Each night before she went to sleep, she catalogued her actions for the day, analyzing them for weaknesses or exposures. She would ask herself,Did I do anything today to leave myself vulnerable...?
Marrying a man like Le Daex would be one of her most critical moves, yet she would do it to avoid Toumard's punishments - or plans. She'd sold her other gowns and paste jewels, but she hadn't been able to keep up with the man's demands for money. His lackeys hounded her more and more.
Out on the street, Maddy passed the usual prostitutes in the usual alleyways, perched on their knees servicing clients. The pained expressions on the men's faces had always fascinated her. The young ones, usually dressed in regimental uniforms, pleaded with the tarts not to stop. The older ones commanded them not to. Maddy had always wondered what could be so pleasurable that they feared its incompletion so much.
The Scot had certainly made sure he'd completed his, by his own hand. She stumbled, nearly catching the hem of her dress.
With him, she'd had a taste of passion and had begun to understand more about the scenes she witnessed routinely. At night, when she was alone in her bed, she recalled the pleasure he'd given her - before the pain. Even after he'd hurt her so terribly, she thought of him - more than of Quin, whom she'd failed to snare.
As the neighborhood grew higher in elevation and therefore more expensive, she passed the boulangerie shop that was the bane of her existence. As was her custom, she stopped to stare through the window.
The warmed shelves were piled with glazed treats, begging her to come liberate them. Inside, behind the counter, were the downtrodden ice creams jailed in a patented ice cream freezer. Alas, she'd never figured out how to pocket goods that melted or flaked apart with the merest touch.
Leering at the food was only an appetizer of anguish for her. Maddy's true torment was watching the young bourgeoisie wives sitting inside. Her hungry gaze drifted to a group of them now.
They were her age and happy, gossiping and glancing over fashion plates, leaving food untouched. Some had gurgling babies in perambulators with silver teething rings, and all of them probably had respectable husbands at home - men they could adore and be adored by in return, men who would protect them and their children.
Maddy envied them so bitterly that her eyes watered and her stomach churned with it.
I would give anything to be one among those women. Anything.
She coveted everything they had. She wanted a happy, well-fed baby of her own whom she could love and care for, much better than her own self-serving mother had cared for her. Maddy wanted to wear a watch pinned to her bodice to check if it was time to meet her husband back at their warm, secure home. She wanted to read fashion magazines - not todream about a new wardrobe but toplan one.
Maddy admittedly sought a rich husband, but not for the reasons everyone supposed. Precious jewels and baubles were welcome, but incidental. She yearned for the safety and security money would bring to her - and to the family she imagined of having.
She'd turned her matrimonial focus to the very rich because those men were in less danger of losing everything, as her own father had. Her papa had been dearer to her than anyone, always striving to make up for her mother's lack of affection, but the fact remained that he'd left his daughter defenseless in a world that seemed to lie in wait, ready to punish any misstep she might make....
The old boulangerie shopkeeper eyed Maddy through the window. Though she was dressed in her costly gown, he recognized her and glared. He put on a grandfatherly face to paying customers, but he was hateful to her, chasing her away with a broom on more than one occasion. She gave him a lewd gesture, turning on her heel and continuing on her way.
A single woman in La Marais dreaming about a stable home life with a passel of children and a decent husband to safeguard them all was beyond ridiculous. She might as well yearn for a tree that bloomed gold.
But even worse, Maddy still believed in...love.
Even after her parents' ill-fated May-December union, and even after seeing the twisted relationships in the garret, Maddy still longed for a man to love her.
In a ruthless world, dreams like hers were liabilities....
In lieu of them, she'd take Le Daex and the luxury of not having her arms broken.
Ethan peered down at the informant whose throat he clenched, regarding him pitilessly. He released his grip enough for the man to gasp a breath, and then he squeezed harder. "Still saying that's all you know about Grey?"
The bug-eyed man nodded as best as he could, and Ethan finally released him, leaving him in a collapsed heap in an alleyway.
He strode back inside the Lake District tavern from which he'd plucked that man earlier. But this time he took a seat at a back table, sinking into the shadows to contemplate all he'd learned in the last week.
In his inexhaustible hunt, Ethan had ridden hundreds of miles and had thrashed so many informants that his knuckles stung. He'd discovered that Grey might indeed be afflicted with a hunger for opium, but he was far from being out of his mind - Grey had secretly reached England, surprising them all.
Yet then the man had made the critical mistake of viciously knifing a woman in the Network. Grey's preferred weapon was his blade, and the brutality of the killing had alerted Ethan to his whereabouts....
Grey was already on Hugh's trail.
Ethan had to be faster than Grey, better. He'd always managed to be in the past, though they'd been closely matched adversaries, each with his own talents.
Grey relied on technique; Ethan on brute strength. Grey spoke four languages with flawless native fluency and was eerily brilliant with strategic matters, but there was a reason he'd become so lethal with a blade - with a gun, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
Ethan would take his humble street smarts and his aim any day.
Weyland considered Grey the most talented natural killer he'd ever encountered; Ethan was deemed the most doggedly brutal and relentless in pursuit....
Ethan knew he was closing in on the man now, but he hadn't been able to force Grey into the open. So he'd decided to anticipate Grey's moves.
Hugh had taken Jane to Ethan's remote lake house just a few miles north of this tavern, to stay for a few days before traveling to Scotland. Grey would likely have uncovered information about the residence by now and would pursue her there, but the place was most readily accessible from the ferry that ran from this very tavern. Otherwise, it would take days to go north and circle back south to get to the estate. This tavern was the portal, and Ethan would act as sentinel here, waiting for Grey to come to him.
The trap had been baited; Ethanfelt he was close.
As if there wasn't enough pressure to kill Grey, Edward Weyland had demanded that Hugh and Jane enter into a hasty marriage of convenience before they'd departed together. Hugh hadn't reacted particularly well to denying himself Jane ten years ago. Now, after being near her constantly, bloody married to her...Hugh was going to lose his mind.
After the lake house, Hugh planned to go to the Highlands to hide out at their brother Courtland's ramshackle estate. If Ethan couldn't catch or kill Grey, then he at least wanted to buy time for Hugh to escape with Jane. Hugh would travel by horse into the Scottish forests. He was an expert rifleman and hunter, the wilderness his element....
Ethan's thoughts were interrupted when he spied Arthur MacReedy and his barely bewhiskered son entering the tavern.Of all the people.
Ethan recalled then that the MacReedy family had a hunting lodge in the Lake District and spent the fall at leisure in this area. Ethan knew a lot of things about the MacReedys - he'd been a day away from marrying Arthur's daughter, Sarah.
Meeting up with them now was a timely reminder of when Ethan had ignored the curse and sought to have a normal life, to take a bride, and try to father an heir.
To get past what had been done to him.
His planned marriage to her had in no way been a love match - he and Sarah had never met until the days leading up to the ceremony - but the union had made sense. Sarah had been a renowned beauty, and Ethan had been a wealthy young laird. Everything was supposed to have been settled - until the night before their wedding, when she'd stood at a high turret of his family's ancient hold. She'd gazed at his face, at his newly healed scar, alternately with pity and disgust.
He reached out his hand and rasped, "You doona have to marry me, Sarah...."
"Kavanagh," MacReedy the elder said, nodding at him once, respectfully - as he should.
In return, Ethan cast the man the menacing expression he deserved. MacReedy and his son walked on.