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

most, but he did it, because he knew he was better at it than the others.
    “Here,” he said, offering a bloodied glass of whiskey when the butler returned.
    Keller forced it to his lips, coughing some of it down.
    “Is his consort here?” Garrett murmured to the butler.
    “She passed away three years ago,” the man replied.
    “Children?”
    “Miss Amelia was the only child. He does have a brother, though, in Kensington.”
    “Send word.” Garrett turned back to the grieving lord. “My lord, you mentioned that Miss Amelia was missing. Might I ask the circumstances?”
    The session droned on as Keller sputtered his way through several glasses of whiskey and blood. Miss Amelia, it seemed, had returned from a ball early the previous morning, made her way to her room, and was missing by the time the afternoon sun started to set. Keller had immediately set his people to searching for her, fearing the worst. Assassinations or kidnappings were not uncommon among the Echelon. They were practically expected, in order to further one’s family name or House. And Lord Keller couldn’t fathom his shy daughter sneaking out of her own volition.
    “Her relationship with the Earl of Brumley was cordial?” Garrett asked.
    Keller looked up. “Brumley? Of course. Brumley would never have lifted a hand against her.”
    They’d have to confirm that—and Brumley’s whereabouts. Perry began shifting restlessly. Garrett glanced at her and she tipped her chin up.
    He nodded . Go.
    Perry excused herself to search the debutante’s room, while Garrett began making a list of those who might be enemies of Lord Keller and his House.
    ***
    “Well?” Garrett demanded, strolling along the footpath in Mayfair with his hands in the pockets of his leather great cloak and a bowler hat perched cockily on his head.
    He could have been any one of the blue blood nobility on the streets here. Others barely gave him a glance as they hurried about their business. Perry was a different tale. Eyes caught hers and skittered away, then back with a slight widening as they recognized her gender and the body armor she wore.
    How ironic that in the world of the Echelon, a man like Garrett, born to streets far to the east of here, fit in, while she, who had been born onto silk sheets, did not. He was a damned chameleon, mingling with every level of society as if he belonged, an ability she’d never owned. Indeed, she’d never felt as though she belonged anywhere—not the Echelon of her youth or even strictly the guild. She was always slightly aware that she was a woman in a man’s traditional role. Easier sometimes to fade into the background and pretend that she wasn’t there.
    “The window’s on the second story,” she murmured, glancing up at the gleaming white brickwork of the Keller mansion. A black iron fence guarded the house, with thick, lush roses twining around each bar of the fence. The alley that ran along the side of the house was cobbled and wide enough to fit a dray. “There’s no way a sheltered debutante like Miss Keller climbed out.”
    Garrett strode down the alley and looked up. “I could climb that.”
    “I never doubted your skill at entering any sort of bedroom.”
    He flashed her a grin. Her heart kicked in her chest like a mule.
    “Where there is a will…” Garrett reached up and gripped the downpipe, lifting himself onto his toes. Above him, iron squealed as a screw threatened to pull loose. “However, not using this.”
    “Most blue bloods could climb the wall. There’s no sign of entrance in the room, however. No marks on the sill or scratches on the lock. No dirt on the floor. No sign she slept there, either,” Perry replied, following Garrett as he turned back toward the street and the steam carriage. “The bed was freshly made and the sheets smelled laundered. I asked the maid, who admitted they were changed yesterday.”
    “So she vanished sometime after she came in?”
    “Or perhaps she said her good