Dancing With Danger Read online

  “That’s...” To his abject astonishment, she was quiet for five entire steps before conjuring a word. “Diabolical.”

  “That, mon chaton, is when I strike. When they are blind. When they’ll never see me coming.”

  “Oh.” She looked off into the distance, melancholy sitting strangely on her face. As if it didn’t belong. “I do not think Mathilde ever saw her killer coming. At least... I hope she did not. That she wasn’t afraid.”

  Lanced by the selfsame ardent hope, Raphael asked, “Why did you come seek me out when I’m wanted for Mathilde’s murder?”

  “Because I...I don’t think you killed her.”

  “You would not have kissed me back if you did.”

  “I did not kiss—”

  He interrupted her protestation. “What makes you think I am innocent?”

  “I don’t have to tell you,” she said, still stubbornly refusing to look at him.

  “Please.”

  The soft word caused a hitch in her step. Perhaps she heard the desperation in it. The earnest grief he’d been keeping at bay.

  Sighing, she relented. “For one, your shoes were impeccable and expensive, and the boot that left the mud on the window was grooved like that of a Brogan. A man’s military boot, but this one was higher, like a woman’s. I can make no sense of it.”

  “I could have changed shoes.” He played the devil’s advocate.

  “Unlikely.” She pursed her lips, chewing on the bottom one with a pensive frown. “Also, her neck was snapped in a motion that signified her murderer was left-handed, and I’ve noticed your right hand is your dominant one. And besides... I credit you with more intelligence than to stay at a crime scene long enough for the body to cool.”

  Raphael did his best not to preen. She was a woman who didn’t give much credit. It was strange how much even a tiny compliment like that seemed to stir him.

  “Who told you we were lovers?” he puzzled aloud. “Mathilde wasn’t the type of woman who revealed her secrets, not with Gregoire as a husband.”

  At the question, she looked over at him, and the concern he read in her eyes almost caused him to stumble. “Don’t be cross with her. She didn’t use your name. Merely revealed to me that you were young, dark, dangerous, powerful, and that you were—”

  She broke off, her gaze skittering away.

  The color darkening her cheeks, still flushed from his kiss, intrigued him. “I was, what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with the case.”

  “I’d still like to know. If it was something Mathilde thought of me.”

  At that, she conceded. “She intimated that you were...rather skilled.”

  He snorted his disbelief. “Mathilde didn’t use such banal terms as ‘rather skilled.’”

  “All right,” she hissed. “She told me you were capable of passion she’d never known a man to possess. That you knew a woman’s body as if you’d created it for your own skill. She said that no lover had ever made her perform such wicked acts. Had never made her want to.”

  Raphael flashed her his most charming smile. “Well, Mathilde was many things, but she wasn’t a liar.”

  “No. She wasn’t.” For once, there was something they agreed upon. “You revealed yourself by being there the moment her husband traveled away.”

  “So I did,” he said, just realizing it, himself.

  “Did you love her?”

  She seemed as surprised to ask the question as he was to hear it, and he had to cast about his heart for an answer.

  For the truth.

  “I was...fond of Mathilde. But there is only one person alive that I can profess to love.”

  “Yourself?”

  Her clipped answer surprised a bark of laughter out of him. “You know me better than you ought to for only having met me twice before.”

  “A detective is trained to make keen observations about people.” She tapped the spot beneath her eye with her fingertip, indulging in a satisfied smile.

  “A shame none of the detectives they sent after me were women.”

  “You’d be caught by now, no doubt.”

  “I imagine you are right.”

  She lifted her hand to her eyes, shading them from the quickly dissipating sun. “I’ve observed something else.”

  “What is that?”

  “We are being followed.”

  Chapter 6

  Mercy suddenly wanted Raphael Sauvageau to live up to his name.

  He was just so unnervingly cool and infuriatingly collected. All loose limbs and unaffected insouciance, even as he checked their periphery for a threat.

  As if finding one wouldn’t at all ruin his day.

  If this man had as much sway over fear as he claimed, then what was it that could send him into histrionics?

  Everyone feared something.

  You terrify me, Mercy Goode.

  Surely, he’d been joking.

  He gave their surroundings a surreptitious examination. “Does the man following us have a billycock hat and a grey morning suit with the paper tucked under his left arm?” His lips barely moved as he peered off into the opposite direction of the man in question.

  A lance of trepidation speared her gut. “You’ve spotted him, too?”

  Turning, he lifted his hand in a wave at their voyeur.

  Mercy almost slapped it out of the air before he informed her, “His name is Clayton Honeycutt. He’s one of my Fauves.”

  “You’re being followed by your own men?” she asked in disbelief, blinking over at their shadow, who nodded in greeting.

  “We tend to trail each other. To go very few places alone. Our backs are never exposed, and it keeps us honest—well—at least among our own.”

  Something about the way he said this caused her to examine him more closely. He was being wry...and yet...a tightness appeared at the corner of his mouth that hadn’t been there before.

  “You have a good eye,” he praised. “An admirable instinct for such things. Not many people can pick us out of a crowd like this.”

  Mercy tried to hide that his words pleased her, and found it impossible.

  So delighted was she, in fact, that she neglected her defenses against him for a rare, vulnerable moment. Forgot that his masculinity was honed to a razor’s edge, wielded with masterful ease. That his musculature was well-thewed and sculpted like that of a lean predator, one that relied on his speed and stamina as well as his strength.

  One that moved about the world with nothing to fear.

  And everything to claim as his own.

  It became increasingly hard to believe that such a charismatic man, radiating a sort of godlike beauty, walked among mortals like her.

  She forgot that she’d promised not to be charmed by him. Not even intrigued.

  Let alone enthralled.

  Her moment of weakness was all he needed.

  His glittering grey gaze, like the silver tip of an arrow, found a chink in her armor and skewered her right through.

  He looked at her as no man ever had. As if his eyes only ever sought after her. As if they only knew her, and no one else. No other woman.

  And that was a dangerous lie.

  One he hadn’t exactly told her, and yet she found herself wanting to believe it.

  She needed to quit his company, before she let something more dangerous than a kiss happen...

  Before she initiated it.

  Marching forward, she kept her eyes on the gate, needing to think of something—anything—other than the kiss he stole from her.

  The tender sweep of his lips across hers.

  “I don’t think Mathilde loved you either,” she said, half to consider the notion, and half to whip him with it.

  “Pardon?” His voice held an edge she didn’t want to look over and identify just now.

  “Well, when she wanted to escape her brutal husband, she came to the Lady’s Aid Society...rather than to you. Why do you think that is, Mr. Sauvageau?”
/>   “I couldn’t rightly say...” He sounded pensive. Troubled. And Mercy was glad to hear it, because it made this man seem human.

  “Did she tell you she was leaving?” Mercy ventured. “Did she ask you to go with her?”

  He was silent for a beat longer than she expected an honest man to be. “No. I knew Gregoire was going back to France, but I was not privy to Mathilde’s plans to leave him, even though I’d demanded she do so many times.”

  “Would you have gone with her if she asked?” Mercy slowed her march. Suddenly the gate was getting too close, and she didn’t feel as though she could breathe until she heard his answer.

  Which was patently absurd.

  “No,” he said again, his tone measured with a chemist’s precision. “Mathilde knew me too well to ask.”

  She could think of nothing in reply to that, so she drifted silently forward for a while. Usually, the beavers and waterfowl in the gardens would charm and distract her, but today her notice was captured by a different sort of beast.

  It was he who broke the silence. “Mathilde had a ball to attend the night after next, she’d have considered it the greatest tragedy to miss it.”

  “Indeed.” Mathilde had informed Mercy of the Midwinter Masquerade being held at Madame Duvernay’s. All of the demimonde would attend. Famous actresses and courtesans. Women who were kept by dukes and royalty. Mediums and occultists, writers and scholars, indeed, artists of all renown and modality.

  These had been her people, and Mathilde had wanted to say goodbye before she left forever. She was most adamant about it, in fact, making furtive explanations about people who she might see.

  Might her murderer have tried to stop her from attending?

  “What will you do now, Miss Goode?”

  His question broke her reverie. “Nothing’s changed. I intend to find Mathilde’s murderer, of course. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you mentioned you might have an idea of who it could be.”

  His eyes shifted, as if sifting through the truths to give her.

  “There’s no need for you to find a lie,” she prompted. “You can tell me what you know. You can trust me.”

  His assessment of her was slow, but not languorous nor seductive as it had once been. This time, it was full of questions she couldn’t define, and a cynical sort of sadness that slid through her ribs to tug at her heart.

  “A man achieves what I have by trusting only that other people will betray him. In my world, naïveté is the chief cause of untimely death.”

  “How awful that must be.” She grimaced with distaste. “Why anyone would join a world like that is beyond me.”

  “Some of us have no choice,” he murmured, his eyes fixing to a far-off point. “Indeed, it is the belief of the Fauves that the entire world is just such a savage place. We merely chose to accept the fact, and then grant ourselves the greatest chance of survival in this jungle man has crafted for us.”

  Mercy considered this. Considered him. For the first time, she imagined that she peeled back the years from his sardonic beauty. Erased the cynical set to his mouth and the ever-present tension in his shoulders. She relieved him of the mantle of menace and the threat of violence, to uncover who he might have been once upon a time.

  A boy. Carefree and mischievous. Precocious and witty with that disarming dimple in his left cheek.

  What sort of variables formulated by the Fates created this man who stood before her?

  What choices had he made?

  What choices were made for him?

  “How do you know, then, if anyone is ever giving you correct information?” she wondered aloud.

  He pondered this. “Oftentimes, if they owe me, or if our interests align, that can make an ally for a time.”

  “Well, there we are then!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together once. “I suppose I owe you for the gold you gave Nora and Titus, so—”

  He shook his head in denial, and the sun shone blue off his ebony hair. “That was a payment for services about to be rendered. And I forfeited that to your sister and her husband, not to you.”

  “What about a transaction, then,” she offered. “Surely that’s a language you understand.”

  At that, his eyes flared with interest. “I’m listening.”

  “You tell me what I want to know, and then I’ll tell you what information I have. A fair trade, wouldn’t you say?”

  His expression flattened. “Not the transaction I was hoping for, but... I suppose it’ll do.”

  “Excellent.” She offered her hand for a shake to seal their deal.

  He took it, looking a bit bemused.

  Even through her glove, she was suffused with the potency of his touch. Something as innocuous as a handshake with this man felt wicked.

  Not wrong, per se.

  Illicit.

  She was aware of every tactile sensation. Of the rasp the very whorls his finger pads made on the silk. Of the restrained strength in his grip. The way he lingered over the gesture, as reticent as she to let go.

  Clearing her throat, Mercy plucked her hand away and reached into her reticule, pulling out a notepad. “You first. Who do you suspect wanted Mathilde dead?”

  Raphael’s voice altered as he spoke, too heavy and low to be easily heard over the squeals of happy children, the sounds of unhappy animals, and the chatter of the London elite. “Mathilde was a woman of glorious highs and devastating lows. She often indulged in...substances to help her manage these riotous moods of hers. I knew this could be destructive, but I could not bring myself to admonish her for seeking to control her suffering.”

  “Did you provide her with these substances?” Mercy asked, careful to keep the judgment from her voice.

  “Sometimes.” He looked out over the heads of the crowd, as if searching the past. “She had spells when she seemed as though her energy would never cease. She did reckless, devastating things. Initiated brawls in public. Seduced other women’s husbands. She even stole from me once to sell to her friends in the demimonde. I’ll admit I have killed for that, but I would never hurt a woman, least of all, her.”

  He couldn’t even trust his own lover. The thought made Mercy desperately melancholy, even as he continued.

  “After these spells, she’d sleep for an entire week, as if her very soul was weary.” He blew out a sigh, as if fighting a bit of that weariness himself. “She and Gregoire relocated here from France to escape a scandal there,” he continued. “Though she refused to give me details, I gathered that she was wanted for a theft from the Duchesse de la Cour. I have often wondered if she sought me out because she thought I could protect her. From her enemies...from herself.”

  He paused, and she thought she saw a very human emotion soften his chiseled features.

  Regret.

  “The Duchesse is visiting a cousin here in London, which causes me to wonder if she’s reaped her revenge on Mathilde.” His somber eyes found hers. “That is the lead I intend to follow.”

  Mercy tapped her pencil against the pad, biting at her cheek in thought. “Mathilde did say she had to conduct some final business before she left...do you think the Duchesse will be at this masquerade you mentioned?”

  “I cannot say. I intend to find out before then.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, which seemed to be less smooth as the afternoon wore on. “It is your turn to relinquish information.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “What was the destination of her escape?”

  That was an easy question to answer. “We were taking a train to the coast, and from there she was going to disembark to America.”

  Raphael nodded, a bleak smile haunting his lips. “She often spoke of seeing the Brooklyn Bridge. Of taking a train all the way to the Pacific Ocean.” His face hardened and he turned to her. “You will not go after this murderer.”

  She bristled. “You cannot issue me orders as if—”

  He sliced a hand through the air to cut off her protestations. “Has it occ
urred to you, Miss Goode, that this killer might think nothing of slaughtering you and degrading your pretty corpse before leaving it in the gutter, should you get in his way?”

  “Of course it has,” she sniped, doing her best to seem undeterred by his graphic warning. “I’m not planning on getting in his way, only finding him out. Then I’ll turn the evidence over to the authorities. That is what an intrepid investigator does.”

  He shook his head the entire time she spoke, all semblance of charm and charisma replaced by a solemn determination.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he insisted, leaning on every syllable for undue emphasis. “Leave it alone, Miss Goode. Leave it to me. You go back to your balls, your books, your seamstresses and your suitors. Live a long and privileged life for those of us who—”

  “Ha!” She poked him in the chest and then shook her hand when her finger crumpled against steely muscle. “I’ll thank you to note that I have no suitors at present, nor do I desire one, and I’d rather attend the dentist than a ball. So, do not presume you have the measure of me, sir.”

  He regarded her with resolute skepticism. “You mean for me to believe you don’t love dressing in silks and having rich men trip all over themselves to offer for you?” He rolled his eyes. “Do go on, Miss Goode.”

  “I’ve plenty of interest and no offers.” She crossed her arms over her chest, daring him to laugh.

  Instead, he gave a dry snort. “Next you’ll be telling me about blizzards in the Sahara.”

  “Don’t be cruel,” she admonished him. “It’s patently obvious why no man would want me.”

  His smirk disappeared when he looked at her, replaced by a start of disbelief. “You’re being serious.”

  “Deadly.”

  “I rarely find myself at the disadvantage of not knowing what someone in the ton finds patently obvious, as you put it... but I can’t bring myself to imagine to what you are referring. I should think you have to beat the suitors away with a club.”