Felicity looked down at the carpet and did her best to rein in her galloping heartbeats. To control the breaths that threatened to become impossible as a vise tightened around her rib cage. She’d been concussed after a strike from a villain had felled her on the grand staircase, but the real reason she couldn’t visit was because the world beyond her front doors had been too much to bear.
But she’d scraped her courage together today. And she’d been doing so well thus far. Could she not stave off the episode of terror just a while longer? Just until she discharged her duty and her conscience and thanked the man who saved her life.
A long, heavy sigh emptied Titus’s lungs.
“Felicity.” His eyes flicked down to the carpet, his expression troubled. “I’m sorry to tell you this but… Gabriel Sauvageau was shot by the villain Martin Trout. I… was unable to retrieve the bullet from his wound.”
That bit of new information not only slowed her heart but stalled it completely. She’d met Mr. Sauvageau all but twice, and somehow felt as if the news of his demise was a violent blow to the chest.
“What?” she gasped. “That can’t be. I was there when it happened! I— I distinctly remember watching Mr. Sauvageau walk away as if his injuries were not so serious… Did I not?”
Had she hallucinated?
After the murder of Mathilde Archambeau, a woman who’d come to her for help, Felicity had consented to join her sister Mercy at a Midnight Masquerade attended by London’s elite. Not only were peers in attendance eager to debauch themselves, but so were the wealthy merchant class and the darlings of the demimonde. Actresses, authors, and academics mingled with marquesses, madams, and merry widows of the haute ton.
That night, among revelers had also been the royalty of the underworld.
The most notorious of whom were the Sauvageau brothers, Raphael and Gabriel, leaders of the smuggling gang who identified themselves as the Fauves.
Raphael was the suave and carnally handsome rake, and his elder brother, Gabriel, was a leviathan of a man who’d been so thoroughly disfigured he wore a mask in public.
When he went into public, which was almost never.
Apparently the Sauvageau brothers had been planning to leave behind their lives of crime, and because of it, their second in command, Marco Villanueve, had quite violently turned on them.
In the resulting fracas, Marco had mistaken Felicity for her twin and had taken her hostage to use her against Raphael, who’d fallen in love with Mercy.
“I… remember the gunshot,” she breathed, walking through the terror of the moment in her mind. “Mr. Sauvageau did stumble and fall beneath the press of the panicking mob. But then he swept down the stairs and grappled with my captor, who sliced through his mask. I know I fainted after that… but there were moments of semiconsciousness where I remember being carried by Mr. Sauvageau through the burning building and out to the canal. I hear his voice in distant memory. I see his— his face.” She broke off, struggling over a difficult swallow.
“Surely he could not have carried me so far if he’d been fatally wounded.”
His face. His face had been the most terrible memory of all.
The poor man had no nose, no hair, an eye socket so damaged it barely deserved the term, and so many slices and scars on his face, it made speaking visibly difficult.
The sight had been horrific.
Heart-wrenching.
And cumulated with all of the horrors of the night, it’d been what brought on the infernal episode that’d overtaken her, and pulled her back beneath consciousness.
God, she was so ashamed of herself.
“Have I gone mad?” she whispered, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Did I imagine things?”
“You remember correctly,” Titus said gently. “Mr. Sauvageau did indeed conduct you to safety. But people are capable of doing remarkable things in remarkable situations. Things that even seem inhuman or extraordinary. More often than not, pushing oneself like that when injured… it takes its toll.”
Felicity covered her mouth. “Titus. Do you… do you think he might have survived if he hadn’t expended the effort to save me?”
Titus bucked his hip away from the desk and settled two careful hands on her shoulders. “Dear Felicity…” He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Things would not have ended any differently for Gabriel Sauvageau regardless of the circumstances. It’s commendable what he did for you. I— I know he doesn’t— he wouldn’t— regret it.”
Troubled, Felicity bit her cuticle. “Do you know where he’s buried? At the very least I could pay my respects. Or make certain his headstone is properly done. Or perhaps plant something there in his memory.”
“I don’t. I could make inquiries.”
“I’d appreciate that very much,” she said woodenly. “I’ll let you return to your business.”
“Nora will come around for tea any moment, if you’d like to stay. She’d love to visit with you.” Titus gathered up his white coat and punched his arms into the sleeves, indicating that he was going to the surgical theater.
“Yes, I’ll— I’ll go upstairs and wait, with your permission.”
Titus and Nora Conleith resided in a lush penthouse above the hospital. Their home was one of Felicity’s favorite places in all the world.
“You know our home is always open to you.” Titus’s face softened as he gave her shoulders a fond squeeze before releasing them. “It can’t be easy, what with Mercy absconding with Raphael to the devil knows where, and your parents indefinitely retreating to the Riviera.”
At this, Felicity gasped. “Oh Lord. Does Raphael know about his brother?”
Titus’s lips tightened. “He and Mercy do know what became of him, yes.”
“Poor man must be heartbroken. I understand they were close.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll write him my condolences when Mercy sends me a postcard from whatever port they next find themselves.”
“That would be kind of you.”
“Well…” Felicity’s restless hands adjusted her spectacles, plucked at her collar, at the cuffs of her sleeves, at the watch dangling from a broach over her breast. “Good afternoon, Titus.”
“Always a pleasure.” He lifted her hand to kiss it.
The news of Gabriel Sauvageau’s demise felt like a tragic end to an even more unfortunate life. He’d been so strong, so utterly large and impenetrable that it was almost impossible to imagine something so small as a bullet taking him down.
Though he’d been a smuggler and a criminal, even a man she’d once seen as a threat, he’d ultimately been her savior. After her assault, he’d held her like a child might cradle a porcelain doll.
One they were afraid of breaking.
He’d crooned gentle things into her ear in his native French, soothing her. He’d been frightening. He’d been criminal.
But… Someone had hurt him so abominably.
Someone had done all that terrifying damage to his face.
Felicity didn’t allow her tear to fall until she’d turned away. Dashing it from her eye with her gloved hand, she fumbled with the door latch and slid back into the hospital’s hallway.