My Lady Quicksilver

The thought shocked him. It had been Mercury on his mind, night after night, but there was something about the shadow-wreathed woman in front of him that drew him. A sense of…tenderness.

His own secretary. Bloody hell. If he was one of his men, he’d have strung himself up by the heels.

A tendril of hair brushed his cheek in the dark interior of the carriage, silky-smooth and lemon-scented. With Rosa busy tending his wound, she barely noticed as he turned his head and breathed in the scent of her. Whatever perfume she used, it bathed her skin and drenched her hair as if she’d washed in it. He could barely discern her natural scent. His mouth went dry at the thought. He yearned to press his face to her throat, to drink in that scent, his body reacting with swift need.

“There,” she murmured, tying off the ends of the piece of petticoat. The instant she was done, she tugged her gloves back on as if the lack of them left her vulnerable. “That should hold until we get to the guild.”

Lynch sucked in a shaky breath. “Thank you. You’re most efficient.”

“In all matters.” She shot him a soft smile, her dark eyes flashing in the silvery moonlight. Her gaze slowly lowered as she sobered. “You knew Lady Arrondale.”

The words were no question.

“Annabelle?” The thought sheared through his desire like a knife.

“You were very gentle with her body.”

He sucked in a sharp breath and dragged himself upright. Annabelle. Guilt was a sour taste in his mouth. “She was my cousin’s consort.”

He knew she heard the sharpness in his voice and cursed himself for a fool. He despised speaking of himself; the story had been all through the papers at the time, with every journalist taking it upon himself to form an opinion on the circumstances. Few of them had come close to the truth, but that didn’t matter. He’d suspected Bleight behind half of the damned stories, and truth was but a varnish to the duke.

He’d never given a damn before, but something about the close nature of the carriage and Mrs. Marberry’s curiosity bit at him.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked her.

“Because…” She floundered for words, a flush of color darkening her skin. His gaze charted the path of it, across her throat and cheeks.

“Idle curiosity is not something I encourage.”

The words might have been a slap. Her magnificent eyes jerked to his. “Because I suspect you took more than one wound today. I wanted… I was offering comfort, nothing else.” Shoving away from him, she leaned against the door of the carriage and peered out, limned by soft shadows and moonlight.

“You’re not curious?”

Lashes fluttered against her pale cheeks as she gazed down at her lap. The line of her nape drew his eyes. He wanted to press his lips there, to lick the lemon scent from her skin and taste her body’s salt.

Lynch stilled, arrested by his hunger again. The roar of it surged through his veins. Just one little taste…to have her beneath him, the knife to her throat, hot blood in his mouth as she struggled weakly. She was a temptation he never should have brought beneath his roof. For forty years he’d contained his blood urges, and she stomped all over his control as if it were worth nothing. The thought was troubling.

I will beat this.

“I’m curious,” she admitted. “Of course I am. But the motivation is not vulgar.”

“So your curiosity is personal?”

Silence. It lingered for long moments, during which he found himself examining her again, his fingers tightening their grip on the carriage seat.

“Yes, it’s personal.” A sharp look away.

He wasn’t the only one afflicted by this madness. Fighting his body, he forced himself to think of Annabelle, lying on the floor with betrayal written all over her face.

It worked, like a splash of ice water to the face.

“I told you,” he said simply, “Alistair and I competed in all things.”

“You loved her?”

“I don’t know. I was fifteen.” He breathed a harsh laugh. “I was consumed by her with all the rabid fascination of a young man. And I wanted to win her. Neither Alistair nor I wished to push our rivalry so far as a duel, so Annabelle became the prize.”

“And he won?”

Silence. This time of his own making. Lynch slowly shut his eyes, the image of Annabelle painted behind his eyeballs. He hadn’t seen her in years. The shadow of age had surprised him, but he could recognize her still, in the elegant lines of her cheekbones and those lips that had been made to laugh. Guilt was a twisting sensation within his chest. Guilt, regret, and sorrow…

“My apologies,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize how strongly you still cared.”

“I’ve not seen her in more than thirty years,” he replied. An old wound, but this had only seemed to knock the scab off it. “They tell me he was kind to her.”

Rosa seemed to wrestle with something. Slowly she reached out, her hand sliding over his. A gentling touch, but still a tentative one, as though she had to force herself to do it.

“My husband…” she began, and faltered. “It wasn’t…wasn’t love for me. Not at first. Indeed, I set about luring him into the marriage quite purposely.” At this, she darted a glance at him, as if to see how he took this revelation. “I hate that now that he’s gone. He loved me so much and I regret…so many things.”

Lynch stroked her thumb through the kid leather, simply listening.

“The guilt never goes away but the feeling fades,” she admitted bleakly. “At the end, when he realized what I’d done… I saw it in his face, you know? He hated me in that moment. But if he had survived, I wouldn’t care if he still hated me. As long as he were alive. That’s all that matters.”

Her voice trailed off, and he listened to the sound of her breathing, the feel of her hand anchoring him.

“What do you think happened?” Rosa whispered. “If your cousin cared for his wife, as you say, what could have made him kill her?”

“I don’t know.” Lynch’s gaze drifted to the window. He squeezed her fingers, feeling strangely vulnerable. “But I intend to find out.”

Rows of gaslights gleamed in the night as the carriage rolled past a park. Something caught his eye as his gaze lowered to Rosa’s hand and Lynch’s head snapped back to the window. There, standing by a grove of trees was a familiar figure smothered in a black silk cloak.

Mercury.

His heart leaped into his throat, throwing off the pall of grief. Exhilaration flooded through him. “Stop the carriage!” he bellowed, yanking at the door and dropping Rosa’s hand.

The masked figure blew him a kiss, then stepped back into the grove. Lynch opened the door while the carriage was still moving and leaped out, staggering as he landed. He clapped a hand to his ribs. Cursed weakness. Of all the times for his body to give out on him.

“Sir?” Perry shut off the boilers and knelt on the edge of the driving seat, peering into the darkness intently.

“Mercury,” he snapped, gesturing to the park. “I saw her in the trees. Get after her.” He drew sticky fingers away from his side. No point running after her himself. Frustration soared through him.

Perry leaped down into the street and sprinted toward the park.

Skirts rustled and then Rosa was sliding under his arm to help hold him up, her dark eyes raking his face. “What’s going on?” She looked down and paled. “You’ve torn your wound open.”

“It will heal.” He stared after Perry. On the other side of the park an engine hissed to life as a steam carriage pulled away from the curb. “Damn it.” He’d bet his last penny that Mercury was in that carriage. Perry would lose her and he didn’t know how to drive the carriage himself in order to give chase.

Rosa pressed her gloved hand against his side. “You need to sit back down and rest???”

“It won’t kill me,” he said absently.

“No, but you’ll end up bedridden for days at this rate,” she replied tartly.

That caught his attention. Lynch looked down in bemusement as his secretary clucked and scolded him back into the carriage. Her expression was furious as she tugged his undershirt back up