Page 90 of The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes
“I will fucking kill him,” Kieran snarled as he slammed into his rooms. Fury coursed through him and his hands throbbed with the need to inflict pain.
“Kill who?” Finn asked. He stood in the doorway of his bedchamber, clad in a shirt and breeches, and rubbed a damp cloth across the back of his neck.
“Lord Fucking Montford,” Kieran spat. He kicked a footstool, and the piece of furniture flew across the room to splinter against the wall.
“Granted, the man’s a prig, and dull as Sunday afternoon, but does that warrant swinging for his murder? And I liked that footstool.”
“I’m of a mood to tear this whole goddamned place apart, so consider it fortunate I stopped when I did.”
Planting himself in front of the fire, he explained as concisely as possible Lord Montford’s blackmail of Celeste. Kieran did omit the fact that he and Celeste had been intimate, but other than that, he included all the relevant details about what hadtranspired. As he spoke, his brother grew more and more still, until Finn just stared at him, his expression grave.
Finn leaned against the wall, his fingers steepled against his mouth. “Hell,” he muttered. “There’s no hope for it. She’ll have to marry that bastard.”
“He’s not going to rob Celeste of her choice,” Kieran said tightly. “That isn’t going to happen.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “You’ve something in mind?”
“Haven’t figured out all the steps yet,” he said, and added grimly, “but if it’s to work, I need to tell Dom everything.”
His brother whistled. “He wasn’t especially delighted by you being involved in any capacity with his sister. You could be inviting your own demise.”
“Possibly. But if it means helping Celeste, I’ll take that chance.” He didn’t care whom or what he faced, or what it cost him to do so. He had to help her. There was simply no other alternative.
Finn stood and walked quickly into his bedchamber. He emerged, slipping his arms into his waistcoat and holding his jacket in his hand. At Kieran’s questioning look, his brother explained, “Someone’s going to need to sit on Dom to keep him from eviscerating you with his pinkie finger.”
Kieran nodded his thanks, and though he was grateful that his brother was essentially acting as his second, he tried to smother his impatience as Finn finished dressing. Once his brother was fully clothed, they headed out of their lodgings. It was just after midnight, the pavement slick with late-night fog, but in this part of the city many young men kept rooms,so cabs were fairly abundant and it didn’t take long to hail one.
“Where to, gov?” the driver asked.
“The Foxhead Tavern,” Kieran answered as he climbed into the vehicle. “You know it?”
“Bit of a rough place, eh, gov?”
Which was precisely why Dom liked it. He’d never taken to the more polished and sumptuous watering spots favored by the sons of the elite, and with the Foxhead located close to the docks near Ratcliff, it seemed to remind him of earlier times. Perhaps they were simpler times, too.
But as the cab headed south toward the river, and the air grew heavier with the scent of the thick water, Kieran mused that if the Foxhead Tavern was a refuge for Dom, he was about to ruin that sanctuary.
Hard to think of these grimy run-down streets as anyone’s place of refuge, but they seemed to be for Dom. What vastly different lives they’d once led, the Ransome brothers and Dominic Kilburn. But they’d been drawn to each other because none of them had ever quite fit in to Society.
Thinking on it now, Dom had been largely absent from all the places the three of them used to frequent. Ever since the wedding, he’d kept himself scarce. Perhaps he blamed Kieran and Finn for enabling him to leave Willa at the altar, or perhaps he’d another motivation for being scarce.
Kieran would brood on that later. Right now, he needed all his focus on helping Celeste.
“I ain’t waiting for you, gents,” the cabman said once they’d arrived. He glanced at a trio of menslouching in a doorway, all of them watching the vehicle with sharp eyes.
“Not even for this?” Finn asked, discretely flashing a crown.
“You could throw a pound note at me and I’d still run like hell. G’night, gents.” The driver flicked the reins and the cab trundled away as speedily as its rather rickety construction would permit.
“Inside,” Kieran said. “I don’t relish the prospect of being stabbed in anything significant.” And he wanted to lay everything out with Dom as quickly as possible. The sooner he could apprise his friend of the situation, the sooner he’d endure his justifiable beating, and then he could enact his plan to help Celeste.
The inside of the tavern was only marginally more inviting than its shabby exterior. Even in their wildest nights, Kieran and Finn didn’t accompany Dom to the Foxhead. There was wild, and then there was outright brutal. Heavy beams that dated from early in the previous century were low overhead, smoke and other substances stained the plaster walls, and people of surly disposition hunched over their tankards at scarred wooden tables.
None looked surlier than the wide-shouldered figure sitting alone in a corner settle. Dom cradled his tankard closely, and Kieran almost felt jealous that his friend seemed to trust the mug more than any human.
Warily, Kieran approached, with Finn close at his heels.
“If things go awry,” Finn muttered, “I’m leaping out the window and running home.”
