Lady of Desire by Gaelen Foley Page B

mad?”
    “I have my reasons.”
    “We will be most interested to hear them all, I assure you. Is there anything you wish to say for yourself before I take you over to Knight House to speak with the others?”
    She groaned at the thought of a full-fledged family meeting. “Lucien, please—”
    “I am not covering for you on this,” he said flatly. “It was a blasted foolish thing to do. I don’t know what possessed a cutthroat like Blade to show mercy, but thank God he did.”
    She snorted and folded her arms across her chest.
    Lucien sauntered closer. “Did he harm you, insult you in any way?”
    “His arrogance is most insulting, yes.”
    “You know what I mean,” he chided. “He admitted kissing you. If he did any more than that, one of us is going to have call him out.”
    The blood drained from her face as she looked swiftly at him. “No! Good God, do not speak of dueling! He didn’t do anything like that. Lucien, it was my fault!”
    “Your fault?”
    “Entirely.” She gave an earnest nod as her cheeks turned red. “I rather… fancied him at first.”
    He lifted his eyebrow.
    “Well, I hate him now, of course. I meant to go to France, and that insolent peasant brute had to interfere!”
    Lucien stroked his chin with a bemused expression.
    “What did he want as his reward for bringing me back?” she asked in wary cynicism.
    “Nothing. Perhaps your kiss was payment enough,” he added with a sardonic shrug.
    “Are you going to tell Robert and the others that I kissed him? Please, don’t, Lucien, I beg you. This has all been humiliating enough.”
    He considered for a moment, then gave a philosophical sigh. “You appear unharmed by your adventure, and God knows you’re already in hot-enough water without adding that bit of fuel to the fire. Besides, it wouldn’t do to have Damien or Alec rushing off to put a bullet in him. The blackguard has his uses.”
    “Who is he, really?” She asked, leaning toward her brother confidentially.
    “Why,” Lucien said with an opaque smile, “the leader of the Fire Hawks, of course. Come along, my dear. It is time to pay the piper.”
    Eddie the Knuckler kept the hours of an alley cat. When most children his age were still safely tucked in their beds and dreaming, he was ambling along through the predawn darkness toward Covent Garden Market to see what he could get from the vendors who would soon be setting up their stalls for the day’s business. The highborn rakes who came staggering out of the whorehouses off the piazza early each morning, sick with too much drink from the night before also made excellent targets for a lad ambitious to pinch a fine silk handkerchief or a gold watch.
    As Eddie approached the junction of two narrow city streets not far from St. Giles’s Church, his thoughts turning industriously upon the coming morning’s adventures, he was suddenly seized by the shoulder and felt a large hand clamp down over his mouth, so big it nearly wrapped from ear to ear. He was yanked around the corner like a rag doll, where somebody slammed his back against the brick wall of the alley.
    “Got him, O’Dell! Here’s the little whoreson.”
    Looking up in terror, scarcely able to breathe past the giant hand over his mouth, Eddie found himself surrounded by several top members of the Jackals’ gang. These were the men, he realized, who had done unspeakable things to Mary Murphy, who was only a few years older than he.
    Tyburn Tim was the one holding him, but Bloody Fred was there, fresh out of Bedlam and looking half rabid; Flash, striking a dandyish pose against the wall; and Baumer, who had a laugh like an earthquake and loomed half as big as a house. Eddie’s heart hammered against his ribs as the Jackals parted to admit their leader, the wiry, brown-haired Cullen O’Dell.
    O’Dell prowled out of the deeper shadows of the alley past his henchmen. An ordinary child would have screamed outright, but hardy young Eddie managed to restrain