Next to her she could hear Silvester’s breathing, an easy, comforting noise that made her want to curl even closer to his side and resume her respite. Sink further into the warm, solid reassurance that his sleeping form offered.
But something was wrong. Something occurring in the bedroom’s darkness had stirred her from her sleep, the lightest of movements had woken her, and now as she kept her position next to Silvester, Margot was aware of someone else in the bedchamber.
For a moment she hoped it was a maid, or perhaps a footman—a misplaced servant, who would excuse themselves. This did not occur. Instead, Margot listened and studied the gloom, watching as the person, whoever it was, tiptoed through the chamber, drawing closer and closer to the fireplace and the side table where the clock had been abandoned.
A stark and growing fear twisted through Margot—that it was Ashmore’s murderer, who was now using the Norton ball in an attempt to find another key. Fool that she was, idiots that they both were, they had left the clock on the side table, with the key still inside it.
How was she to wake Silvester, alert him in time before the attacker realised and moved towards them?
The mounting nerves twisted through Margot, and as carefully as she could she shifted from beneath Silvester’s arm. Her shoes had been discarded, but there was a knife in one of them, all she had to do was get to it, and confront the murderer.
As she watched, she saw the man reach the mantelpiece, turn in confusion, and then see the clock waiting there for his inspection. He paid the bed no heed at all.
With his back to her, Margot slid forward and reached down, lifting her shoe and extracting the knife. Fleetingly, she realised if she were found like this, if all three of them were discovered, her reputation would be gone forever, but part of her finally knew that there were more important things in life. Like justice. She hoped that Silvester would know she was not acting in order to entrap him into anything—little good that would do her, even if that were her intention.
“Stop right there,” Margot said, loudly enough to startle the intruder and wake the sleeping Silvester. She had donned her shift after making love, so at least she wasn’t naked. Margot continued, “I know who you are. I know what you’ve done and why you are here.” With her free hand she indicated the clock. “Come to retrieve a prize that should never be yours.”
“Is that so, miss? I have my doubts. Planning to gut me with that toothpick while you’re at it?” The voice, one that she had imagined for weeks, echoed out now. It contained a thick London twang to some of the notes, yet there was also at play within it a pleasant lingering country air to the man’s voice, that Margot knew she would never place. How strange to finally confront him, when this was what she had been envisioning for such a long time, and now she felt unprepared.
From behind her, Margot heard Silvester move, she hoped he would be sensible enough to have brought with him a pistol, the problem was where that might have been dropped when they descended into lust-filled scramble just a few hours previously.
“Yes.” Margot steadied her hand. She knew not to step too close to him. The threat was the main thing, that and keeping him from gaining another key. She could make out more of the man’s build, and the faint outline of his face. He was taller than her, but not by much. His hair, stuffed under a hat, looked to be a pale brown, and from what she could tell he seemed to be in his late twenties. His build was stockier than Silvester’s, and his movements jumpier—fighting him would not be an easy task. The features of the man were harder to make out though, and he stepped into the shadows, determined to shield himself. Wildly, she wondered if perhaps this might even be Ashmore’s heir, and what had happened to her sister… but she dismissed the thought as foolish. What advantage could the new duke gain from such antics? “You killed Ashmore. The Runners are looking for you.”
“You don’t even know my name. It’s your word”—there was an insulting tone to the man’s voice as he spoke, judgement for her ringing out in every word— “against anyone else’s. Do the Runners really know the whole of it? Down to every last key?” The query stopped her, as Margot, like Ashmore before her, had been reticent to reveal too much of the mystery.
“Not against mine.” Silvester stepped closer, crossing to stand at the foot of the bed, closing the distance and blocking any attempt the man might take at making at an exit. “As an earl, I do have a small amount of authority. And I think I will be believed.”
“Suppose that’s why you’ve fucked him.”
Unable to help it, Margot shuddered at the crudeness, hating that such a man might have any insight into what had occurred between Silvester and herself. In that moment he dropped the clock and charged at her. The scream she uttered came unbidden to her lips, and she struck out at his reaching hands, catching one and sending the precious key flying across the room, to slide unseen under the bed. As she scrambled against the attacker,the man grabbed at her knife, bending her hand backwards and snatching the weapon from her grip. Then his hands pulled her struggling body against his frame roughly, and the weapon she had hoped would be her protector was turned and she found it pressed against her own neck.
CHAPTER 18
The gauzy, deep sleep of a man thoroughly satisfied had engulfed Langley, the resting hand of Margot lying on his stomach as he dreamt. He had needed the comfort of sleep, the reassurance of it, because after she had drifted off Langley had stared at the canopy above him, poleaxed by the overwhelming feeling Margot had stirred in him. Tupping was an act that Silvester was far too familiar with. It never bored him, but he knew the ropes of it, knew what it was to have a good fuck. A bad fuck. And everything in between. This had been none of those three, but something else entirely, and he lay completely still, almost afraid to move for fear of what it meant.
He must have slept through until the rude awakening of Margot’s cry. This abrupt start was not what he had ever envisioned—the rest of the world had seemed like a mistake, an error entirely, whilst he was still not clear what it was supposed to mean.
Now the three of them were in a standoff, with a murderer pressing a knife against the fragile skin of Margot’s neck. Everything within Langley was focused entirely on that pale piece of flesh with the blade hovering above it. If he had thought that making love to her would banish those confusing,perplexing emotions that cartwheeled through him previously, then this freshly delivered dose of danger disproved that particular theory.
Flicking his eyes up, he focused in on Margot’s panicked, darting eyes, hoping to convey to her a calming reassurance, that he would not allow anything to happen to her.
“Release her.” Langley’s voice was not his own. He had adopted the strange stiffness of a much older man. He realised as he wetted his lips, he was using the cold tone of his father. Long dead, but who had the authority that Langley needed in this moment. Where the knowledge or the need came from, he did not know, but he wanted something of his father’s strength for this moment. “I will not allow you to leave this room if anything happens to her.”
It dawned on him that he was naked, and it might have worried another man, but Langley found the only real concern he had was that he hadn’t fired his hastily snatched up pistol. Snatched up from his jacket when he’d heard Margot cry out.
Why hadn’t he thought of this risk, why hadn’t he spirited her back to Bolton Street, to safety? Sadly, Langley knew the answer—he had been far too distracted by the opportunity of bedding Margot to think of what would happen next. What a fool he’d been. A predictable one at that.
He wished more than anything to stride forward and launch himself at the attacker. The man was well covered, hiding his face as much as he could. There was a hat sat low on his head, but Langley had a sneaking suspicion he had seen the man out in society, at one of the many parties Langley had attended, not just his own orgy. Perhaps they had even been introduced at a racetrack or a gambling den.
“I don’t care for the key; it’s slid under the bed. Release the girl, and you can go for it. I will not interfere,” Langley said. “Just give her to me. Now.”
The man seemed to be considering this course of action. At the mention of the key, Langley could see Margot’s ‘no’ form on her lips. Langley would certainly hear a mountain of abuse directed at him for choosing her over the key, but he would reward himself with the knowledge she was safe. That was what mattered, not some blasted key.
So much for this plan of his, because he had not considered his Amazon’s choice.
She was not satisfied with this, and in one moment that would play forever in Langley’s nightmares, Margot moved. She ignored both the knife close to her neck, and Langley’s own levelled pistol, driving her elbow back into the stockier man’s ribs. The intruder’s arm slipped as he grabbed at her, attempting to strike, and when she cried out in pain, Langley threw himself forward, reaching them and slamming the pistol into the man’s face.
Behind him he could hear Margot scramble away out of range. He tilted the man backwards, pushing him with just one hand down to the floor, and slammed the pistol repeatedly into the man’s face, a grim satisfaction growing in him, at the sight of blood on the ground. He could beat this man until there was not a breath left in his body. And with the image of that nasty blade against Margot’s throat he was tempted to. He would not need a weapon; no, he would enjoy the savagery of ripping the man apart.
