Hermione tried to breathe as Melaphor flicked his red-hued gaze toward her. She would have liked to point out to both this horrible man and the earl that she’d said nothing about dying when she’d made her wish. Nothing whatsoever. But she suspected neither of them would be sympathetic to her plight, caught as they were in some sort of Montague and Capulet blood feud. Well, before there was any killing to be done, she was going to excuse herself. Wavering in her ruined slippers, her knees knocking together worse than they had the first night she’d set foot in Almack’s, she went to flee—well, slink off unnoticed. But at the bottom of the steps, she stumbled over the earl’s discarded cross-bow. Rockhurst turned at the noise, and Hermione stilled. “What the devil sort of trick is this, Melaphor?” His enemy paused. “What? You don’t see her?” A sly smile spread slowly over his lips. “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. Come, sweetling,” he called to her. “Speak to the Paratus.
