And swifter than demons at daybreak, they were gone, merging into those dark and hostile recesses of the alley.
Miles remained hunched on the ground, shrouded the recovered blade with his palm and then braced as the men neared.
A jacket of scarlet garbed the first, tendrils of moonlight slanting across a phantom’s visage of swarthy skin, pitch-blackeyes, a scar to his cheek and a scowl that the devil would be envious of.
His companion wore funereal drear, even had some sort of black feather pinned to his lapel.
“Friend or foe?” demanded Miles as their boots halted.
Silence.
Before a scarlet sleeve and hand outstretched. “Neither.”
Crisscross scars upon the man’s knuckles resembled silvered nets in the moon’s lustre. A knife, Miles knew, had caused those. Slashes made in a frenzy of violence as he’d defended himself.
The scarred hand remained.
Then a voice seasoned with ash and stone. “But on this patch, the sole permit to murder is mine.”
Miles stared into those tomb-black eyes.
Then accepted the outstretched hand.
His gut spasmed in protest as he was hauled to his boots and regarded his…rescuers?
The scarlet-garbed man returned his regard as though a ghoul reckoning his worth in flesh. “You’re Miles Firth, Earl of Stonewold.”
“I am. And your name, Sir? I owe you much.”
The companion with the black feather in his lapel curled a lip.
“You do indeed owe me.” The words were spoken as though pried loose from a seam of flint. “But should you ever feel the need to double your debt, send word.” Scarlet swirled and he stalked off, his companion trailing like a morbid shadow.
“Perhaps if I knew who you were…” Miles called.
He dusted himself down and followed, tramping from the begrimed alley to the civility and refinement of the main thoroughfare.
Yet the street was deserted, other than a lone drunk and a lad collecting dung from the gutter. No one waited within thecitrine globes of the streetlamps, no shadows slipped in retreat, the night having swallowed the two men whole.
Ghosts of London Town.
Miles held a hand to his sore guts and peered to the cloudless sky with that flagging arc of moon that had turned the city to a gauzy web of grey.
What the bloody hell was going on?
Soot-drenchedshadows burdened eyes as grim and relentless as the war, green with steely strength but also bitter with the victory of a thousand battles fought, and a thousand souls lost.
The soldier kneeled, face lean and wearied as chaos raged around him, a blur of stampeding horses and cannon fire, smoke billowing across the seething mass of men as scarlet hues fought with the drear sky – soldiers’ coats and blood a grim illumination to the dark scape.
With care and a soft breath, Verity lifted her smallest finger to smudge a little more iron-grey shadow beneath the soldier’s eye.
No longer was this particular captain in the army and she hoped with all her being that at this very moment he was safely at his estate, listening to the hoot of owl while tending his collection of exotic plants. Or perchance tucked up in bed, dreaming of rare flora wedged in impossible cliffs behind a romantic waterfall. And perhaps, perhaps…a beloved lay at his side to keep him warm. He’d wake and kiss her with those firm lips as though she were his very air and…
Verity snatched her hand back, swallowed.
Long ago, she’d vowed never to think on such kisses.
By day, she could succeed.
