Sinner's Heart

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“I do not . . . how am I . . . ?” Livia drifted closer, out of the shadows.

“Oh, my God!” Lady Girard pushed away from the table and Bram with a scream.

For the light revealed that Livia was translucent. The details of the chamber could be seen through her softly glowing form, and she did not walk upon the floor but hovered. As she moved nearer, she passed through a chair as if she were made of vapor.

“A specter!” Lady Girard bolted toward the door. She did not look back as she tore it open, then ran out into the corridor, her slippers pattering like raindrops.

Bram wanted to call her back. Yet he had used his power upon her already. It worked only once for each person. And he doubted very much that even a man as skilled in seduction as he could woo her back. For most people, the sight of a genuine ghost was terrifying and strange.

He was overly familiar with the terrifying and strange. And it enraged him.

“Spare me from your invectives and lamentations, for I haven’t the stomach for them tonight.” His gaze raked her as he straightened his coat. Thwarted lust seethed beneath his skin. “At least you once had the good manners to appear to me in private.”

She drifted closer, hand outstretched in demand. “You must—”

“None of this. I cannot abide hearing more of your dictates.”

“But—”

“Enough,” he snarled. “My pleasure here is ruined, so I must seek it elsewhere.”

She scowled. “There’s far more at stake than your pleasure.”

As though he needed reminding. Edmund was dead. Whit and Leo were lost. And John . . . Bram didn’t know who John was anymore. The five Hellraisers now scattered to the winds like ashes as the world burned. And they were the ones who lit the tinder.

He stared at the specter. “I don’t bloody care.”

Before she could speak again, he strode from the chamber. Returning to the ballroom, he saw Lady Girard being comforted by three swains. She turned her stunned gaze to him, but he didn’t linger. Like everything in his life, tonight had been thrown to hell. He shouldered his way roughly through the sweaty, perfumed crowd, ignoring those that called to him or pulled at his sleeves.

Finally out of the ballroom, he sped from the house—Lord Dunfrey’s place? Did it matter? His long stride took him away from the assembly, the voices, his hindered seduction, that damned ghost, and into the night. Into the darkness.

Night lay heavy over the city. The few lamps lining the avenues burned fitfully, trails of smoke curling toward the sky. Linkboys’ torches barely penetrated the darkness. Even here in elegant St. James, shadows felt endless, choking.

He didn’t know where his legs took him this night, only that he must move, and keep moving, as if the hounds of hell snapped at his heels.

Turning a corner, he heard the shouts before he saw the men. Guttering lamplight revealed two figures locked in a fight. Knives gleamed in their hands and made metallic arcs in the air as they swung at each other. The men weren’t beggars or drunkards. Their coats were clean and of fair quality. Both had lost their wigs in the scuffle, so the weak light turned their shaved heads to bare skulls.

He knew these men. Lesser nobility, and brothers. Their thrown punches and jabs with their knives revealed that they meant to hurt each other.

“Goddamn son of a whore,” one snarled.

“You’re a liar and a rogue,” the other spat. “I’ll spill your guts upon the ground.”

In an instant, Bram stood between them, his sword drawn. His was no gentleman’s decorative blade. The weapon had seen use.

“The both of you, stand down.”

The two men stumbled backward, their gazes moving from his sword to his face and back again. He stood lightly, ready to fight.

“This isn’t your business, my lord,” one of the men panted.

“I don’t like seeing corpses in the road.” Only a week ago, Edmund had lay in the street, his blood pooling between the cobblestones. The sword that had pierced Edmund’s chest had belonged to John. They had been as brothers not long before. Bram had seen it all unfold, stood in horror and watched as one of his good friends killed the other. Afterward, he envisioned the scene over and over, and every time, he was unable to prevent the outcome. Edmund dead at John’s hand.

This, at least, he could stop.

“There’s two of us,” the other man said. “One of you. It could be your corpse in the street.”

Bram stared at them, unblinking. He raised his sword. “One blade is all I need to spill your blood.” If he couldn’t stop these brothers from fighting, then by God he would make them sorry for challenging him.

The men’s gazes moved to the scar that snaked down his throat. His daily reminder that he’d faced death, and survived. Bram was not easy prey.

Whatever the brothers saw in his face and stance, they didn’t care for it. Eyes wide, cheeks ashen, they both dropped their knives, then turned and scuttled away like roaches.

He waited a moment. Sheathed his sword, and walked on. Yet the seething fury within him continued to burn, stoking him, his whole body alight.

Where Bram went, he didn’t know. Only that all around him, the city seemed in chaos. Here, in genteel Mayfair, more fights churned on street corners. Glass from shattered shop windows glittered on the sidewalk and crunched beneath his heels. A night watchman ran from a mob.

This city is a runaway horse, careening toward disaster. As though something had been unleashed, something dark and wild, gnawing away at humanity, turning everything rancid and ugly.

You know the cause.

He stared at his jagged reflection in a broken window. Pieces of his face stared back. His eyes—when had they become so cold? His mouth—had it always been this cruel? Or had these changes come over him these past few months, ever since that night at the Roman ruin near his country estate?

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

He stalked on. His steps slowed when he discovered himself standing outside the Marquess of Colfax’s mansion.

A smile curved his mouth. Several months ago Bram had challenged the other Hellraisers to a shooting contest, and they’d shot off the finials on the marble balustrade. Leo had been the winner, and they’d gone to celebrate his victory with a cadre of opera dancers and smuggled French brandy.

Bram now walked close and placed his hand on the chipped stone. The marble finials still had not been replaced. Neither had the memory.

The front door to Colfax’s home opened. Bram stared as Colfax himself came charging down the steps. Uncharacteristic rage twisted the marquess’s face. He’d always been the most genial of men—Bram had once accidentally spilled wine on Colfax’s velvet waistcoat, and the marquess had actually apologized for being in Bram’s way—yet now the older man barreled toward him with fury in his eyes.

“You think I didn’t know? You think I didn’t see?” Colfax jabbed his finger into Bram’s chest. “The lot of you, despoiling my property and laughing. Laughing! I watched the whole thing, and I didn’t do a damned thing to stop you. But I won’t tolerate it, d’ye see? Not any longer. The five of you will pay!”

The shock that had held Bram immobile snapped. Anger surged. Here was another sign that the world had gone mad. The five Hellraisers were no more, their friendship razed, and lunacy gripped the city. He still woke, sweat-drenched, from dreams of past madness, the shouts of dying soldiers and Indian war-cries ringing in his ears. And here they were again, his old demons—death, chaos, brutality. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t outpace them.

His hand shot out and wrapped around Colfax’s throat. He didn’t care that, as a baron, he was outranked by Colfax. All that mattered was the wrath that blistered within him.

The tirade abruptly stopped as Bram lifted the marquess up so that the older man’s feet left the ground.