Page 95 of An Extraordinary Lord

A key tattoo.A terrifying horror sickened her.

“Scepter,” she panted out as the pressure on her throat grew so fierce that her vision began to turn black and she could barely suck in enough air to keep from falling unconscious. Her hand fumbled for the second knife she kept up her other forearm. “You’re one…of them…Why?”

“What better way to bring down a monarchy and put our own king in place? What better way to make a fortune from its ruins?” He lowered his face so close to hers that the hot stench of his breath fanned over her cheeks. “And you and your friends won’t be able to stop us.”

He lunged to bring his full weight to bear against her and strangle her.

With a desperate cry, she yanked the knife free. She swung her arm downward in a quick arc, then up—

The sharp blade sliced into his abdomen.

A surprised groan fell from his parted lips, and his grip around her throat instantly loosened. With a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, his face twisted in pain before he toppled against her. She shoved him back, and he crumpled to the stones. Her knife was lodged in his abdomen, all the way to its hilt.

Veronica slumped back against the wall. Her hand flew to her throat as she coughed and gasped to pull air back into her lungs. The black spots that danced before her eyes faded with each deep breath she took, and the pounding in her head subsided as the world slowly stopped rising and plunging around her.

She stared down at the dead man at her feet. She’d trusted him, as had Filipe. Her chest ached, and from more than gasping back her breath. Everything in her world had turned upside down. Who was left for her to trust?

“Veronica!”

Her eyes darted up. A man raced through the mob toward her. His face was hidden in the shadows from the yellow light of the sun rising behind him, but her heart knew…Merritt.

When he reached her, he cupped her face in his hands. He turned her head side to side as he frantically examined her for any wounds, then brushed his hands down her bruised neck to her shoulders and torso. When he found none, he seized her mouth beneath his in a blistering kiss that tasted of pure relief. He kissed her long enough to send her heart thumping for a whole new reason, to bring feeling back into her numb limbs and chase away the hollow pang of grief.

He shifted back and glanced down at Danker’s dead body. “What the hell happened?”

Solemnly, she moved past him, bent down, and pulled her knife from Danker’s body. She paused only to wipe the blade clean on the shoulder of Danker’s jacket before rising to her feet.

“All debts have been repaid,” she told him quietly, her voice raw.

He nodded as if that cryptic answer explained everything. “Then let’s get out of here.” He flinched as the sound of shattering wood and glass echoed down the street. “Now.”

Twenty-five

Merritt followed only a pace behind Veronica as she led them through the crush of rioters. No longer attempting to control the riot or stop the destruction that continued to break out, their only thought now was escape.

The mob had circled back and engulfed them, and hundreds of rioters filled the streets around them. All of them wielded torches and weapons, including the women and the youngest of boys who had joined with the crowd. They attacked the fronts of buildings, smashing shutters and windows, breaking gas lamps, ripping down wrought iron railings, and bashing apart anything they could. Fires had been set in their wake by those among the mob whose frustrations weren’t appeased by brute force, while others broke into buildings to steal what they could find inside. Filipe’s men had lost control over the riot, and chaos reigned.

Damnation!This wasn’t at all what he’d hoped for tonight. Dread and anger rose sickeningly inside him that he couldn’t stop it, and he prayed to whatever god would listen that no innocents were hurt, that the only damage would be the destruction of property that could all be replaced. His only consolation was that the mob hadn’t attacked the barricades as planned. The slaughter of those lives had been stopped, and tonight’s riot would be the last for a very long time to come.

“What happened at the barricades?” Veronica called out over her shoulder as she veered away from two men recklessly swinging cutlasses in the air.

“The soldiers didn’t fire,” he answered succinctly and glanced behind them to keep an eye on what was happening at their rear. They couldn’t afford to have their only path of retreat cut off, not when the way forward grew more precarious with every passing minute.

She stopped and turned back toward him with relief. “Then it’s all over now.”

With a grimace, Merritt took her arm and pulled her onward with him. “Not even close.”

Only when the sun rose high enough for the morning light to fill the streets and chase away all cover of darkness would it end. The City had at least another hour to endure before the mob vanished back into the rabbit warren of alleys and rookeries from which it had emerged, and God only knew how much destruction and violence would be wrought before then.

But this would be the last of Scepter’s riots. That much was certain.

“This way.” He guided her across the street to a road that ran past Gray’s Inn and would take them south to High Holborn Street. From there, it would be an easy trek west to the Armory where she would be safe until—

His gaze landed on one of the rioters directly ahead, and he halted.

Clinging to the shadows at the edge of the street, the man was revealed by the flickering torchlight of two young boys who sped past to catch up to the front of the riot. Only a moment of light shone on his face, but that was enough. The same broad build, the same scar marring the side of the man’s face from jaw to temple—God’s mercy,it was him.

The man who’d killed Joanna.