He did not bother with a greeting. “Stop playing with her,” he snapped at the first man. “She’s a teacher, not a fighter.”
Lila lifted her chin. “You should try learning something. Teachers are good at identifying weaknesses.”
Fenwick stepped forward with a smile that chilled her blood. “You’re awake sooner than expected.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Not that it matters. You served your purpose.”
“And what purpose was that?”
“To bring him to his knees.”
Marcus. The thought struck her harder than the drug had.
The room tilted. Not from the drug this time, but from the terrible clarity of Fenwick’s intent.
“You believe Marcus will come,” she said.
Fenwick’s smile widened. “Men like Wolfton always come. He’s predictable. Foolish. He’s soft where you’re concerned.”
She kept her breathing steady. He wanted the reaction. He wanted to see fear.
He would see nothing.
“You think you know him,” she said quietly. “You don’t.”
Fenwick crouched in front of her. “Carriages fail all the time,” Fenwick said lightly. “Axles crack. Horses spook. A wheel loosens just enough.”
He stopped.
Lila’s voice was steady. “You sound certain.”
His smile returned, slower this time. “One learns to recognize opportunity.” Fenwick continued. “All I need to do is wait. He will come for you. And then…”
His smile sharpened. “…I will finish what I was denied years ago.”
“You do not understand him at all,” she said.
Fenwick straightened. “No matter. When he arrives, and he will, everything ends.”
Lila breathed out slowly.
No. Nothing ended on Fenwick’s terms. Not her life. Not Marcus’s. Not this story.
She shifted her position deliberately, drawing Fenwick’s attention away from the narrow vent high above her.
A draft brushed her cheek. Airflow. Street. Sound. Escape.
Marcus could find this place.
Fenwick expected him alone. Charging in blind. Predictable. Broken. He did not know Marcus now. Not the man who had claimed the truth aloud. Not the man who would come for her with the force of a gathering storm.
Lila leaned back against the crate, calculating every inch of the room, every careless step Fenwick took, every weakness he revealed.
If Marcus was the storm coming for her, she would be the lightning strike that opened the way.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Marcus did notremember leaving Wolfton Hall.
He remembered motion. Hooves striking stone. The saddle shifting beneath him. His breath burning in his throat. The cold rip of wind against his coat. Voices. Shadow. Nothing else.
