Chapters (44)
- Title Page
- One: Into the Storm
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Two: London Calling
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Three: The Malignant Seven
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Four: Squirrels and Cats
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Five: Revelation
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- About the Author
“What is it? What? Where are we?” Firebaugh had been roused at the sound of the earcutter’s voice. The eyes were wild with fear in his swollen face, and it appeared he was trying to desperately squeeze himself into a seam in the coach’s wall at his back.
“Settle yourself,” Julian told him, as one might tell a dog to behave. “Here, take the coat and the gloves,” he said to Matthew, but before he removed the items he waved his pistol in Elizabeth’s face. “No tricks from you, miss murder.”
“I’m content to watch,” she answered coolly, and Matthew had the creepy feeling that she might be speaking on behalf of her other half.
He got into the polar bear coat and put the gloves on. The air was bitterly cold and the wind blew the snow at a slant, whistling past his ears. He pulled his woolen cap lower. Before he climbed up to the driver’s seat and before Julian could get into the coach, Matthew said, “Don’t injure Elizabeth. Hear me?”
“I won’t if she doesn’t try anything.” He frowned. “What’s your concern for her?”
“She and I are both Black-Eyed Broodies. I made a vow not to—”
“What’s that?” Firebaugh had leaned forward to hear through his good side.
Everyone ignored him. “I made a vow not to injure a brother—sister—Broodie,” Matthew went on. “She made the same vow. That’s why she didn’t—”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Julian. He tapped his chin with the pistol’s barrels. “But she’s not my sister, Matthew, so if she makes a move I don’t like … I told you before, I’m the bad man. What else do you expect of me?”
“A bit of honor.”
Julian grunted. “What you haven’t yet seemed to realize, Matthew, is that very often it takes a bad man to do the things that have to be done. Would we have gotten this far if our main concern was honor?”
“I made a vow. I stand by it, no matter what.”
“Let him come inside,” said Elizabeth, with a silky smile. “She won’t bite him. Yet. And please close the doors before I turn to ice.”
Julian wore an expression that told Matthew he might be weighing the cold and his aching back against the wisdom of being in close quarters with RakeHell Lizzie, but then he climbed into the coach. “Just keep us on the road,” he said grimly before he shut the doors, leaving the problem-solver on his own.