The Mech Who Loved Me(5)

Garrett opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it. "A wise man realizes when the odds are against him."

"I haven't said I'm going to do such a thing." Ava hurried to fill the sudden awkwardness. "I'm just... contemplating options. At this moment I cannot see marriage in my future, and as Perry says, it's a lonely feeling."

"Fine," he growled. "It's your choice, Ava. It always is. Just be careful. I should hate to have to murder someone because they broke your heart. It's not very becoming for the master of London's law enforcement to have blood all over his hands."

"I'll be fine." A sudden kerfuffle drew her attention inside, to the appearance of a liveried footman wearing dark red and silver. Whose House colors were those? She wasn't familiar with the aristocratic Echelon who'd once ruled the city, beyond a peripheral awareness.

But Perry stiffened. As the Earl of Langford's daughter, she had been raised within the Echelon and trained to recognize such things. "Sir Gideon Scott's footman, by the look of it. But why would he be interrupting the wedding of two people he barely knows?"

Sir Gideon was an official representative of the Council of Dukes who ruled the city, and it was rumored he had the queen's ear. A powerful man.

"Here," Garrett called, gesturing the fellow through the glass doors onto the patio. "You look lost. Can we help?"

The footman seemed breathless. "Is the duke inside?"

"More specifics, man," Garrett said. "At last count we had two of them."

Lynch, the Duke of Bleight, and-

"Malloryn," the footman replied.

The Duke of Malloryn was the head of the Company of Rogues, the group of spies and assassins Ava had been asked to join. "I'll fetch him. Why not sit and rest? You look like you've been running."

"It's rather urgent."

Perry and Garrett exchanged a look. "We'll keep the bridal party distracted," Perry said, slipping her hand over the crook of her husband's elbow.

"And I'll find the duke," Ava promised, though she had no intention of leaving it at that.

With thoughts of Perry's mad scheme plaguing her, she didn't plan on remaining for the rest of the wedding breakfast. Especially not with Kincaid in the room. 

How on earth was she going to ever look him in the eye again?





Two





THE DUKE RETURNED with a placating smile for the party.

Kincaid watched Malloryn swim through the crowd, murmuring platitudes. Malloryn reminded him of a shark. All white teeth, smooth glide, and hunting eyes. And something was up. With the way Ava had suddenly reappeared and commandeered Malloryn's attention, he knew it had something to do with the work Kincaid undertook for the Company of Rogues.

It was about bloody time something happened.

The Sons of Gilead, a terrorist group they'd been hunting six weeks ago, had vanished off the face of the earth, and there'd been not a single sighting of the dhampir who'd been working with them either. The Company of Rogues had become restless, none more so than Kincaid.

He'd worked damned hard during the revolution to overthrow the corrupt prince consort and his bloodthirsty pack of blue blood aristocrats. The last thing he intended was seeing the blue bloods that had lost their rank at the top of the food chain ever regain it.

Speaking of blue bloods, the Duke of Malloryn crooked a finger at him. "Meet me in the study in five minutes."

Then he moved on.

Kincaid glanced around the room, handing his empty glass of champagne to a passing footman. Finally. Some action. He slipped away from the room, leaving Byrnes and Ingrid behind with the guests in the parlor of Malloryn's ducal manor.

What had roused Malloryn's ire? The icy duke kept all emotion off his face, but Kincaid had begun to learn his tells-the faint flicker of a muscle in the man's jaw, the thinning of his lips.... Something had the duke's drawers in a right knot, and as much as he would usually enjoy watching Malloryn squirm, it also meant danger might be afoot.

He asked for directions from the footman, then made his way upstairs.

Kincaid pushed through the doors to the study, startling someone who was sitting at Malloryn's desk.

Ava gave a small squeak, standing in a sudden flounce of lacy skirts. "What are you doing in here?"

"Waiting for Malloryn, as requested," he replied, easing the door shut behind him. "I do work for him, remember?"

"How can one forget?" Ava smoothed her skirts, studiously avoiding his gaze. The duck-egg blue of her overjacket washed out her pale skin, but drew his attention to the gilded highlights in her dark blonde curls. Every inch of her from the throat down was hidden, from her gloved hands to the tips of her pointed ankle boots. There were so many ruffles on her skirts he could barely make out her figure beneath it.