Page 344 of From Rakes to Riches

“You wouldn’t be a monster anymore, you bastard,that’swhat we paid a fucking fortune to Conleith for!”

“Changing my face doesn’t change who I am. What I’ve done...”

“I wanted you to have a fucking chance!” Raphael exploded, snatching a rock from the ground and hurling it into the darkness. “And after this debacle they’ll hunt us to the ends of the earth.”

“No, they won’t.” Morley melted from the shadows as if they gave way for him.

Mercy had never been so conflicted to see someone in her entire life. On one hand, she was so utterly glad he had come.

On the other, she feared what he might do.

As usual, his chiseled face was cast in stone. Imperturbable. Inaccessible.

Only Pru seemed to be able to read him. To reach him.

“I’m prepared to say you were both lost in the fire,” Morley offered crisply. “Consider your deaths official. That is less paperwork for me, anyhow. But may God help you if you’re caught in London again, for I won’t.”

Raphael turned to him, attempting to wipe some of the blood from his cheek with his sleeve. “Why do this, when our capture would be a boon?”

“Because,” Morley’s pale gaze snapped to Mercy, and she might have read fondness beneath the censure. “Because you were right about the boots, Detective Goode, and had I listened to you earlier, so much of this might have been avoided.”

The Duchesse rejoined them, a wet cloth in her hand. She regarded the addition of the Chief Inspector with a dubious look.

Morley did little but nod, saying for her benefit, “I highly doubt the coroner will be able to determine which killed Inspector Trout. The wounds to his face or to his neck. In my opinion, he can be added to this rubbish heap of a night. I should like to avoid an international incident, besides.” He gave the Duchesse a starched bow of deference.

“Merci,” she replied.

Morley turned to gaze down at Felicity, his expression troubled to find her in the arms of one of the largest, most brutal men in Christendom. “Fainted, did she?”

Mercy nodded. “I’m afraid so.” She brushed her hand over the little curls at her sister’s temple, wondering if hers felt so downy soft. “Marco Villenueve terrorized her. He...he struck her.”

“When we find him, I’ll fucking kill him,” Morley said darkly, surprising even her with his vehemence.

At that, Gabriel’s neck snapped up, revealing some of his ruined lip to the torchlight.

It was Raphael who spoke, however. “I assumed he was killed in the fall down the stairs. He was a crumpled heap of bones.”

Morley shook his head. “No one has been able to locate him, alas, he’s quite disappeared.”

A prickling at the back of Mercy’s neck told her that to stand near Gabriel was possibly the most dangerous place to be at the moment.

Fury rolled off his shoulders in palpable waves.

And yet, he unfurled to stand without even jostling his burden, limping slightly as he offered Felicity into Morley’s care. “It isyourface she should see when she wakes,” he said.

Morley took Felicity, eliciting a groan from the woman. “There we are. You’re all right.”

“You’re bleeding.” Mercy pointed to a pool that’d gathered where Gabriel had sat against the wall, the liquid gleaming like spilled ink in the firelight.

Gabriel only rolled his shoulder in a rather Gallic shrug, until Raphael checked the pool for himself, and found drops of blood along the path his brother had tread.

“Where are you hurt?” he demanded, clutching at his brother’s coat.

“It’s nothing,” the man growled, reverting back to his native tongue.

“That amount of blood is not nothing, you fucking lunatic, now tell me. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Stop fussing, little brother.” Gabriel shrugged him off. “The hospital is where I’m headed anyway...it’ll just be another scar.”

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