Page 70 of A Murder in Trinity Lane
She was in danger. Perilous danger. And she had no idea. She’d put herself in harm’s way—bold, reckless, brilliant woman that she was—and now she was tangled in something neither of us fully understood.
I had to make her see what she’d walked into. What she’d invited. She thought this was about justice. But she didn’t know the men who lived in this world. She didn’t know what they did to women who asked too many questions.
I took a step forward, heart pounding. That’s when I heard it—movement. Subtle, deliberate. I turned sharply, hand already dropping toward the revolver beneath my coat.
From behind a stack of crates, a figure emerged. Slender. Limping. The man I’d pulled from the floor nights ago.
He stopped just inside the spill of lamplight, his good eye squinting against the glare, the other still swollen shut. His jaw bore the sickly yellow-green hue of an old bruise.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” he rasped.
“Saved your skin?” I asked, keeping my voice flat.
He gave a crooked, humorless smile. “Come back to Saffron Hill.”
I didn’t respond.
“You’re here for your brother,” he said after a moment. “Asking questions.”
I studied him. “You know something.”
“I know enough to be afraid.”
“Of Mulligan?”
He shook his head. “Mulligan growls on command. But he’s not the one they answer to. There’s someone worse. Quiet. Always watching. No name. No need. Just a shadow that walks like a man.”
My throat tightened.
“The one in the mask.”
He nodded once, slowly. “No one speaks when he’s in the room. They just look to him and wait.”
“What does he want?”
“To own your brother. Body, coin, and silence.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Why?”
A beat passed.
“Because then he’ll own you.”
The words hit hard.
Own me.
That was the endgame. Not just my brother—me. The man behind all this thought he could drag me in too. Use Phillip as the leash. Tighten it until I danced on command. Not with blades or threats, but with pressure. Leverage. Influence.
He’d use my name. My title. My place in the House of Lords. Force my hand to protect his interests. Twist my words to silence reform. Turn me into a shield for the corrupt—and a sword for those who’d bought their way free of it.
At least, that’s whathe thought.
But I would never play his game. I would burn it all down before I bowed to him.
My mother’s voice rang sharp and cold in my mind:If Phillip falls beyond saving, you must protect yourself. And Nicholas. And the name your father left behind.
But the thing of it was, I couldn’t let that happen. Not while Phillip was still breathing. Not while Rosalynd was still in danger. Not while I had anything left to give.
