The Devil is French by Delilah Marvelle

Author:Delilah Marvelle
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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SPENCE’S HOTEL – AN HOUR LATER

It annoyed him that he had to now call on the Field Marshal and explain why he had roughed up the viceroy’s favorite Lieutenant. News of it was going to be all over the compound and Jemdanee didn’t deserve to have her name dragged into any more than it had been.

With a blood-stained towel on his shoulder, Ridley grudgingly squatted before the trunk and seated himself on the marble floor, wincing against the stab of pain from the blow Bradley had delivered to his injured leg. “Prick.”

Dragging in a mind-steadying breath, he gritted his teeth and quickly pushed in the key to the lock, turning it. The bolt unhinged and he removed the lock, setting it aside with a clatter.

Unstrapping the lid, he pushed it open, letting the lid thud against the wall behind it.

His brows flickered.

Gathering a handful of parchment, his gaze settled on hundreds of…

Charcoal sketchings. One of Jemdanee sleeping, with her hands curled peacefully beneath her cheek and the linen spilling over her chemise clad shoulder. Another of her ink stained hand unfurled against a prescription ledger, where she dozed at a paper strewn pedestal desk. Another of the ropes and plants hanging in her room. Chunmun digging into a bowl of papaya. Slippers overturned and kicked beneath the bed.

Swallowing against the tightness of his throat, Ridley slowly gathered more and more and more and more, angling his head to see each and every one. He sifted through countless images, glimpsing stolen moments he himself had lost and had been unable to witness, yet ones that had been captured for him to see.

His eyes burned as he frantically gathered more and spread them out, breathing past every moment he had missed. Her head buried beneath a pillow with her knees curled, her braid frayed. Another was with her mouth unattractively open as if she were snoring.

None of them were provocative or inappropriate in nature.

It didn’t make it any less disturbing.

He hadn’t been there to protect her from a man coming into her room.

It could have ended badly.

Ridley eased out a shaky breath. “Fuck.”

And that is what I fear most. That you have already crossed over beyond my reach, pursuing a justice you will never reach…

The bloodied towel from his shoulder slipped and rustled to the floor.

Staring at the trunk, he slowly gathered all of the sketches and numbly returned them one by one into the trunk, realizing he had failed her.

He, who always looked for the devil on the head of a pin to be able to nail it, had missed the most important pin.

Why save the world when he couldn’t save the one who mattered most to him?

If he was distracted by cases, while bringing more and more loons into their lives, her in peril was only the beginning. He wasn’t about to fool himself or the impediment of his limp that he’d be able to protect her when it mattered most.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d ever been physically bested by another man but it happened.

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