“Rosa?”
Lynch’s voice cut through her scrutiny. Rosalind turned swiftly, her skirts slithering over the tiled portico and her heart leaping into her throat. She was used to keeping a cool head in moments of stress, but once the excitement had settled, she couldn’t seem to stop her heart from pounding. So close. Falcone’s eyes had been full of madness and hunger. She’d heard his harsh panting as he chased her down the hall, knowing that she’d never make it in time, knowing that he would have her… And then Garrett had looked up, his eyes widening in shock before he smoothly drew his pistol and put a bullet into Falcone’s chest.
He’d saved her life. A second more and Falcone would have had her. As it was, the shot had barely slowed him. Rosalind had stumbled down the stairs, Garrett launching himself past her to meet the maddened lord—another action that saved her.
It was easy to despise the blue bloods after everything they’d done to her, but Garrett had risked his life for hers without a thought. She didn’t like that. It didn’t fit her view of the world.
Lynch had tried to hastily wash the blood from his skin and rake his hair back into place, but the same feverish glow that burned in her chest lit his eyes. “I need you. Come.”
Tugging her notebook and pencil out of her reticule, Rosalind followed him inside. The stale scent of death seemed to permeate the air in the grim afternoon light and two of the Coldrush Guards were stationed inside. Her gaze went immediately to where Lynch had launched himself over the railing of the banister. He’d landed lightly, the edges of his long leather coat flaring around him, his eyes cold with purpose, before he’d thrown himself at Falcone. Killed him in fact, with grim, efficient purpose. She hadn’t missed the way he’d moved; someone had taught him a brutal fighting style. Falcone had been stronger and faster, but Lynch knew how to disable a man with a few swift chops of the hand.
Rosalind looked up, light gleaming through the facets of the chandelier above. A good twenty-foot drop and he’d handled it like it were a step off the porch. A shiver worked its way along her spine.
Dangerous.
Blue bloods were superior in strength and speed to a human, but that didn’t always mean the balance was uneven. A trained assassin could cut down an untrained blue blood in hand-to-hand combat. Someone like Lynch though? Impossible.
If he ever realized who she was, Rosalind had no intentions of getting close enough to him to find out who would win.
“Here,” Lynch said, gesturing to the body by the stairs. Someone had draped a sheet over the corpse, but it clung wetly to Falcone, drenched in blood. “Write this down. We’ve taken an analysis of Falcone’s CV levels with the portable brass spectrometer. They came in at fifty-three percent. Note: Request Haversham’s CV levels when we return.”
The butler was covered with a coat someone had found. Rosalind frowned. “Do you usually cover the bodies?”
“No.”
He’d done it for her then. Her pencil paused, scratching to a halt. Then she hastily wrote the rest of his words.
“From what I can determine, Falcone was in the dining room with his family when the…seizure…took him,” he continued, starting up the stairs. “His cup was nearly full, but the decanter levels indicate he’d partaken of a quart of blood. He shouldn’t have been driven by the craving. His CV levels indicate he was far from close to the Fade. Something caused this then. An outside influence? A toxin? Was the blood he was drinking tampered with? Or some hitherto unknown disease that afflicts blue bloods—”
“Wait,” she called, trying to scribble furiously in her writing pad as she followed him up the stairs.
Lynch waited. “This way.” He started down the corridor, barely giving her pause. “What—”
“What happened to Garrett?” she asked, interrupting him. “And the duke’s son?”
“Barrons is recovering in Falcone’s room with the physicians. Thankfully his wounds are already healing, though they were serious enough at the time. As for Garrett, he’s in the kitchen. Doyle arrived through the back with the rest of my men and he’s trying to stitch him up.”
“Will he recover?” The thought shouldn’t have bothered her. One less blue blood for the world to worry about.
Lynch’s dark lashes shuttered his eyes. “Garrett’s stronger than he appears, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Perry had to give him some of hers.”
He strode through the doors ahead of him. Rosalind followed, a fistful of skirts in her hand. He might not have cared, she thought. Truly, for all the emotion he showed, Garrett could have been any man off the street.
“Here,” he said, gesturing to the dining room. Two bodies lay beneath the bloodied linens of the tablecloth. “This is where he was dining.”
Rosalind stumbled on the doorstep, her gaze narrowing on the small shapes beneath the table cloth. So small… Her throat tightened, the blood draining out of her face. Shards of porcelain littered the floor, a spilled decanter flooding the mahogany tabletop with a pool of spreading red wine. It dripped from the edge in a steady, monotonous plummet.
“It smells like…a bakery,” she murmured, swallowing hard against the flood of bile in the back of her throat. She couldn’t look at them again. How could anyone slaughter their own children? What manner of monster could do that?
A blue blood, a voice whispered in her mind.
Lynch stared at the scene as though absorbing it. “So it does. As did Falcone.” He turned to her to speak, then paused. “Rosa?”
She looked up and saw something that almost looked like concern on his face. “I’m—” The words dried up and she clapped a gloved hand to her lips. She wasn’t all right. All she could see were those tiny, twisted shapes beneath the bloodied linen.
Movement blurred. A hand wrapped around her elbow, Lynch’s large body stepping between her and the bodies. Then he was pushing her through the door, into the blinding light of well-lit corridor. The walls staggered by, a door opening in front of her. She moved like a puppet in his grasp, acid burning her throat.
Lynch pushed a window up and shoved her toward it. Fresh air swept that sickly sweet scent out of her nostrils and she clutched the window ledge, sucking in a choked breath. His hand settled in the small of her back tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure how welcome his touch would be.
“I shouldn’t have taken you in there.” Soft words. “My apologies.”
Rosalind shook her head, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.” No matter how much she tried to shove the image away—into that small dark recess of her mind where lurked unimaginable memories—she couldn’t. It was tattooed on the back of her eyelids, burning its way into her stomach and throat.
A cool hand rubbed small circles against the curve of her spine. Rosalind gripped the sill and leaned out, drawing the coal-laden air of London into her lungs. Anything to rid herself of that bakery scent.
As if to distract herself, she focused on his touch. Her breath caught.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, his cool exhale stirring the curls at the nape of her neck.
For the first time Rosalind realized how closely he stood, his legs pressing against her bustle and skirts. Nervousness etched its way down her spine. She hadn’t forgotten the look in his eyes when he killed Falcone—he’d enjoyed it, licking the taste of blood from his lips. It should have sickened her further, yet she found she couldn’t quite equate that monster with the man who stood behind her, his hand rubbing soothing circles against her skin.