Page 145 of Dukes Are Forever
Adele swallowed hard. She knew the symbol for Greek Fire when she saw it. And judging from that ticking sound, there was some sort of explosive device stacked among the barrels.
Devoncourt had left her here to die.
And he'd done a jolly good job of tying these knots.
I am not going to die in the bloody opera house.
And certainly not at Devoncourt's hand.
If she couldn't loosen her ropes, then she would have to cut them, or abrade them. She glanced down, at the coiled spring attached to the chair she sat in. Any sharp jerk might trigger the mechanism there. So, not only would she have to cut her ropes, but she'd have to do it gently.
Not a great deal of time to lose then.
It was a good thing she'd come prepared.
Adele gritted her teeth and tried to force her blood-starved fingers to work. They flapped uselessly against her lacy sleeve. She couldn't remember much of her kidnapping, but as her fingers groped blindly, she hoped whoever had been behind it hadn't thought to search her.
Almost there.... Her fingers brushed the hilt of the small knife she always carried up her sleeve.Come on. Sweat dripped down her temple. Then she caught hold of the hilt with her fore and middle fingers.
It took her perhaps ten minutes, but Adele finally gasped in success as she managed to tumble the hilt into her palm. Her fingers snapped closed around it.
Time to get out of here.
Before those barrels exploded.
* * *
"Where is she? Where is she?"
Malloryn shoved through the smoky crowd outside the opera, finding Byrnes and Ingrid sitting on the steps of the palladium opposite the burning opera house. All he saw was blood and ash marking Ingrid's face, and Byrnes's protective arm around her shoulders.
The world started buzzing again. Malloryn staggered to a halt. "Adele?"
There was no sign of her.
"Adele?" Byrnes's frown drew his eyebrows together, and Malloryn watched as the other man suddenly realized exactly what had happened.
Ingrid looked up, her nostrils flaring with pain as she held her arm across her chest. "I'm sorry."
"It went up just as we breached the opera house door," Byrnes said gently, but Malloryn didn't hear any of it. "We were too late. I'm sorry...." A gurgle died in his throat. "It was all I could do to get Ingrid out of the way in time."
Malloryn finally managed to take in what remained of the opera house. Rubble lay strewn across the square, fire licking at what was left of the building. Men manning water pumps seemed to be streaming from nowhere, and as he watched, an enormous column of marble toppled, shattering across the cobbles.
"Stay back!" someone called.
There was no way anyone inside could have survived.
This was his fault.
And suddenly Malloryn was on his knees, the heat—what there was of it—draining from his face, and the world rushing away from him.
"Malloryn?" Byrnes caught him by the arm, and the duke groped for his hand blindly.
Adele.
That was when he knew what she'd meant to him.
Chapter 29
