Read Online Forged by Desire by Bec McMaster - Free Book Online

his bedroom. No sign of Hague’s body, but she’d assumed the duke covered it up. Couldn’t have anyone seeing what was going on in the cellars, after all. Which was probably why he’d set the house on fire.
    “Don’t ever go down those stairs. That floor is off-limits,” the duke had told her when she’d first come to his house.
    “But why?” Perry had asked, always curious and insatiably so at seventeen.
    “Perhaps I have the bodies of my former consorts hidden down there,” the duke had replied with a slight smile, as he referenced the old tale.
    At least there was one thing she could say about him. He’d never actually lied to her.
    Slowly Perry pressed her fingers against her chest. There was no scar there, thanks to the craving virus, but she could almost feel where the blade had cut in, slicing through her flesh while she screamed and strained against her manacles. Cold trickled down her spine like a trail of marching spiders.
    “Just be still, mijn lief … This won’t hurt for very long…”
    Unlike the duke, Hague had lied.

Four
    Informing someone that their daughter’s body had been found was never a pleasant task.
    The moment the butler opened the door, Garrett knew it was going to be one of those meetings. He and Perry were ushered into Lord Keller’s front parlor, while the butler went to fetch his master. Perry traced her fingers over a fragile glass vase. Garrett had the uncomfortable feeling that she was no longer with him; there was a sense of distance about her.
    “Are you all right?” She’d been quiet on the ride over, distracted again. Those small silences might have fallen one too many times in the last month, but they’d been silences full of things left unsaid and swift little glances that each of them stole when they thought the other wasn’t looking. Silences that seemed thick and lush and full of what had happened at the opera.
    This was different.
    “I can’t help thinking that this is where they’ll display her,” Perry whispered, trailing her fingers over a lace doily on the back of an embroidered armchair. “It’s already like a crypt.”
    A stuffed parrot stared glassily back at him from its perch on some ornamental table display. Garrett silently agreed. The parlor was still, waiting. Full of polished furniture that would never see use until someone passed away and needed to be displayed. Even the ormolu clock on the mantel had frozen. No doubt someone had simply forgotten to wind it, but the silence held a deafening feel.
    The staccato of shoes echoed on the marble tiles in the entrance, and then Lord Keller appeared, the silver wings of his hair powdered and swept back from his forehead. His skin bore traces of rice powder and his lips had been slightly rouged, which gave him the appearance of something that had returned from the dead. One of the more old-fashioned members of the Echelon then, still wearing his Georgian pumps and silk stockings. Some of the older blue bloods did that, lingering in their pasts.
    Keller’s gaze raked over them. “Nighthawks in my home.” His lips thinned and pressed together, as if to contain something. “You’ve found her then.”
    So Miss Amelia had been missing? Why hadn’t anyone sent word to him?
    “My lord, I’m so terribly sorry,” Garrett said. “We discovered two bodies this morning at the draining factory, and Amelia has been identified by a contemporary. We would like you to confirm this identification.”
    Keller sank into the nearest armchair as if someone had cut his strings. He bobbed his head, pressing his fist to his mouth, unable even to speak.
    As usual, Perry looked uncomfortable at the sight of such a display. The butler hovered in the door, and Garrett gestured for him to find something alcoholic. He knelt and took Lord Keller’s hand.
    The man squeezed his fingers almost painfully, swallowing again and again. The silent display of grief lashed at Garrett. This was the part of the job he hated the