Page 291 of From Rakes to Riches

“Yourself?”

Her clipped answer surprised a bark of laughter out of him. “You know me better than you ought to for only having met me twice before.”

“A detective is trained to make keen observations about people.” She tapped the spot beneath her eye with her fingertip, indulging in a satisfied smile.

“A shame none of the detectives they sent after me were women.”

“You’d be caught by now, no doubt.”

“I imagine you are right.”

She lifted her hand to her eyes, shading them from the quickly dissipating sun. “I’ve observed something else.”

“What is that?”

“We are being followed.”

6

Mercy suddenly wanted Raphael Sauvageau to live up to his name.

He was just so unnervingly cool and infuriatingly collected. All loose limbs and unaffected insouciance, even as he checked their periphery for a threat.

As if finding one wouldn’t at all ruin his day.

If this man had as much sway over fear as he claimed, then what was it that could send him into histrionics?

Everyone feared something.

You terrify me, Mercy Goode.

Surely, he’d been joking.

He gave their surroundings a surreptitious examination. “Does the man following us have a billycock hat and a grey morning suit with the paper tucked under his left arm?” His lips barely moved as he peered off into the opposite direction of the man in question.

A lance of trepidation speared her gut. “You’ve spotted him, too?”

Turning, he lifted his hand in a wave at their voyeur.

Mercy almost slapped it out of the air before he informed her, “His name is Clayton Honeycutt. He’s one of my Fauves.”

“You’re being followed by your own men?” she asked in disbelief, blinking over at their shadow, who nodded in greeting.

“We tend to trail each other. To go very few places alone. Our backs are never exposed, and it keeps us honest—well—at least among our own.”

Something about the way he said this caused her to examine him more closely. He was being wry...and yet...a tightness appeared at the corner of his mouth that hadn’t been there before.

“You have a good eye,” he praised. “An admirable instinct for such things. Not many people can pick us out of a crowd like this.”

Mercy tried to hide that his words pleased her, and found it impossible.

So delighted was she, in fact, that she neglected her defenses against him for a rare, vulnerable moment. Forgot that his masculinity was honed to a razor’s edge, wielded with masterful ease. That his musculature was well-thewed and sculpted like that of a lean predator, one that relied on his speed and stamina as well as his strength.

One that moved about the world with nothing to fear.

And everything to claim as his own.

It became increasingly hard to believe that such a charismatic man, radiating a sort of godlike beauty, walked among mortals like her.

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