Sinner's Heart

could be trusted.

Moving further into the chamber, he went to a side table and poured himself a brandy. He silently offered a glass to John, but his friend shook his head. The most abstemious of the Hellraisers, was John.

“What are you doing here? I would have thought you’d be sequestered in the corner of some assembly, engineering a political alliance.”

“It is for that reason I’ve searched you out.” He lowered his voice, confiding. “I’ve come for a favor.”

Bram raised his brows. “You mistake me for one of your Whitehall power brokers.”

“There are more ways to gain influence than direct channels.” John offered a smile.

“I’ve never cared for subtlety.”

John chuckled, though Bram did not share in the laughter. “Direct as the point of a blade, as always. Yet you’ve your own means of persuasion.” He gave Bram a meaningful look, for he knew the specifics of Bram’s magical gift. “In truth, that is why I am here tonight. I need your persuasive talents to get inside a certain gentleman’s private study. Into a desk drawer in that study.”

Where, no doubt, important and confidential documents were kept. “You want a housebreaker, not me.”

The corner of John’s mouth curved, the most he could provide for a smile. “Your way is so much more elegant. It’s a simple matter of persuading one of the servants to let you into the study.”

“Bribe one of them.”

“All the servants in this household are nauseatingly virtuous. Come now, Bram, we’re friends, you and I. There’s no need to dissemble about your own virtue. I’ve seen you seduce married women right out from under the noses of their husbands.”

“If a woman is under her husband’s nose, he’s got her in the wrong place.”

Bram felt, rather than heard, Livia’s amusement. Then her voice within him. The worst kind of scoundrel.

Oh, he answered silently, but I’m very good at it.

So I’ve witnessed. I myself found it far more entertaining to be wicked than respectable.

This intrigued him, but John’s words brought his attention back to the room.

“Will you do it? It is a very small favor, but it would be an immeasurable assistance.”

Bram only stared at John. “We’ve not seen one another since Edmund’s burial.”

The heavy velvet curtains suddenly became fascinating, for John fixed his attention on them. “A sorrowful day.”

“As of now, I’m the only Hellraiser you haven’t tried to kill.” He took a drink. “That might change. I may wake up with your rapier in my heart.”

Shaking his head, John said, “This is precisely what Leo and Whit want—division between us. But we two, together we’re the strongest of all. So much power. We can have anything we desire, anything at all.” He stepped closer, the light from the fireplace paring his face into sharp yellow planes. “Mr. Holliday’s gifts were twofold—we were given power, and we also learned which of us were weakest.”

“Whit and Leo weren’t weak.” Bram had known Whit for most of his life, long before either of them had seen the world’s true face, full of ruin and loss. They had stalked the streets of London together, haunted its glittering ballrooms and smoke-shrouded gaming hells. When Bram had returned from the Colonies, unable to do much beyond drink and fuck, Whit had not judged him. He’d given Bram acceptance, when Bram could not accept himself.

“No?” John scoffed. “Even with the power they were given, both were misled by women. That Gypsy girl, and Leo’s insipid wife. No man of strength could be so deluded by a woman.” He smiled. “Not you, Bram. You know exactly what women are for—bedding, and nothing else.”

Fool, Livia fumed in Bram’s mind.

Bram took another swallow of brandy. “So my cock makes me strong.”

John seemed to make the decision to be amused. “How marvelous that you are so little changed.”

Was Bram the same as he’d been before? He barely recognized his reflection in the water of his washing basin. The face he knew, but what was beneath it, that had been irrevocably altered. Witnessing one friend murder another tended to do that.

“It’s not usual,” Bram said, “for a man to attend the funeral of the one he killed.”

John’s face tightened. “The damned fool stepped into the path of my blade.”

Not enough regret, whispered Livia. Not nearly enough.

“The blade that was meant for Leo.”

This, at the least, John did not dispute. “He’d turned against us, turned his back on the Hellraisers. He could not suffer to live.” His voice was cold and hard as frost.

“This is Leo we’re talking of. The man you once carried home on your back when he’d been too fuddled with drink to walk. You and he used to debate for hours about phenomenally dull finance policies.”

“That was before.” His mouth hardened. “We’ve learned valuable lessons since then.”

“I was never much for education.”

Stepping closer, John said, “Bram, think. Consider everything we’ve been given. You and I aren’t like the others. We won’t fall to the wiles of females. We know how to use our gifts to our best advantage. With our abilities, anything we want can be ours, anything at all.”

“I’ve already got what I desire.”

“Yet you could have more.” His eyes burned like coals. “Mr. Holliday’s power is great in me. All thoughts are mine to read, from the limbless beggar to the mightiest lord.”

“Tell me what I’m thinking now.” In truth, Bram wished John would, for his own thoughts were tempestuous and made for rough navigation.

John made himself look rueful. “All minds but the Hellraisers’. Those are illegible to me.”

Perhaps that was for the best. He felt Livia close, agitated and angry.

“Inconvenient,” answered Bram.

“But I don’t need to worry about what you’re thinking.” John narrowed his eyes. “Do I, Bram?”

Bram did not answer. Nor did he look away. He only stared at John until the other man chuckled.

“The hour is late, so I’m for bed.” John strode to the door of the chamber. “You won’t forget that favor I’ve asked of you.”

It didn’t escape notice that this was a statement, not a question. “I won’t forget.”

But will you do it? Livia pressed.

He refused to respond, and stood in the middle of the room as John made a quick bow before leaving. The front door opened then shut. The wheels of John’s carriage clattered down the street.

Studying the carpet beneath his feet, Bram followed the snaking pattern of vines. If plants such as the ones in the Savonnerie rug existed in real life, they would trap unwary animals and either choke the life out of the creatures or else consign them to a slow death by starvation.

Damn him, if only he had power over time. With that gift, he’d take the Hellraisers back to the moments before they had freed Mr. Holliday. He would keep them from journeying to the ruined temple where they had found the Devil’s prison, distract them somehow, and they would go on just as they always had.

“You can’t go back.” Her voice did not come from within his mind. Glancing up, he watched a silver white glow appear in the gloom of the chamber. It coalesced into a form he was coming to recognize far too well.

“I’m aware of that,” he snarled.

“All of that”—she waved her hand toward the door from which John had exited—“was a test. Asking for a favor serves to bind you to him. And the rest . . . he wants to know where your loyalties lay.”

“What a habit you have of stating things I already know.” He poured himself another drink and took a goodly swallow.

She shook her head, and he felt her displeasure down in his marrow. He tried to shake it off—he’d stopped courting anyone’s opinion long ago. One imperious, assertive ghost meant nothing to him.

Yet she persisted, hovering nearer. “You’ll have to make your choice. Sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t need to choose anything. Neither you nor John can force me to.” He heard the petulant note in his