Page 96 of The Forsaken

Kerr placed his lips next to her ear. Even when he spoke, he knew the futility. “I need you to hide.”

She kicked him. “Did you just tell me to hide?”

“Ask?”

“Edgar,” she whispered, gripping his face briefly in her hands. “You showed me I’m more capable than my family credits me for. This man threatened the lives of all those I love.” Her eyes blazed like a phoenix sprung from the ashes. “You.”

Kerr had never loved this woman, or any person, as much as he loved her now in this moment; her eyes ablaze. All he wanted was for her to be safe, but what she wanted, what she asked for, was some control when she had been without.

“Distract him for me, darling,” Kerr whispered.

Their lips met. There was an urgency, a desperation.

They wrenched away as one, and cast another glance down.

Andromena leaned out. “I’m afraid I do not know whom I have the pleasure of speaking with, Mister…? I trust a gentleman of your high standing as a surname.”

The well-dressed street tough preened. “Mr. Diggory. We are all disciples of Mr. Diggory.”

Kerr eyed his shot.

“Hmm.” Andromena tapped her bottom lip. “I have thought about it, and I have decided to decline Mr. Diggory’s offer of marriage respectfully.”

The man broke out into a cheroot-roughened cough. He spat to the overgrown hedges. “We all a bit of the Devil in us, don’t we? And you’re going to have a bit more of him into you this night.”

“I have not met this Mr. Diggory.” Andromena carried on the conversation with the derelict as they chatted over tea and shortbread. “As such, I’m disinclined to join him in matrimony.”

All the while she kept up the conversation, Kerr squinted and aimed.

“He knows you.” He hocked a spit again. “That’s all ye need to know. We best be leaving. He’s already enough put out with ye. The way you’ve been fast and loose with Lord Kerr.”

It’s a distraction. His pulse hammered. They know I’m here. The bastard below was putting on a show; he was using her—all over again.

Kerr’s every nerve, beat of his heart, and thought in his head, tunneled to a single point.

Every moment up until now had been leading Kerr this: when he’d tumbled over the cliff off Ermine Street. New Bond Street. New Bond Street, again.

Horse hooves thundering closer brought him roaring to the now.

“Get down!” he cried, a moment before the sharp report of a gunshot split the air.

Kerr’s lifeblood surged with a roar. He launched himself at Andromena, the exact moment the door burst open. His chest heaving, Kerr took the fall and rolled her under him, shielding her with his body.

Pistol unsheathed, he aimed at the thickset man at the entrance. Shock flared on a face marked with coals, scars, and ash. Then, the hulking brute pitched face first into the planks.

It was over.

Kerr’s chest worked to pull air into his lungs and he stared at his unfired weapon.

As it turned out, it was not over.

Because naturally, in the face of chaos, hell, and terror, there could only be more chaos. Nearby. This time, for the first time, swiftly at its heels rather than the source of it—the McQuoid’s. There came thunderous shouts and screams, bellows all over the cottage property. Mr. Diggory, who by all intents, though sprawled, tied, bleeding, and shrieking, didn’t appear headed to meet his namesake that day.

Kilmartin checked the pulse of the man he’d hammered on the back of the head. Hit him for good measure, and casually strolled inside.

The rogue, always all smiles, grinned like he and Andromena met for a set. “Miss Smith, are you well?”

Then, an always ebullient Andromena, smiled in return at the handsome captain. “I—”