Home > Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3)(9)

Dancing With Danger (Goode Girls #3)(9)
Author: Kerrigan Byrne

By three o’clock, the brick and cobbles of London glittered with gemlike droplets of golden light, and the city came to life, people bustling back into the streets.

The animals kept by the Zoological Society of London were likewise pleased with the changing weather. Zebras frolicked in their pastures and a giraffe licked a treat from out of the hands of a passing boy, who promptly burst into tears.

Adjacent to the zoo, the London elite flooded Regent’s Park, eager to bask in the rare warmth and to hunt for any hint of emerging buds on the winter-bare flora.

Raphael watched the skeletons of the trees with grim detachment.

Knowing he would not live long enough to see them blossom.

What would she look like in the spring, surrounded by blooms shamelessly baring their colors for her? The most vibrant lily couldn’t compete with the shade of her lips once they’d been plumped and pinkened by his kiss. The bluebell would wither in contrast to the hue of her eyes.

She was unlike anything or anyone he’d ever before encountered.

Mercy.

Even her name was a phenomenon he’d never known.

A concept he didn’t understand.

It surprised him how powerfully he longed to explore her. Desired her to show him Mercy. In any form.

Her delectable form.

Indulging in a faint sigh, Raphael turned to see Marco Villeneuve saunter toward him, adjusting the diamond-encrusted cufflinks on his shirtsleeves.

A tittering group of schoolgirls in beribboned hats passed by, accompanied by their chaperone, a middle-aged woman with a sour face and cheeks drawn down by years of disappointment.

The handsome Spaniard touched the rim of his hat, and the ladies giggled.

When Raphael did the same, they sighed.

When he winked, two of them stumbled.

“You are shameless, hermano,” Marco drawled, drawing closer and clasping his hand in fond greeting. Were they in their own countries, they’d greet with a kiss on each cheek.

Raphael scoffed. “Shame is a futile emotion crafted to plague those fragile enough to care what others think of them.”

“Indeed.” Marco leaned his shoulder against the wrought iron gate of the wolf enclosure and flashed his cocksure grin. Though his suit was of the finest craftsmanship, his chocolate-colored hair hung longer than was proper beneath his hat. It lent his tall, rangy form an untamed element that added to the dangerous allure he weaponized against women.

Intelligent females saw through him before he was able to break their hearts.

The others, well...they went away more cynical and suspicious of handsome rogues.

Marco slid his whiskey-colored gaze to the wolf enclosure and studied the five creatures as they paced and panted, eyeing the men as if to invite them in rather than warn them away.

They were of a kind, these beasts.

Raphael hated to see them caged.

One wolf, a dark, scruffy fellow with a blaze of white on his wide chest, climbed the hill that had been artfully arranged with boulders and soil to appear as if made by the chaos of nature. As the beast approached a lounging grey wolf, he flattened his ears and made a feral sound, yellow eyes snapping with ferocity.

The grey wolf bolted upright, relinquished his position, and slunk away, head and tail low as he found a new spot to rest.

The alpha sat above all.

“Well, Jefe, everything has been arranged as you instructed.” Marco extracted a box of matches and lit a cigarette with a long draw before releasing the smoke on a heavy exhale. “Lord Longueville will be attending the Midwinter Masque, and will be likely to bring his generals from the High Street Butchers. You, Gabriel, and I will be present, of course, though I wonder if we should invite a third party to witness our conversation with Longueville. Word will spread that the battle for control of supplying vice to the ton is about to commence.”

“I do not disagree.” Raphael was careful not to let his complicated emotions show on his countenance. He was stirring trouble.

The lethal kind.

“I thought this was loco—I still do—but it might actually be crazy enough to work.” Marco puffed out a breath filled with smoke and wonder before he glanced up. Whatever he read in Raphael’s expression caused him to amend. “I should know better than to doubt you, Jefe.”

Raphael waved his hand, absolving him of all that. “We Fauves do not follow without question. We are predators, not sheep, and we must be cunning. Question everything.”

“As you say.” Marco’s head dipped in deference.

The hierarchy of the Fauves was not unlike those of the wolves. Intricate, subtle, and yet, brutally uncomplicated. There were no figureheads. No pomp or ceremony. There was the uncontestable leader of the pack. The alpha and his subordinates.

He was the one who led the hunters to their prey. And he was the one who took first blood. He claimed the greatest bounty before the rest of the pack fell upon it like scavengers.

But as the leader, it was incumbent upon him to provide, to remain uncontested. Or, if he was challenged, he must meet it with all the dominant ferocity of any king of beasts.

He had to win. Every time. To prove he was fit to lead.

That he was a man to be followed.

The mantle threatened to smother him sometimes.

But what else could he do? What else did he know?

Nothing.

This was all he was. All he had. A legacy of vice and villainy and a lifetime of lies. He was a man whose past was nothing but shifting shadows and secrets, and his future was—

An endless wasteland coated with the same.

Battles and blood, until one day a lesser beast would challenge him...and tear his throat out.

He’d have to.

Raphael was not the sort of man to submit to the sovereignty of another.

“Are you second-guessing the plan?” Marco queried, peering up from beneath the lowered brim of the hat. “If this goes awry, there will be blood.”

“There’s always blood,” he quipped. “This will be no different.”

Blood. Both red and blue.

He was playing a dangerous game, pitting his enemies and allies against each other.

A game where there would be victors, but no one truly won.

“No second thoughts,” he clarified. “All has been prepared except—”

A flash of light struck him blind for a moment and he winced, blinking rapidly. When he opened his eyes again, it was gone, leaving a disorienting shadow in his vision as if he’d glanced directly at the sun.

Once his vision cleared, he found the culprit immediately upon searching over Marco’s shoulder.

The sun had reflected off binoculars peeking over a shoulder-high hedge.

No, not binoculars. A shiny gold pair of opera glasses.

Gold, like the lovely ringlets surrounding said item. A charming coiffure held in place by butterfly combs and garnished with baby’s breath.

Detective Eddard Sharpe would be proud of this intrepid investigator. He was often quoted in his books as saying that when a necessary implement was not readily at hand, a true investigator improvised.

Opera glasses of all things. Raphael couldn’t fight the tremor of a smile softening the corners of his lips.

Christ, but Mercy Goode could not be more endearing.

She’d, no doubt, donned her taupe, high-necked coat in the hopes of blending with the crowd. However, the light color actually caused her to stand out amongst people swathed in grey or black wool jackets against what had once been intemperate weather.

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