Page 157 of Immortal Rose

And from her crown braid, she drew out a long, long black hairpin.

My heart punched up into my throat.

No. Not a hairpin.

A needle.

Chapter Thirty-One

Before I could scream, before I could so much as think to move, the thick curtains hanging along the right side of the window were shoved aside, and a stocky figure in black lunged for me.

The scent of the dockyards burst in the air, exploding my pulse with it. I wrenched myself away from his grasping hands, but my heel caught the hem of my night rail, and with the sound of ripping fabric, I fell, crashing into the edge of the bed.

The man was on me in an instant. His knees dug painfully into my belly, pinning me so firmly with his weight I couldn’t breathe in to scream. He slapped a hard gloved hand over my mouth regardless.

Only his eyes were visible in the knit mask, and they were wild with excitement. I bucked, thrashing my legs with increasing desperation as he reached back into a pouch on his belt for something—a small vial.

“Don’t know why ’e’s going to the trouble when yer nothin’ much to look at.” He leaned down until his face hovered above mine, lifting the bottom of his mask, likely to uncork the vial with his teeth. “There’s a good little bitch. It’ll be over quick enough—”

A shadow materialized behind him, as if she had flown across the room on a shaft of moonlight. My eyes widened as Mrs. Keyes raised the needle in her fist, then brought it down with the force of a hammer strike, jamming it into the side of his neck. Blood sprayed over me in a hot gush as he gasped, too shocked to even cry out.

The intruder hacked, blood spurting from the wound as he fell sideways, crashing onto the floor. He flailed in silent agony like a beached fish, one hand desperately clasped over the needle protruding from his neck.

Mrs. Keyes advanced on him, stepping a booted foot onto his wrist until he released the small vial. It rolled beneath the vanity, out of his groping reach.

“There’s a good little bitch,” she said, watching his writhing and gurgling dispassionately. “It’ll be over quick enough.”

I hauled myself up until I was leaning back against the bed frame, staring mutely at the gruesome scene.

The door to the bedchamber burst open with a shout, spilling Willie’s and Tommy’s essences into the blood-drenched air a moment before the rest of them.

I knew Hugh was there by the sound of his distinct clipped steps, and then he was beside me, kneeling, his hands on my face. The urgency and fear in his eyes finally sparked something other than astonishment.

“Viola—Viola, are you all right?” he asked roughly. When I tried to look at the man—the body—Hugh turned me back toward him, searching my head and the blood splattered over my chest for any sign of injury. I gripped his wrists, stopping him.

“It’s not mine,” I told him softly. “I’m all right.”

Some of the color returned to his face. He nodded but didn’t release me.

“Good Lord, Mrs. Keyes,” Willie said mildly. Both he and Tommy were in their nightshirts, their faces still lined from their pillows. “Feels like a knock to the head would’ve sufficed.”

She lifted a shoulder, removing her needle and shoving a decorative silk pillow against the gushing wound. “Old habits, et cetera.”

“Fleming’s going to expire on the spot when we tell him we have to throw out another carpet,” Tommy said, scratching at his jaw. “Two bodies in a week is a bit high, even for us.”

“Two and a quarter, if you count the hands,” Willie said. “Or would it be an eighth, do you reckon?”

Tommy seemed to consider this. “Less than that. A hundredth?”

I had the oddest sense that I was watching the world move around me rather than existing in it. The blood was cooling on my skin and night rail, turning the latter sticky in a way that made me want to vomit.

“Exactly how many bodies is normal?” I asked, with a calmness I didn’t feel. “Wait—two?”

Hugh finally tore his gaze away from me, but only to level what I assume was one of his darker glares at the others.

Willie sighed. “I’ll get a tarp and lye.”

“And I’ll fetch some hot water for her ladyship,” Tommy said. “Mrs. Silver and Fizzy are keeping Fleming trapped in the kitchen for now.”