“Young miss, can you follow the sound of my voice?”
A shiver of chills danced up her spine that had nothing to do with her soaked garments or the sideways rain. Not fear, exactly. Awareness. Every single hair on her body tuned to the direction of that voice.
Young miss? She was neither young nor a miss.
Could she follow him? If Saint Patrick had had a voice like that, he’d not have had to drive the snakes from Ireland. They’d have trailed him willingly.
Followed him to their doom.
Because his was certainly not the voice of a saint, nor anything belonging to the heavenly hosts. The cavernous timbre contained too many shadows. But not the eerie, repellent kind.
The kind that enticed. Tempted. The sort of shadows which shielded criminal deeds and concealed desires.
The most dangerous shadows of all.
Ones she’d learned to avoid in the most violent way possible.
She realized she hadn’t answered his question. “I—I can’t.”
“It’s all right. I’ll come to you and take his other lead. But I’ll need you to give me the umbrella.”
He’d assumed her hesitation was caused by the unpredictable horse, and in truth it should be. Were she any other woman, with any other past, two thousand pounds of horseflesh would, indeed, be more petrifying than two hundred pounds of man.
The truth of it was, she’d rather take her chances with an unruly equine beast, than to approach the man who belonged to the fury contained in the depths of that voice.
A fury imperceptible to most anyone, but not her.
She’d never again be caught unawares. For ten years since, she’d trained herself to listen. To find the thread of vibrations beneath societal niceties and appropriate fallacies.
And beneath his gentle direction lurked an unfathomable bleakness … and a banked ferocity that might singe through her soaked clothing and burn the flesh below.
She was about to reply when the train let out one last shrill from its whistle and a simultaneous release of steam from beneath.
The stallion leaped sideways, away from the white clouds billowing up from the mist. His shoulder knocked Alexandra from her feet and into a post.
The weight of the beast lifted immediately as he bucked away, taking her breath with him.
She crumpled into the steam and fog, her mouth open in a silent cry. Her lungs screamed, but her ribs refused to relent as she gulped for air.
She lay on her side, besieged by pain and panic and an encroaching darkness. Wishing, struggling, praying for a breath. She felt lost in the mist, worried that she’d sink beneath it forever and simply disappear.
Black spots danced in her vision. Or was it black boots and dark hooves?
Sweltering curses rose above terrified neighs.
Creature pitted against creature. Beast against beast.
Eventually, the man won. Of course he won.
Man was ever the better beast.
CHAPTER TWO
Alexandra didn’t breathe. Hooves clopped away. Disappeared. Boots stomped their own thunder into the planks beneath her ear.
Faint strings of rapid, angry conversation permeated the fog.
“Find me the sod … secure him in the railcar … painful execution.” That voice.
“Impossible … grace … was back in London…” Another voice. Harried. Afraid.
“What fucking imbecile … whistle in the middle of such a crisis…”
“… the conductor cooling … couldn’t see her … the storm … terrible … grace.”
Impossible grace. Terrible grace? Consciousness threatened to desert Alexandra as she tried to make sense of the broken conversation.
Grace was often both impossible or terrible.
But it wasn’t meant to be, was it?
Grace was salvation. Divine forgiveness. Would she be granted either?
Likely not.
“Someone will hang for this!” the now familiar voice bellowed, much closer than before.
“Y-yes, you’re—”
“Where is she?” Fury scalded every word with brimstone heat.
I’m here on the ground, she thought. Or am I lost?
Better to remain beneath the notice of his fury. Better for everyone. Perhaps if she just gave herself to the mist, if she disappeared, all the scandal and sorrow would follow her into the darkness. It wouldn’t touch her loyal friends, nor would it besmirch what little was left of her family name.
Perhaps this was the solution she’d been searching for.
A heroic death.
As she entertained the terrible thought, black boots appeared from the mist, just before tremendous knees landed beside her.
It was the weight of two strong, careful hands roaming her person that finally sent a full breath screaming into her lungs.
“No!” she shrieked.
Or, rather, croaked inaudibly.
“Don’t move.” Rough palms snagged the shoulders and bodice of her herringbone tweed traveling kit as she helplessly drew greedy breaths into her chest. “Not until I know if anything’s been broken.” He exerted gentle pressure on her ribs and, though it was tender, no pain greeted his touch.
Only terror.
And … something else.
Alexandra couldn’t struggle. Her limbs didn’t seem to understand their purpose.
It was her nightmare come to life.
How many times had she battled the dark? A faceless man holding her down, his hands roving her body as her limbs refused to obey her.
Electric shivers coursed through disobedient nerves, returning her strength as unexpectedly as the lightning. She tried to shrink from him, to roll over, and to lash out all at once. The resulting spasm more resembled a seizure than a retreat.
“Someone get a doctor!” he barked, muttering beneath his breath, “And a bloody undertaker.”
“No need.” Her words came more easily now, lent sound by her slowly returning breath. “I’ll live.”
She jerked her ankle from his grip, but he caught it and pressed it back to the ground. “The undertaker is for the conductor after I murder him—I thought I told you not to move.”
“Nothing’s broken.” She kicked her leg as though his hand were a bug she intended to shake off her skirts. “I don’t need a doctor. Kindly unhand my ankle.”
To her astonishment, he complied, returning to bend over her. Loom over her, more like, a swarthy, sinister shock of a man rising from the mists.
The rain had soaked through his shirtsleeves—which must have been white at one time or another—rendering it iridescent, if not obsolete.
Beneath, he’d the chiseled-marble build of a Greek hero, and the features of a Greek tragedy. Shoulders and arms to impress Atlas. A torso to rival the statue of Ares she’d once admired in Hadrian’s Villa.
And all the unhallowed malice Hades could summon.
Such scars.
It would be easy to imagine the gods, ever unduly punitive to a mortal who dare challenge their strength or beauty, had sent a creature to rake demonic claws across features so flawless.
“Can you breathe normally?” he demanded. “How do you feel?” The questions might have been gentle if they’d hailed from a chest with a less barbaric depth.
“I feel … erm…” How did she feel? What did she feel? “I feel as though I’ve been crushed by a horse.” She wheezed a vague attempt at levity. “But I can breathe fine and am more bruised than broken.”