Hold Your Breath 01 - Stone Devil Duke (3 page)

Her eyes didn’t leave her bloodied hand while
Devin deposited the bodies deep into one of the alleys. A constable would come by them in the morning and no doubt chalk the bodies up to a drunkard’s fight.

He stepped back in front of the girl, noting the shaking had ceased. “Are you
all right?”

She nodded, eyes closed, before words appeared. “I will be. Thank you for your assistance, once again.”

She looked up at him, for an instant, unguarded. Her eyes. The sheer intensity in her eyes made Devin falter a step backward. Through unshed tears, utter hopelessness. They cut straight through to Devin’s soul. It was only a second, and she looked back down, seemingly aware of what she had just accidently shown and ashamed by it. Devin’s gut lurched.

Instinct sent h
is hand under her hood to the back of her neck, deep under a thick braid, and he stroked the center indentation with his thumb. She didn’t pull away from the touch.

Secon
ds passed, and then, like lightning, she yanked away from him, realizing his hand on her was too intimate.

Clearing
her throat, she briskly stepped by him, ducking to avoid his outstretched hand. She wiped her bloody hand the best she could on her cloak as she went to the carriage and then scampered up to her driving post.

“Please, sir, you a
re holding me up.” She bit her lip as she anxiously looked down at him, pulling on thick black gloves. “I have to get my horse back to the stables and get to my home before the house awakens.” She pulled her black hood around her face to cover escaping blond tendrils. “Where is your townhouse? I can drop you off on my way—it is the least I can do, after all your assistance this evening.”

Devin
walked to the front of the carriage and looked up at her. “Why not just let me drive you home? It will be quicker if I drop you off.”

”No
, sir, please, I really cannot allow that. I will not impose another dollop on your good will. Not after all the help you have given me tonight.”

“It was really no trouble at all.”

“We both know that is not true. But still, I must decline your generous offer.”

“What is your name?”

Eyes narrowing, she gave him an exasperated look.

Devin
moved to grab the bridle of the horse, effectively stopping the girl from leaving without him. He looked up at her hard. “We will not move from this place until I have your name.”

“
Please, sir. This is uncalled for.”

“Your name.”

“Fine. My name is Aggie.” Her hand wrapped tight on the leather reins. She looked like she ached to strangle him with the leather.

A
heavy sigh from her didn’t deter Devin. “Aggie what?”

“Really sir, I do
not have time for these games. Please give me your address, and get in the carriage before I leave you here.”

“Your full name.”
Devin produced his best intimidating look. The one that sent both business associates, and chits of the
ton
, to cower in corners.

Her hands
fidgeted on the straps as she contemplated his demand. Then her chin raised a notch. “Sir, I believe I have told you what I owe you. Please just drop the matter.”

Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath.
It did little to calm the defiance in her words. “I am extremely grateful to you, but I cannot give you more than I already have. This is about my family…and I…I cannot place my trust in anyone. Please do not take offense. And please, please, do not ask me to trust you.”

Her eyes glimmered. She was pleading with him.
Begging. And she was being honest. He had to respect that.

Devin
let go of the bridle and nodded his acceptance of the situation.

A smile, tight, but grateful
, broke through as she loosened her hands on the reins. “Thank you.”

He told her where she could drop him off and climbed in
to the carriage. They moved through the streets at an even pace, this time with no rogue detours. As awkward as it was letting the girl drive him about town, it gave Devin minutes to contemplate the situation.

Why
was she handling a problem as big as this alone? She obviously didn’t lack courage—or stupidity—but why was she doing this at all, much less alone? What did those men really want from her? And why hadn’t she just let the local constable handle the problem?

Devin
stopped himself on that question. He scarcely believed her story himself, and could only guess what a constable’s reaction would be. Not too kindly or supportive, he imagined. She was probably right not to bring it to the local law. But did she not have any male relatives? Where were they to leave her alone to handle this? And how in the blazes had she made it this far by herself?

T
he first of the far-off morning glow filtered in through the lifting night fog as the hack slowed to a stop.

“Sir?”

Her voice floated down to him, and Devin recognized the urgency in it. He complied with her need to leave by quickly stepping out of the hack. He began toward the front of the coach to talk to her before she left, but before two steps were made, the coach was moving again.

“Thank you again, sir, for
your assistance,” she said over her shoulder as she raised her arm in part thanks, part dismissal.

Devin
swallowed a wry smile. Exactly expected after the night. He waited a moment until the coach turned the street corner, and then started after her.

He discreetly trailed the hack for nine blocks.
Pausing alongside a townhouse a half-block back from stables, he watched as she stopped the carriage in front of them. He heard her whistle, and a young boy, maybe twelve, appeared in the street, taking the bridle of the horse.

She jumped from her perch, talked to the boy for
a few minutes, then scurried alongside the stables away from the street. Devin cut in past the house he stood by, pulling back into the shadows just as the girl walked in front of him down the alley.

She was in the alley
lane of the next street when her feet stopped. She swayed for a moment, looking for balance, and then grabbed a wrought-iron railing next to her. Turning and gripping the railing with both hands, she leaned over and threw up.

Hands still locked onto the railing, she sank, sitting on her heels, and
Devin could see sobs racking her body.

He fought the urge to go to her, as an uncharacteristic sense of protectiveness swept through him. He resisted, but he could feel himself becoming involved. Hell, he was involved. No woman should have to handle such a threat to her life and family alone. And she would no longer.

He was
part of this, whether she knew it or not, and he would finish it for her. It would take minimal effort on his part to have the last two men found and taken care of.

With a heave,
the girl pulled herself upright and continued down the alley. She crossed three more streets, then ducked into the back door of a townhouse.

Devin
walked from the alley to the street side of the house she disappeared into. He stared at her door, attempting to figure out why he even cared. He didn’t take kindly to kittens. It wasn’t in his nature.

Her eyes flashed in his mind. That instant. That insta
nt she defended her father, green eyes flashing hell and brimstone. She was so quick to defend his honor, and that most likely meant she had a code of honor herself.

But
she was clearly in more trouble than she could even imagine, and was either too dumb or too stubborn to know it. Devin figured on the latter. He sighed. Dumb was easy to help. Stubborn was an entirely other matter.

A sly smile tugged at the corners of h
is mouth. He knew her name. Knew her address. That was enough for a man with his far-reaching capabilities.

The smile found way
to actually form.

Aggie ran up the
back stairs of her family’s townhouse. It was no small feat that she had kept her curdled stomach from upending before she could get away from the stables. She didn’t want to add more worry onto young Tommy’s never-ceasing concern for her. Now she just needed to get upstairs and into bed.

She clicked the door closed as q
uietly as she could with her clean hand.

Moving through the house, she turned up the stairs, her boots
thudding on the carpeted treads. She tried, but didn’t manage to step light enough to avoid the squeak on the fourth step.

It made
her pause, and in the early morning rays coming from the window above the staircase, she caught a glimpse of the dried blood still marring her left hand. She crumbled.

Sinking to the stair
s, she leaned on the cherry staircase railing, legs drawn close to her body, breath choking off. The sun had risen, but the house remained achingly silent. The staff wouldn’t be moving for another half-hour or so.

She was a murderer.

She had tried not to think of it while she was still dealing with her fare—she couldn’t have the poor man believing she didn’t know what she was doing. Even if she sure as hell didn’t. And she felt horrible about his involvement.

So she had tricked herself into avoiding the severity of the situation
by just not thinking about it. And by repeating over and over why she was doing this—why she
had
to do this. She needed to protect her family.

But the trick only lasted so long.
Her throat tightened.

She had killed another human being.

Her eyes slipped down to her left hand. She couldn’t avoid it any longer. The dark red had crusted into the corners of her fingernails. Human blood.

Her soul was marked forever. He was breathing, then cold. Her fault. Her conscious decision.
And unforgivably, she had forced her fare into the same fate.

She leaned over as h
er stomach flipped again.

Worse, she would have to do it again. There were still two left. And then
, their leader. He wasn’t with them tonight, and he was the most important one.

Her head began to swim.
The resolve she depended on to continually push her forward had just, quite cruelly, disappeared, stranding her on the stairs.

Numbly, her brain tried to talk sense into her body.
She needed to harden herself now. It was her duty. Her family’s lives depended on it.

“My lady?”

Aggie jumped, then sank back to the step, pulling her cloak around her breeches. She slipped her blood-encrusted fingers into the folds of the black fabric.

“My lady, are you well
?” Peters, one of the three men she hired to protect her family both day and night, stared up at her from the bottom of the staircase, concern etching his brow.

Aggie couldn’t unclamp her
throat.

“
I didn’t mean to scare you my lady. I saw you coming ‘round the back and was just going to check on the lock.”

T
hankfully, he chose not to mention her attire or her soot-covered faced. Reasonable, for she was paying for discretion, as well as protection.

Aggie took a deep breath
, forcing her throat to open. “I am fine, Peters, just tired.” She stood up, body angled to hide her hand.

“Are you sure you a
re not sick? You look as death had snuck up and spit on you.”

Aggie looked him in the eye
s, stilling her rolling stomach. Peters was the quietest of the men she had hired to protect her family, and by far, the strongest. She had come to like him the most, and she must truly look atrocious for him to openly question her.

“No, I a
m fine. Thank you for your concern, Peters. My mother and my sister?”

“Both sleeping in their rooms. All is well.”

“Very good. Thank you. That will be all.” Aggie turned with a nod, dismissing Peters, and trudged up the final stairs.

Her step faltered in the hallway outside of her mother’s room. While Aggie didn’t want to wake her,
she had to consciously stop her heel from clunking onto the wood floor. Even if her mother did wake up, Aggie knew the questions about her attire, about her whereabouts until sunrise, would not come. To her mother, a blank wall held far more interest than her daughter.

Aggie’s
chest tightened, the bitterness warring with heartbreak as she silently lifted her heel.

Continuing down the hall
, she peeked in on her younger sister, Lizzie. Her sister’s nine-year-old slip of a form made only a slight mound under the covers, her breathing even. As hard as Aggie tried, she knew she was a poor substitute for their physically present, but mentally absent mother.

Aggie couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her little sister laugh.
Lizzie had withdrawn into her studies and rarely visited their mother, and then, only in the company of Aggie.

When this was done,
things would be different, Aggie repeated to herself for the thousandth time. She would have the time to draw Lizzie out of her shell, and their mother would get better, come back to the land of the living. When this was done.

When they were safe.

Out in the hall, she moved back past her mother’s room to her own, which was situated closest to the staircase. It had been Jason’s room, but Aggie had taken it out of the necessity of being the last defense between an intruder and her mother and sister.

A man’s room, dark
mahogany furniture and paneling, polished off with deep maroons and emeralds. Just being in it made Aggie feel much closer to her big brother. She had so little of him left. And every day, she feared she lost more and more memories of him. Two years was a long time to keep hope alive. But it helped being in his space.

Aggie slipped into the room, noting immediately the ball gown she had worn much earlier in the nig
ht had been pressed and hung from where she had carelessly thrown it on a side chair. Dismissing her maid for the evening had obviously not squelched the girl’s need to keep order in her mistress’ life.

The gown hung by her dressing mirror, waiting to be inspected by Aggie before being
placed with the rest of her assorted wardrobe. Aggie would have preferred to be able to skip the social activities of the
ton
altogether, but she had needed an excuse to be in London in order to track down her father’s killers—her killers, if she didn’t do anything about it.

Aggie went
to the washstand and pushed up the too-long sleeves of the cloak and the black shirt underneath. The pale yellow gown hung next to her, a startling contrast to her current attire.

Bent over the porcelain basin, Aggie began to scrub ferociously at the dark
red residue sticking deep into the cracks on her hand and nails. A splatter of the red water landed on the gown, and Aggie bit her lip, hoping it wouldn’t stain. She didn’t have the energy to deal with the gown.

Why had she bowed to
her aunt and uncle’s pleadings for her to bring her mother, sister, and herself to London for the season? It had seemed like the perfect cover, but now Aggie wished she had devised some other reason for coming to London.

Her aunt and uncle were determined that she have a fine season because of her traumatic last se
veral years, and, Aggie presumed, marry her off in the process. Generous, but a complete intrusion on where Aggie needed to be spending her time—tracking down the men trying to kill her.

The blood along
her nails was not coming out easily. Aggie grabbed a small brush and scrubbed harder. Her true purpose for being in London took so much energy and concentration, and the parties were a nuisance. Aggie was not in the market for a husband—taking care of her mother and sister needed to come first—nor was she enamored with the manufactured smiles and tedious gossip that seemed to entertain the masses.

Her hand rubbed raw and cl
ean, Aggie unhooked her cloak and pulled off the comfortable black breeches, black shirt, and muddy boots, wrapped them in the cloak, and hid them in the back bottom of her wardrobe. Although certain that her overzealous maid had discovered them on more than one occasion, for the items were often much cleaner and more neatly folded than Aggie would ever bother with, she still wanted to maintain the pretense of secrecy with the items.

A shift went over her head, and Aggie
went back to the washstand. She forced herself to look in the mirror she had avoided while washing her hands. She looked hideous. The black soot she used around her eyes had smeared to every inch of her face, save the streaks where tears had run. Two skunk tails on her face.

With a heavy
sigh, she pulled off the black cap that had mostly hidden her hair. The water in the wash-basin was now pink with blood, so Aggie poured fresh water from the pitcher onto a handkerchief and dabbed at the dirt on her face. It was tedious—the soot didn’t like to budge—but Aggie didn’t stop until her face was rubbed pink, no trace of blackness.

Dazed, s
he turned from the washstand and trudged to the bed, falling on the cool covers.

~~~

Gasping for breath, terror gripping every muscle, Aggie shot out of the suffocating nightmare.

Sitting up, grasping her chest, a moment passed before the smell of roses filtered into her nose and she opened her eyes, realizing she wasn’t alone.

“The dream again, dear?” Aunt Beatrix patted her leg through the royal blue blanket Aggie had shoved halfway off the bed.

Aggie
closed her eyes, nodding, tears stuck in her throat.

“
I guessed. You scared poor Hilde into scurrying out of your room and downstairs. She was afraid to wake you with you screaming.” Her aunt squeezed her leg.

“I was screaming again?”

“Dearest Aggie, when will you share with me what makes you scream so? It cannot be good for your mind. You are so serene—too serene, truth be told—when you are awake. I know you cannot talk to your mother. It distresses me that you refuse to share what burdens you. Your father would be tormented were he here to see you in such a state.”

Torment. That was a good word for what her mind manifested nightly. Not that she could tell her aunt of the demons that haunted her sleep.

There was a reason she remembered the faces of her father’s killers so clearly. She saw them every night in her sleep. Coming at her. Guns drawn. Attacking her. Every vivid detail. Her father’s cold hand slipping from her grasp.

Aggie braced herself, eyes closed. She c
ouldn’t think about it when awake. She may have no control over her dreams, but lucid, she had control. When they were dead, maybe, just maybe, she would find peace in sleep again.

“Please dear, I can already see
that you plan on avoiding the subject once more, but I beg you to consider sharing. This does you no good. Your health is worrisome—you have been so tired these past weeks. And you sleep so late.”

“What time is it?”

“It is after one. My dear, you must tell me.”

Aggie open
ed her eyes and looked at her aunt. Those blue eyes, the same as her father’s, held nothing but concern for Aggie. How could she tell her beloved aunt that she was only here to kill the men that murdered her father—that threatened her family—that threatened her? That she was the only one that could do it.

No,
she couldn't tell her aunt that. Her father had demanded she tell no one. Only trust Jason, he ordered. Dying words.

She would honor that
.

Not trusting herself to o
pen her mouth, Aggie just shook her head with a weak smile.

With a tongue cluck
, Aunt Beatrix pulled back from the bed to settle into her seat, and clasped her hands in front of her robust frame. “Well, if you will not talk, then we will move onward. Although you made an appearance at the ball last night, it was dreadfully short. And the two previous ones you missed with headaches. This will not do at all for your season.”

“I am sorry.
You and Uncle Howard have been so generous with your time, coming back from your travels, and I have been nothing but a burden.”

“Posh. We are here for one reason alone, and that is to give you the season you deserve
after the atrocities you have endured. We both do it with joy, but missing these important events—it does you no favors in meeting possible suitors.” Aunt Beatrix studied Aggie’s face. She leaned forward, seeing something above Aggie’s eyebrow, and wiped it away.

“That’s odd.” Aunt Beatrix rubbed the black from Aggie’s face between her thumb and forefinger. “It looks like ash.”

Aggie’s hand flew up, rubbing the spot Aunt Beatrix wiped. “I dropped some pins by the fireplace last night. I must have had some on my fingers.”

Her aunt nodded.
“You are a beautiful girl, Aggie, even after a horrible night’s sleep, and not quite fully aged-out of marriage material. But time is gaining on you, my dear. I know you would like to wait until Jason comes home, but we cannot afford to wait for your brother to reappear.”