Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7)

The first pistol shot had missed Kilbourne completely, the second had bloodied his thick skull but hadn’t seemed to slow the man down at all. Maybe nothing would. Maybe Kilbourne was like some mindless beast, driven into a killing rage, unfeeling of any pain.

It was pure, stubborn hubris for a cripple to come after a fully capable man—especially a man as large and muscled as Kilbourne. Hubris to announce his presence to his quarry instead of disabling him first.

Hubris to think he was the man he’d been before the accident.

Trevillion continued to struggle, even though he’d discharged both pistols, his leg was screaming, and he had no hope of overpowering Kilbourne. He might be a prideful bastard, but he was a stubborn prideful bastard and if this was to be his last hour, then by damn, he’d go down fighting.

Kilbourne’s forearm was across his throat, pressing down, stealing the air from his lungs. In the giant’s other fist was a hideously curved knife. Trevillion expected to feel the hooked blade sinking into his skull at any moment.

Black spots floated in Trevillion’s vision and he wished viciously that he’d drawn both his pistols before he’d called to Kilbourne. He’d’ve at least had the chance to shoot when the big man charged. He’d worried about the woman getting caught by a shot, though…

His leg stopped hurting. That was worrying.

Blackness closed in, narrowing his vision.

Then suddenly light, air, and pain returned.

He rolled, coughing violently as his lungs drew air, his leg spasming torturously. Trevillion threw out his hand, grasping blindly for any sort of weapon. The pistols were already discharged, but if he could at least reach his walking stick, perhaps he could crack it over Kilbourne’s head.

He looked up.

Kilbourne was squatting nearby like some hulking native, his hands hanging between his knees, the hooked knife dangling from one. The left side of his face was painted red with blood and he looked a veritable savage.

Except for his eyes. He was simply watching Trevillion struggle—warily, to be sure, but in no way threateningly.

Trevillion narrowed his own eyes, glancing around. “You’re expecting someone to come to your aid.”

Kilbourne blinked and at last an expression showed in his blank face—sardonic humor. He shook his head.

“What then?” Trevillion had managed to prop himself on his elbows, but with his leg in such pain he wouldn’t be standing anytime in the next half hour. “What are you waiting for?”

Was the man a sadist to draw out death so?

Kilbourne shrugged and pushed his knife into his belt, then reached to the side for something, making Trevillion tense.

The other man handed him his stick.

Trevillion glanced incredulously between his walking stick and the murderer before snatching it out of the other’s hand. “Why don’t you answer me? Can’t you talk?”

Again the sardonic half-smile and Kilbourne simply shook his head.

Trevillion stared. He was on his back, unarmed except for a walking stick, and pathetically helpless, and Kilbourne had made no move against him.

Worse, he’d helped him.

Trevillion cocked his head, the thought arising, simple, organic, and patently true. “You never killed those men, did you?”

APOLLO STARED AT the man on the ground, ignoring the stinging of his scalp. He’d recognized him at once. Captain James Trevillion. He knew the soldier’s name now—he’d learned it years ago in Bedlam—but on the morning he’d been arrested, the other man had just been a dragoon in a red coat. The herald to his coming downfall.

Now Trevillion wore unrelieved black, wide belts crisscrossing his chest, the holsters empty. The other man’s pistols lay in the dirt. A pity. They were rather fine, decorated with silver repoussé caps on the grips.

This man had wanted to arrest him. To take him back to the hell that was Bedlam. He ought to kill the dragoon—or at the very least render him unable to ever come after him again. He’d known men who would do the same and never think on the matter after.

But Apollo was, for better or for worse, not one of those men. He’d had more than enough violence crammed down his throat in Bedlam. On the whole he preferred more civilized methods of solving dilemmas.

He opened his satchel, took out his notebook, and wrote, I didn’t kill them.

Trevillion, from his position prone on the ground, craned his neck to read and huffed out a breath. “You certainly looked like you’d killed them that morning—you were covered in blood, clutching the knife, and not in your right mind.”