The Devil in Her Bed (Devil You Know #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,62

that wasn’t exactly a performance. “I believe I will take the night to prepare.” She shot Chandler a pleading look from beneath her mask, knowing it was hopeless. “I think we should all recoup and ready ourselves for what we must do next.”

If Kenway thought her reply odd, he gave no indication. “Indeed. Until we meet again, my Crimson Countess.”

When he left through the same large door through which the Lord Chancellor had gone, the council dispersed in no particular hurry.

Chandler said nothing to her, following the stags in their procession, taking with him any sense of protection she’d felt.

It would be folly to wait around here for him, though Francesca did what she could to linger. Finally she gave in to the parts screaming at her to run. To get out.

Eventually, she followed a couple who kept their arms interlocked as they were ushered down a barely lit corridor. The dim glow hardly reached the walls, but plush carpet muted the sounds of the people being led to who-knew-where.

“The council has become so secretive since those girls were found,” the woman in front of her said in muted tones to her companion. “Too careful, if I’m honest. Seems to go against the creed, don’t you agree?”

“Perhaps,” her fellow replied in a waspish voice. “But think about how many of us have been befallen by some sort of calamity or other. Colfax, Murphy, and scores of others. Not to mention the Lord Chancellor.” A shudder went through him. “I’ll be honest, whatever befalls Sir Hubert won’t keep me up at night. Sometimes the fate of those poor girls has stolen my peaceful slumber in the past. It is a true and ingenious test of our devotion, to watch the sacrifice of innocents, an unnecessary one, I feel. I’ve always been rather glad it is quick and painless.”

The girls he spoke of, girls not yet become women stashed in the basement of the high-end den of vice that had abutted the Kenway estates. The Red Rogues had always assumed the girls were meant to be used as objects for the perversions of powerful men. Francesca was certain Ramsay and Cecelia had saved the young ladies from molestation.

To think there was something worse in store for them. A sacrificial death, perhaps. It was enough to chill the bones.

To wonder if she’d ever be warm again.

“Tosh,” the woman reprimanded. “Those girls were always nothing more than immigrants and East End rubbish. The Lord Chancellor was part of the Triad. If he can so be discarded, then we should all fear for our own necks.”

Francesca had to stop herself from snorting aloud. The Lord Chancellor, in her opinion, was fortunate to escape with his life. He’d gotten off rather lightly, in her opinion.

For now. She was going to take down the rest of these deviants if it was the last thing she did. The Lord Chancellor would be first on her list.

“We do not protect our necks, my dear,” said her husband. “We go for the throats of others.”

“Absolutely.” She patted the man’s arm as they turned a corner and filed through a narrow door to the gardens across which a gate stood ajar.

What they saw through slats in a wrought-iron fence to the north was the only thing that kept Francesca from clawing the insufferable woman’s eyes out.

The wet sounds of animals dining slowed the exit of the council as they walked by, each of them pausing to watch the gruesome spectacle.

A pack of hounds fed on fresh meat.

“I suppose we will need more sacrifices in the future,” the woman said as she watched for a moment from beneath a mask of a badger. “Other sacrifices…” She turned to look at Francesca, her hawk-masked companion following suit. “One wonders, my dear, what sort of dynamic a woman will bring to the Triad, most especially when our Primus has chosen you, and also paid you this tribute.”

Francesca couldn’t bring herself to summon a reply as she stepped closer to the wrought-iron gate. The bars were cool, even as she wrapped fingers of ice around them.

Tribute?

Blood ran through the grooves of the paving stones as the last of the flesh was torn from a long bone.

Francesca had to swallow several times so as not to retch.

What had she said so flippantly to Kenway when he’d asked her what she wanted to do with the vile Lord Chancellor?

Feed him to the dogs.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

With a traumatized sort of numbness, Francesca dressed in the detached tent and wobbled