Page 17 of The Forsaken
A not-so-small part couldn’t bring herself to confess to bringing on a real scandal—and, unlike her partners in crime, without even a loving husband to show.
An even bigger part would sooner die than admit to Edgar that she was being blackmailed.
Oh, how the indomitable Viscount Kerr would laugh if he knew why she was out and about without so much as a chaperone.
“Will wonders never cease,” he uttered.
She cast a look up at him.
“I’d believed you were incapable of silence, and here you are proving me wrong.”
“Aww, Edgar. With all the ways you’re poking me, I’m beginning to think you like precisely how I use my mouth.”
His visage grew strained; his irises dilated; his nostrils flared.
That strange expression she recognized quite well from a snowy copse, when her hair came down around her…right before he’d launched his seduction.
Her jaw moved. It would take a great deal more than that for her to believe he had any roguish designs upon her.
A chilled breeze glided along the alleyway and scraped ice over her back.
Even as Edgar continued walking on, her steps slowed outside a raucous brick establishment. She peered up at the wood panel rocking and swaying in the wind. A long, narrow-faced man, more chin than body, marked the entrance.
Rat’s Castle.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Andromena jumped.
Like an angry, hulking beast, Edgar slumped his shoulders and stomped back.
“This is—”
“No.”
Frowning, she adopted her best governess voice. “You didn’t allow me to finish, Edgar.”
“Finish.”
“I am meeting someone h—”
“No.”
Andromena crossed her arms and drummed her boot against a slick, raised cobblestone. “I’m not asking.”
“That is fine. That doesn’t mean you’re going inside, either.”
“I’m not?”
“Good girl.”
Tugging her hood back into place, Andromena entered the Rat’s Castle.
Chapter 3
Kerr got himself knocked on his arse. His wasn’t a literal fall—which would have been horrifying enough—but a figurative one, and those were notoriously the worst.
Soldiers and sailors who froze in battle ended up with cannonballs through their chests or lead and steel in their flesh. Kerr had seen it happen enough times and never failed to pity them. A veteran of Napoleon’s fiercest sea battles, he had sailed through the deadliest waters unscathed, only to have a whisp of a lady confound him. The only excuse he could give now was the ease with which she’d entered the ruthless haven for the lawless.
