I stood at my open window and stared out at the coming dawn with dread. Fog marched through the street below like an army of phantoms summoned from their watery graves in murk of the Thames. In the east, the sun donned her armor and charged over the horizon to meet them in combat, the resulting bloodshed bathing their battlefield…
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You never know how you’ll deal with violence or the threat of it until you actually face it. You can contemplate your reactions, make assumptions as to whether you’ll fight or flee or freeze, but these idle musings will never be anything more than speculation. Until someone lays their hands on you. To late I realized my blunder. For once,…
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James McNaught, known spy, suspected master manipulator, closed the door behind him and paused just inside the threshold of the room. In the wane, sickly glow of the dying fire, he looked even more intimidating than he had in the ballroom; larger, paler, that ruthlessly handsome visage as cold as if he had been quarried and carved from ice. His…
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Likely something terrible, he had said. Who was the note from? What was the meaning of it? Why had it been sent to me? These questions and innumerable others crowded my mind as we endured the short carriage ride home in heavily pregnant silence. Not wanting to draw suspicion to his actions, Henry had only been able to perform a…
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“Did you happen to notice the Earl of Sotheby’s youngest daughter?” Aunt Jane asked me some time later. “No, Aunt,” I answered. “Her debut was tonight,” she told me. The Duchess of Amesbury made a tutting sound beside her. “Such a shame.” She stopped there, waiting for someone to ask the question. For the love of God, keep your mouths…
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