No Good Duke Goes Unpunished Page 20

  The words lacked conviction.

  “As none of us are doctors,” Bourne said, “you’ll forgive me if I am not comforted by your diagnosis.”

  “It might be muscle. Nerve.”

  “Pull it out.”

  Cross shook his head. “We don’t know what that would do. We don’t know if it would—” He stopped, and the words rang in the room despite his not saying them. Kill him faster.

  Chase swore, low and furious.

  “Justin?” Cross called and the pit boss pushed his spectacles high on his nose, waiting for the order. “Summon the surgeon. And my wife.” The Countess of Harlow’s knowledge of human anatomy was impressive, and she was the closest they had to a doctor if the surgeon weren’t nearby.

  Chase spoke low and dark. “And get me everything there is to know about Christopher Lowe.”

  Bourne looked to Chase. “I presume he’s gone?”

  “Lost in the fray tonight.”

  Bourne swore, harsh and wicked. “How?”

  “Security was so concerned about Temple, they forgot that their job was to protect the exits. I shall have all their heads. Every damn one.”

  “They care for him,” Cross said.

  A golden brow rose. “Interesting, that. Considering they could have captured his killer if they weren’t all wailing like banshees. They shall answer to me for behaving like children who lost their sweets.”

  “You’re a cold bastard,” Cross said.

  Chase ignored the words, instead turning to Bourne. “What happened to you?”

  A bruise was blossoming on Bourne’s face, coloring his right eye socket black. Bourne scowled. “I would prefer not to discuss it.”

  Chase did not seem to mind. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Locked in Prometheus, where she belongs.”

  Chase nodded. “Good. Let her think on what she’s done.”

  “What do you plan to do with her?”

  The founder of the Angel stood over Temple, watching his shallow breath, the barely-there rise and fall of his massive chest, the way his normally brown skin had gone sallow under the threat of death. “I shall kill her myself if he dies. With pleasure.”

  “Lowe thought she’d betrayed him,” Bourne said.

  “She tricked us all.” Chase did not look up. “I did not think she had it in her.”

  Cross raised a brow. “She faked her death and blamed him for it.”

  The door opened again, and Philippa, Lady Harlow entered, out of breath, spectacles askew, Asriel on her heels with hot water and linens.

  Pippa ignored everyone in the room, heading straight for Cross, touching her husband’s shoulder in a fleeting expression of comfort. After Cross lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, she turned her attention to Temple, running her fingers along his shoulder and down the skin to the place where the hilt of Lowe’s knife protruded, perverse and unnatural.

  She pressed at the flesh and Temple groaned.

  “You hurt him,” Chase said, warning in the words.

  Pippa did not look back. “That he can feel pain—that he can protest it—is a good thing. It indicates consciousness.” She turned to her husband. “The surgeon left once the first fight was complete. They’ve sent several men to search for him, but we mustn’t wait. You must pull it out. Straight and true. We must treat this wound before—”

  She stopped. No one in the room needed hear the rest.

  “And if it’s somehow keeping him from bleeding out?” Chase asked.

  “If that’s the case,” Pippa said, her tone turning gentle, “then we prolong the inevitable.”

  “Lady Harlow, while I am certain that you are exceedingly competent in all areas of science,” Chase said, “you will forgive me for questioning your skill as a doctor.”

  Pippa paused, looking to Cross. Waiting.

  “In light of the current circumstance, I shall ignore the tone you’ve taken with my wife,” Cross said. “We cannot wait for the surgeon. It could be hours.”

  Chase swore, the reveal of emotion from one so stoic harsh and unsettling for the rest in the room.

  “He won’t die,” Bourne said, the words half vow, half prayer. “He’s Temple. Stronger than all of us. Haler. Christ. He’s big as an ox. Unbeatable.”

  Except, he had been beaten.

  “Bring me the girl,” Chase said.

  Cross was simple and direct. “No.”

  Bourne was more colorful. “Over my rotting corpse does that bitch gain access to this room.”

  Chase did not rise to the anger. “She will see what she’s done to him.”

  “I would prefer she experience what she’s done to him.”

  Chase looked to Asriel. “Bring me the girl.”

  Asriel did not hesitate again. Chase’s will was done.

  “You watch her. She’s as likely as her brother was to take a knife to any one of us.” Bourne lifted his hand to his eye. “And she’s got a surprising right cross.”

  Pippa looked to him. Her wide eyes blinked once behind her spectacles and Bourne resisted the urge to fidget. “She hit you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it.”

  Cross couldn’t resist. “I don’t imagine you were.”

  He returned his attention to Temple’s wide expanse, watching as Pippa cleaned around the knife, her task Sisyphean—blood blossoming anew with every swipe.

  After long moments, she said, without looking up, “You can’t plan to reveal yourself to her.”

  Chase looked to her. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “She can’t know who you are,” Cross agreed with his wife. “She’s not to be trusted.”

  Pippa brought a clean cloth to Temple’s brow as they all watched, wiping away the sweat and sawdust that clung to him from the ring.

  Bourne spoke, “If she knew . . .”

  The words trailed off, completion unnecessary.

  If Mara—if anyone aside from a trusted few—knew Chase’s true identity, the Angel would be in peril.

  And the Angel’s peril belonged to them all.

  There was a gruesome painting of Prometheus on the wall of Mara’s prison cell. A torture scene.

  The hero lay prone, chained on his back to a rock, his face a portrait of agony as Zeus, in the form of a wicked black eagle, tore at his flesh. Punishing him for insolence. For stealing fire from the gods. For thinking he could beat them.

  It was a terrifying piece, enormous and threatening, no doubt designed to make those who defied the Angel aware of the consequences of their actions and amenable to confession.

  A vision flashed, Temple collapsed on the floor of the ring, the life spilling from him as she screamed.

  Kit had stabbed him. With her knife.

  Fire from the gods.

  The door opened and she turned, her words out before she could stop them. “The duke. He lives?”

  Temple’s second, the man who had stood sentry outside the orphanage, tall and broad with skin dark as midnight, did not reply, instead silently indicating that she should walk ahead of him into the dark hallway with a seriousness that suggested it would be a mistake to push him for an answer or to ignore his instructions.

  He’d clearly been trained by Temple.

  Heart pounding, she did as she was bid, and as she passed him, he did speak, his voice low and gruff. “Try nothing.”

  She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t. That she hated what had happened. That, had she known it would come to pass, she would have done everything in her power to stop it. That even at her most angry, she’d never intended to hurt Temple. But she knew the words would be futile and their meaning mistaken for lie or worse. And so, instead, she held herself straight and tall and made her way past him into the dimly lit hallway.

  The corridor was lined with men
and women in a variety of uniforms—from livery to lady of the evening—each face pale with shadow and concern. Each gaze hot with loathing.

  She longed for the mask that had been taken from her after the fight.

  They watched her with angry eyes as she made her way through the already unsettling passageways designed to overpower with their size and curvature—designed to make it exceedingly clear to all who passed who held the power. Designed to dissuade Prometheus from thinking he might fare well in his quest.

  “I hope you’re taking ’er to Chase,” one of the women said, blond and beautiful and filled with vitriol. “I hope ’e plans to deal with ’er.”

  A murmur of agreement rolled through the too-small space at the suggestion, and a man nearby added, “She deserves everything Temple got.”

  “She deserves more,” a wicked shout came from behind her, and Mara crossed her arms tightly, moving more quickly, desperate to get away from them. From their hate.

  And then her escort opened a door and she threw herself from the hallway into the chamber, pulling up short as she realized where she was.

  Wishing she had remained in the corridor beyond.

  She was in Temple’s rooms, where she’d watched him strip his shirt earlier in the evening. Where they’d sparred. Where he’d kissed her on lips and more, giving her a taste of a vast amount of pleasure to which he had access. Where she’d tried to stand firm and tried not to notice his muscles and sinew and bone. His warmth. His vitality.

  Vitality that was gone now. A woman and two men leaned low over him, candlelight wrapping him in its warm glow, highlighting the paleness of his skin, still as death. She closed her eyes against the words, wishing she hadn’t thought them. Willing the word death away.

  She stepped toward him, a knot in her throat. “My God,” she said, her chest heavy with fear and sorrow, unable to stop herself from reaching for him before her guide placed a strong hand on her arm and stopped her forward momentum.

  The Marquess of Bourne turned at the sound of her voice, and she noted the bruise blossoming at the inner corner of his eye, feeling the related sting in her right hand. He pointed at her. “You don’t come near him.”

  There was hatred in the words, and a different woman might not have replied. But she could not bear another moment of not knowing. “Is he dead?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “No,” she said, the truth coming on a flood of relief, knowing that the quiet word would mean nothing in this room, but wanting to say it nonetheless. Wanting to remind herself that she’d never intended to hurt Temple. Never. Not since the beginning. And certainly not now. “No.”

  He raised a brow. “I don’t believe you.”

  She met his gaze. “I didn’t expect you would.”

  “Enough, Bourne.” The woman at the table looked up and Mara recognized the blond, bespectacled woman from the mysterious room where they’d watched the fight earlier. “We can’t wait any longer. We must extract the knife.”

  It had been an hour . . . longer.

  Mara could not keep quiet. “Straight and true, as it went in.”

  “She would know how it went in, as she fairly put it there herself,” Bourne said. “Look upon your work, you fucking harpy.”

  As though Mara couldn’t see it. As though she hadn’t seen her brother plunge it deep into Temple’s chest.

  As though she didn’t will it away.

  She met Bourne’s hating, hazel gaze. “I did not do this.”

  “Of course you did.” This, from the other aristocrat in the room—tall and ginger-haired. When she looked to him, he added, “You did this the moment you set him up for a murder he didn’t commit. Twelve years end here. With this.”

  “It was a . . .” Mara trailed off, shaking her head. They did not understand. Few did.

  It was a mistake.

  She did not say it, because they neither cared to hear her story, nor deserved to. Temple was another tale. Temple deserved the truth.

  If he lived, she’d give it to him. All of it.

  She would lay herself at his feet and give him his chance at retribution. At vengeance. And she’d give him the truth.

  If only he would live.

  She moved toward his still form, and was stayed once more by the strong grip of his man-at-arms. She looked to the pile of linen near Temple’s head on the low table.

  “You must remove it swiftly, and immediately apply pressure,” she said, deliberately avoiding the gazes of the men in the room, looking only to the surprised eyes of the countess. “You’ll need more linen than that.” Her gaze flickered to the knife. “The wound is deep.”

  “You’re a doctoress, now?” The words oozed lazy condescension.

  She steeled herself and met the marquess’s eyes. “I’ve extracted knives before.”

  “From whom?”

  She looked back to Temple. “From whomever.”

  The countess was through waiting. “Asriel, you will have to release Miss Lowe. We shall require your strength to keep him down.”

  “He is unconscious,” Bourne said.

  “If we’re lucky, he shan’t be when we do this. It will hurt. A great deal, I imagine.” Mara closed her eyes at the words, willing them to be true. Willing him to wake. Willing him not to be dead. She watched the men move to hold Temple down—three of them to keep his massive body still—and she tried not to notice the way his skin had gone sallow, life seeping from him on a river of blood.

  So much life.

  Her throat closed at the thought.

  What had she done to this man? What had he done to deserve her in his life? If he lived . . . She bargained again. If he lived, she’d give him everything he wanted and leave him to his happiness.

  To some beautiful woman and their beautiful children on his beautiful estate.

  She’d give him back everything she took.

  If only he would live.

  It was the closest she’d come to a bargain with God in a decade. In longer.

  The countess looked from one man to the next, then to Mara. “You’ve done this before?”

  Mara nodded, thinking of another knife. Another time. More pale skin. “I have.”

  “You should do it.”

  Mara did not hesitate, moving toward him. Wanting to touch him. Bourne stopped her. “If you hurt him, I kill you.”

  She nodded. “It seems reasonable.”

  She would do everything she could to save him. She wanted him alive. She wanted to give him everything for which he asked. All the truth.

  Perhaps he would forgive her.

  Perhaps they could begin anew.

  And if not, at least she could give him all she had. All he deserved.

  Bourne released her and she moved to the stack of linens, folding them into a haphazard bandage and bringing the bucket of steaming water closer. When the earl and the marquess cut her vicious looks, she stared back, refusing to be cowed. Bollocks to them.

  She handed the stack of linens to the countess before hiking up her skirts to kneel on the table next to Temple’s head, placing firm hands on the knife’s bloody hilt. “On my count.” The room stood still. She looked down at Temple, his face pale. “Don’t you dare die,” she whispered. “I’ve things to tell you.”

  He did not move, and she ignored the ache in her chest at his stillness.

  “One . . .” she counted. “Two . . .” she did not wait for three, instead yanking the knife from his chest, straight and true.

  He screamed his pain, bowing from the table, and Mara nearly wept with relief at the sound as the countess leaned over him, flooding the wound with scalding water, to clear away the blood and hopefully, hopefully show a less deadly incision.

  Hope was a fool’s emotion.

  Temple’s scream renewed itself, the se
aring liquid burning his skin and bringing forth a new river of blood. Refusing to flinch at the sound, Mara grabbed a stack of linen, covering the wound and leaning all her weight into the cloth, willing the tide to stem even as it soaked through the fabric. Even as he bled.

  Even as he died at her hands.

  “You won’t die,” she whispered. Over and over. “You won’t die.”

  She had to stop the bleeding.

  The words were all she could think as she rose above him, pressing as hard as she could, trying to ignore the way he bucked beneath the force, attempting to throw them all off. Even now, she was shocked by the size of him. By his strength. By his will as he roared his anger and pain and his eyes shot open, black as midnight and filled with its demons.

  He looked right at her and swore, dark and unhesitating, the muscles in his neck straining.

  “You hurt him.” The Marquess of Bourne gave voice to Temple’s look. “You take pleasure in it.”

  “I don’t,” she whispered, only to him, to her great duke. “I never wanted you hurt.” She pressed harder on the shoulder, feeling vaguely grateful that the tall, redheaded gentleman across from her was strong enough to hold Temple’s arm down, as she had no doubt that he would like nothing more than to strike her. “I want you well.”

  Temple resisted her touch, and she changed tack. “Stop straining,” she said, loudly. As firm as the pressure she exerted. “The more you fight, the more you’ll bleed, and you can’t spare it.”

  He did not look away from her, and his teeth remained clenched, but he stopped fighting.

  Hopefully by choice.

  The linens were soaked through, as she’d expected. He was bleeding profusely, and she would need more padding to soak it all up.

  She turned to the countess. “My lady . . . would you . . .”

  The bespectacled woman responded without hesitation, knowing what Mara wanted without articulation. She took hold of the bandage as Mara reached for the bloody knife on the table.

  “No—” The redheaded gentleman saw her movement first.

  Bourne instantly released Temple. “Put it down.”