Once Upon a Maiden Lane (Maiden Lane #12.5)(41)

She needed a weapon. Something—anything—with which to defend herself.

Hurriedly she felt the door—a handle, but she couldn’t wrench it off—a small window, no curtains—the walls of the carriage—nothing. The seats were plush velvet. Expensive. Sometimes in better-made carriages the seats…

She yanked at one.

It lifted up.

Inside was a small space.

She reached in and felt a fur blanket. Nothing else.

Damn.

She could hear the wolf’s voice just outside the carriage.

Desperately she flung herself at the opposite seat and tugged it up. Thrust her hand in.

A pistol.

The door to the carriage opened. The wolf loomed in the doorway, a lantern in one hand. She saw his eyes flick to the pistol she held between her bound hands. He turned his head and said something in a strange incomprehensible language to someone outside.

Then he got in the carriage and closed the door. He hung the lantern on a hook and sat on the seat across from her. “Put that down.”

She backed into the opposite corner as far away from him as possible, holding the pistol up. Level with his chest. “No.”

The carriage jolted into motion.

“T-tell them to stop,” she said, her voice stuttering with terror despite her resolve. “Let me go now.”

“So that they can rape you to death out there?” He tilted his head to indicate the Lords. “No.”

He reached for her and she knew she had no choice. She’d seen how he moved, how fast and how ruthlessly.

She shot him.

The blast knocked him into the seat and threw her hands up and back, narrowly missing her nose with the pistol.

Iris scrambled upright. The bullet was gone but she could still use the pistol as a bludgeon.

The wolf was sprawled across the seat, blood streaming from a gaping hole in his right shoulder. His mask had been knocked askew on his face.

She reached forward and pulled it off.

The face that was revealed had once been as beautiful as an angel’s but was now horribly mutilated. A livid red scar ran from just below his hairline on the right side of his face, bisecting the eyebrow, somehow missing the eye itself but gouging a furrow into the lean cheek and catching the edge of the upper lip on that side, making it twist. The scar ended in a missing divot of flesh in the line of the man’s severe jaw. He had inky black hair and emotionless crystal gray eyes—though they were closed now—and she recognized him.

He was Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore, and when she’d danced with him—once—three months ago at a ball, she’d thought he’d looked like Hades.

God of the underworld.

God of the dead.

She had no reason to change her opinion now.

Then he gasped, and those cold crystal eyes opened and he glared at her. “You idiot woman. I’m trying to save you.”





If you love Elizabeth Hoyt,

keep reading for a special excerpt of No Other Duke Will Do

by New York Times bestselling author Grace Burrowes!





Chapter One



“STOP TRYING TO CHEER me up, or I’ll call you out.” Julian Andreas Cynan Evan St. David, twelfth Duke of Haverford, wanted to blast away at something, though the Marquess of Radnor, being both a dead shot and Julian’s dearest friend, made a poor choice of target.

“Are you upset with your sister for the expense this house party will cause,” Radnor asked, “or for the number of eligible young ladies you’ll have to partner at whist?”

“Dukes do not become upset. If you continue nattering, you’ll frighten the fish away.”

Radnor made an elegant cast into the middle of the stream. “Haverford, if it’s a matter of coin—?”

“Do you want me to blow out your brains, Radnor, assuming even I could hit a target that small?”

Radnor’s line dipped, then bowed down. Julian gathered up his rod and maintained a respectful silence while the marquess did battle with a trout intent on putting a presuming aristocrat in his place.

The morning was lovely as only Wales in spring could be lovely, the hills Eden-green, the sky full of fluffy white clouds—lamb clouds, Glenys used to call them—and the breeze scented with freshly scythed hay.

The valley was coming into its most impressive verdure, and of course, Glenys had timed her house party ambush to show off the estate as well as her older brother.

Radnor swung his line from the water, and Julian took up a net. He snagged the thrashing trout and held it up for the marquess to admire.

“Fine specimen,” Radnor said, setting his pole aside. “Though I’m sure we have larger fish in my ponds at Radnor Hall.”

“Larger perhaps, but not with more fight.” Julian gripped the trout about the back and eased the hook free. The fish wiggled in his grasp, fighting to the last, its mouth moving in a desperate effort to sustain life.

“He’ll make a lovely addition to the table—what the deuce, Haverford! That is my fish.”

Julian tossed the trout back into the water, and it was off downstream with an indignant swish of its tail.

“We have enough,” Julian said, nudging a wicker basket with his toe. “That one earned his freedom, while I have tarried here as long as I dare. Glenys expects me for the midday meal, and then I must meet with my land steward.”