Page 24 of The Devil Baron

She shook her head, thoroughly defeated.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked up at him, the same desperation he’d seen in her blue eyes the last two days lit to full force. “We can’t stop. We have to get Seahorn. Eva—”

“I know. But we’re stopped now and we need to get it out.”

She stared up at him, wary.

She should be.

{ Chapter 9 }

She’d suffered several humiliations under Rafe, but this—this was going to be the death of her.

Sitting on the bed, she watched him walk across her room, setting down a platter of simple meats and cheeses onto the table by the window along with an unmarked bottle of dark liquid. Madeira or brandy, she guessed. He reached into an inner coat pocket and pulled free a fork and a dinner knife along with…

Blast.A tweezers and a small knife.

She swallowed at the blade of the small knife. It looked sharp along the blade. Really, really sharp. And it came to a pinprick point.

He turned back to her. “Food or glass first?”

“The glass. It hurts.”

“Badly?”

“To the point where I cannot stomach eating.”

He nodded, more to himself than to her, and turned back toward the table. He peeled off his gloves and her gaze instantly shifted to his left hand. She hadn’t seen him without gloves on yet, and she’d been wondering for days if she was correct about his pinky.

She was.

No pinky, the skin puckered over the base knuckle of where once had been a finger. Though it looked like it had happened long ago, the scar weathered into his hand so well it was a part of him instead of something new to grow accustomed to.

He picked up the silver tweezers and the small knife, then thought better of it, setting the tools down. His hand shifted across the table and he picked up the bottle of spirits, pouring a healthy amount into the glass that had been on the table when she’d walked into the room.

He moved across the room to hand her the glass. “First, this.”

She took it from him, looking up at him. “What is it?”

“Madeira. I would have brought brandy, but I cannot imagine you would have enjoyed that.”

She nodded, then took a long drink of the wine. Paused. Then took another swallow.

The glass half empty, she handed it back to him. He tilted it back, swallowing in one deft movement the rest of the glass. He went back to the table and set the tumbler down, then picked up the tweezers and knife and turned back to her.

Her eyes didn’t shift off the glint of the knife as he approached her. “Are you sure you’re going to need that?”

“I hope not.” He shrugged. “I’m not exactly relishing this any more than you.”

For a moment, she once again considered seeking out another woman in the inn that could help her, but judging by the innkeeper and the men she’d seen below in the tavern attached to the common area on the way in, someone appropriate would be hard to come by.

Especially a kind, clean woman that wouldn’t breathe a word of how Victoria was traveling with an unmarried man. Any woman respectable like that wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Plus, if she was honest with herself, she was already so far down the well with Rafe that they were in this together, for better or worse.

He was the key to getting her to Seahorn as fast as possible and she’d had to accept that fact yesterday.

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