Farah put a staying hand on her friend’s arm. “You’re going to do just fine,” she encouraged.
“I still say you can stay with us,” Millie offered. “Christopher shot a member of your family to save my life. Our home in Belgravia would be the last place in London anyone would look for you.”
Mena’s eyes stung again at the unlimited generosity of these women. “You can’t know how much your offer means to me, but the police do know that I confessed my family’s crimes to save yours. Chief Inspector Morley knows that we are close, I feel that I would be putting your fiancé’s new career in danger.”
Millie’s frown conveyed her frustration, but she didn’t argue the point. Christopher Argent had once been the highest-paid assassin in the empire. Now, because of his love for Millie, he was trying a career in law enforcement on for size. Considering what had happened with Mr. Burns, Mena wondered if the big man was suited to the job.
“We all agree that getting you out of London will be safer for you should your husband or agents of the crown come looking for you here,” Farah reminded them gently. “And arrangements have been solidified in Scotland. Lord Ravencroft has already said he would meet your train tomorrow afternoon.”
The bottom dropped out of Mena’s chest, sending her heart plummeting into her stomach. She still wasn’t certain how she’d gone from being a viscountess, to a prisoner at Belle Glen, and then a phony spinster governess in such a short time.
Madame Sandrine stood, the seamstress’s eyes wide with disbelief. “You are going to work for the Demon Highlander?”
“T-the what?” Mena gasped, unable to keep a telling tremor out of her voice. “The who?”
Farah winced, which did little to allay Mena’s growing panic.
Madame Sandrine hurried on, her face luminous with ill-omened dramatics. “They say that the Marquess of Ravencroft went to the crossroads to make a deal with a demon so that he will never die in battle. He is known to charge cannon and rifles head-on, and the bullets and cannonballs curve around him as if he were not there. He has killed so many men that there is a mountain of bones in hell named after him. The most violent man alive, is he. It is said he can murder you with only a touch of—”
“Madame Sandrine,” Farah said sharply. “That’s quite enough.”
“A … mountain of bones?” Mena stared at the two rather guilty-looking women with pure disbelief. “Just where are you sending me?”
Farah stepped forward carefully. “You of all people know how the papers sensationalize these things. Yes, Lord Ravencroft was a soldier some twenty years, and was commended for his uncommon bravery in Asia and the Indies. His children are nearly grown, which means he’s a much older man now. He’s retired from the army life, and committed to being nothing more than a father and a farmer. I assure you, there’s nothing to be frightened of.”
But Mena was frightened. Her stomach roiled and her legs wanted to give out. What if she’d been tossed from the pot into the flames? What if Farah’s perspective was skewed by her own circumstances? She was married to the Blackheart of Ben More, after all. He was king of the London Underworld because he’d won the Underworld war by washing the streets of East London with rivers of blood. When one was married to such a lethal man, who would think twice about sending someone to … “The—the most violent man alive?” she finished aloud as a shudder of anxiety stole her breath and a tic began to seize in her eyebrow. Mena sank to her knees on the dais, gasping for air. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Farah sank next to her and rubbed a warm hand across her back. “Mena … I know you don’t know me very well, but I’m your friend. I wouldn’t send you to him if I thought you’d be in danger.”
Mena just shook her head, unable to form words around her pounding heart and the heavy lump of fear threatening to choke her.
Farah took something out of her skirt pocket and gave it to Mena. A letter with a broken wax seal. “Read this,” Farah prompted. “And then make your final decision. Know that in giving you this letter, I’m entrusting you with information that not many are privy to.”
Millie sat on Mena’s other side and took her hand. “I’ve learned something about being in a desperate situation that may help you.”
Mena stared at the letter and focused on regaining her breath. The thick paper had Farah’s name on it, scrawled in substantial, heavy masculine script. The letters were the precise same height and width. All lined up like little soldiers.
“What is that?” she whispered.
“Sometimes.” Millie’s usually cheerful voice was low and grave. “When in a predicament like yours, the safest place to be is at the side of a violent man.”
Dear Lady Northwalk,
This correspondence is meant to inform you and Dorian that I have retired from military duty to Ravencroft Keep to oversee clan farms, tenements, and to run the distillery.
As you may know, I have been this past decade a widower, and my children little better than orphans, as I have spent the preponderance of their lives abroad in Her Majesty’s service.
In my absence, their education has been disastrously neglected.
When a soldier is fortunate enough to reach the age I have, he collects many regrets. Mine are not confined to the atrocities of war, but also to what I have abandoned. Not only in regard to my children, but also to your husband. My own brother.