the ledge as he grinned into the cart through the barred window.

“I know who your family is, Mercy Goode, you’ll be back home in time for tea.” His eyes were no longer glinting, but ablaze with silver light.

Rage surged inside of her, fueled by the heat still thrumming and throbbing through her.

“You know nothing about my family, you merciless cad,” she hissed. “You’re lucky I’m locked in here or I’d—”

“You’d do something reckless, no doubt, like follow me...” He said this with a confounding sort of fondness. “And that’s too dangerous. Even for you.”

Frustrated. Furious. Mercy shook the iron bars once again, then shoved her hand through them, attempting to claw at his eyes.

He leaned back just in time, the thick locks of his hair fluttering in the draft coming off the roof of the moving coach as he barked out a laugh.

God, he was handsome when he smiled. Especially when his lips were glossed and a bit swollen from kissing.

She could cheerfully murder him.

Swinging back, he brought his face close to the bars, his eyes drilling into hers with that dizzying change they made from mirth to sobriety. “If we see each other again, Mercy Goode...” he warned in a voice made of sex and honey.

“Be ready for me to taste the rest of you.”

Chapter 3

The reasons the jailers took a wide-eyed second glance at Felicity Goode were threefold.

The first being that she was exceptionally lovely today in a lavender gown threaded with violet ribbons and a matching velvet pelisse. The latter, cinched too tightly at the waist, accentuated the dramatic indent of her figure, and created a lovely backdrop for her cascade of flaxen hair beneath her smart hat.

The second was that the stunning midnight-haired woman on Felicity’s arm was the wife of their most revered and respected Chief Inspector, Sir Carlton Morley.

Prudence, their second eldest sister.

This would be the first time these men might have seen her lately about, as she’d been kept frightfully busy doting on her infant twins, Caroline and Charlotte.

She was still apple-cheeked from pregnancy, her glowing dark eyes happy, if half-lidded by the sort of exhaustion only known to new mothers. She’d wrapped herself in burgundy velvet to make up for the pallor of her complexion.

And third, Felicity was the unmistakable mirror of Mercy, who stood facing her from the other side of the dingy iron bars. Their resemblance was uncanny.

Most twins had a hint of identifiable difference. A freckle here, a jutting tooth or a divergent shade of hair.

For Mercy, to look at Felicity was to look in a mirror. Even their parents had an impossible time telling them apart.

Which, in Mercy’s opinion, spoke volumes about them as parents.

More out of blindness than concern, Felicity squinted into the cell where Mercy had been blessedly alone for the better part of two hours. Though she’d terrible vision, she was urged to not wear her spectacles in public, as they were considered unflattering. This time, however, Mercy knew she’d eschewed her spectacles for a different reason.

One that was Mercy’s own fault.

“Imagine, if you will, my surprise when a constable came round the house to inform Mama and Papa that I’d been arrested,” Felicity huffed.

“Please don’t be cross with me,” Mercy begged her twin, wincing with shame. “I knew that if I gave them your name, someone would be more likely to come fetch me. Everyone likes you better.”

“That isn’t at all true,” Prudence protested, tossing her curls with a saucy snap of her lithe neck. “You are both our beloved treasures. Now wait here whilst I fetch Sgt. Treadwell to unlock this cell so I can take you home and murder you in private. You’re bloody lucky my husband is in court today.” With an impish smirk she swept away, the train falling in gathers from her bustle,