Page 68 of An Extraordinary Lord

“I want you to leave. Tonight. Take whatever you want.” He paused as if wanting to say something more. But he looked away and finished, “Don’t come back until you’re invited.”

A knot of emotion strangled in her throat. Unable to speak, Veronica nodded tightly.

“Come, Ivy.” He reached down to take the girl’s arm, pulled her gently to her feet, and slipped his arm around Ivy’s still shaking shoulders as she continued to sob. As he led her away, he nodded silently at the body.

Clean up your mess.The words lingered as palpably as if he’d uttered them.

Veronica’s eyes blurred with unshed tears. She met Filipe’s gaze for only a beat before he flipped back the sailcloth and left the room. Ivy never looked back.

Her chest convulsed as she pulled in shallow, quick breaths and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. Shewouldn’t! She wouldn’t let anyone hear one sound of the agony and desolation that gripped her. Hadn’t she already learned that lesson, so long ago and at such a high price? Tears solved nothing. Crying only made a woman appear weak and helpless, only invited ridicule and abuse.

But the tears came anyway, falling hot and silent, faster than she could wipe them away. She wrapped her arms around her middle and folded over herself onto the floor as she cried out her wretchedness in silent, shaking sobs.

She couldn’t stay. She had to leave before Filipe returned. Despite the pain that churned inside her, her arms and legs were numb as she shoved herself to her feet and reached down to grab the dead man under his arms, to drag him toward the hall. She gritted her teeth, pulled hard, and shuffled her feet backward toward the sailcloth flap. She grabbed it and threw it out of the way.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a movement on the other side of her room. She froze, taking several terrified beats to realize it was her own reflection in the mirror.

A strange woman gazed back, her face ghostly white and her hair collapsing down the side of her head. Blood was everywhere…puddled on the floor, streaking the ripped sailcloth behind her, splattered across the front of her gown…marking her. And at her slippers lay a dead body.

Her stomach churned until she thought she might be sick, until she had to place a hand against her belly to keep from casting up her accounts. This was what her life was now. That image captured in the mirror all she represented…

Death and destruction.

Good Lord, what had she become? What kind of monster had fate turned her into? Lonely, hopeless…

She didn’t want this life. She’d never belonged here with Filipe among his cronies and the Court, should be glad she no longer had an obligation to be here for all that his father had done for her. She didn’t belong to the night and to the death and pain it wrought—

Her eyes blurred until the gown’s reflection in the mirror was nothing but a green smear. Nothing but a stained and ruined reminder that she didn’t belong to society either.

She belonged nowhere in the world.

The stab of isolation and loneliness struck her so powerfully that a strangled sound tore from the back of her throat.

Dear God—she had no one! No one to take her in. No one to give her comfort.

Except…perhaps one.

Eighteen

Merritt lay in his bed and stared at the dark ceiling, unable to sleep.

After an hour of patrolling—actually more of an hour of solid running in an attempt to lose the ghosts that chased him tonight—he gave up and came home to a dark and silent house. But sleep was proving impossible.

Being here was worse than being at the Armory. How his friends had confronted him tonight was infuriating as hell and none of their damn business. But here, his own thoughts haunted him, with no escape.

He turned onto his side and punched at his pillow.

He shouldn’t have come home tonight. He should have stayed on the streets. He should have gone back to the Ship’s Bell and dug deeper for any leads on Smathers. He should have been watching Malmesbury’s mistress—hell, he should have gone to Madame Noir’s if nothing else. Not to enjoy the girls but simply to find distraction in Madame’s sharp insults and baiting.Anythingto distract him from the riots, Joanna’s ghost, and the temptation of Veronica Chase.

Damnation! He flopped over onto his back and draped his forearm over his face. Dawn was still hours away. Maybe he could go to the nearest inn, rent a horse, ride out for air and—

A soft creak from the staircase split the silence.

The tiny hairs on his arms stood on end. He held his breath and strained to listen, waiting for another creak, another footstep on the stairs. He employed no live-in servants, and the housekeeper who kept the small town house for him and cooked his meals had left at dusk, just as she always did, and wouldn’t be back until morning.

Slowly, he reached beneath the bed for the knife he kept there.

Another creak. This time from the top stair.