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“Ah, there you are!” Rochefort breezed into the inn’s lounge, wearing a very fine dinner jacket, his golden hair slicked back and his eyes shining as brilliantly as they had before I’d seen him sprawled dead on his dining room floor. “I should have known to look in the bar. Did you forget our meeting, sir?” He dropped himself into the opposite chair at my table and clicked his fingers for the server to deliver more wine. “Are you all right? You’re as pale as a sheet.”
I blinked, sniffed, and cleared my throat, then sat back, needing more air and space between us. “Fine. Yes. Absolutely fine.”
“Good.”
The server arrived with wine.
Rochefort scooped up his glass. “How was it?”
“How was what?”
“The toymaker’s son. How did you fare? I assume he did not appreciate the eviction notice?”
This was really happening. I’d done this once before, and here I was again. In Massalia, they called it déjà vu—the oddest sense of reliving a moment one had lived before. This moment wasn’t quite the same, but it was close enough to send shivers down my spine.
Rochefort smirked into his glass of wine, but there was a sharpness to his gaze I hadn’t noticed before. This man had tried to force himself on me. I knew him to be a predator. I’d sensed as much from our first meeting. I’d even found him alluring, as some of the most criminally minded were. His confidence was born out of uncaring self-importance, yet even now, knowing the kind of man he was, part of me responded to that. Fascinating, if unsettling.
“Mr. Anzio?”
“I’m sorry, you were saying?”
He huffed a laugh. “It appears as though you are either quite exhausted or terribly bored. I have a solution for the latter, if you’d like to join me?”
I wanted no such thing, but I also needed a way back into the gentlemen’s club without them slamming the door in my face. Now that I knew exactly what Rochefort was capable of, I could manage his expectations. At least at the club, there would be witnesses. Once inside, I’d take a more informed look around, as I’d been planning to do with Devere prior to Russo’s horrible accusations. “I think I’d like that.”
Rochefort downed his glass of wine, leaned forward, and slithered his gaze up my chest, over my mouth, and to my eyes. “Come along, then.” He swept from the table in a flare of tailcoat.
“To the club?” I hurried to catch up. “I just want to be clear—”
“Oh, you know of it? I didn’t think such things stretched beyond Minerva.”
“I er, well, I assumed there would be some kind of gentlemanly entertainment. Perhaps I should dress more appropriately—”
“No need. Your clothes will suffice. To my carriage, then.” He strode toward the door, so brash and handsome that nobody could ignore him.
Panic fluttered through my heart. “Let’s walk, no? It’s such a fine evening.”
Rochefort opened the main door, stepped outside, and stopped. “Ah, Devere.”
I caught Devere’s surprised expression, then watched it sour on me. We fell into an awkward silence while the early evening sunset turned Minerva’s bitterly cold streets a touch red.
“Rochefort,” Devere acknowledged, as though he’d gotten something unpleasant stuck in his teeth. “Valentine.” He strode on, long coat sweeping his ankles, and vanished around a corner.
“He’s like a storm on a summer’s day,” Rochefort remarked, staring after him. He’d made advances on Devere, advances Devere had rebuked—so the gossip told. There was definitely a potent hunger in the lord’s gaze. “Unwanted and quite out of place,” he added brightly.
I wanted Devere. I’d known it since losing him. Although, in my retelling of events, I’d avoided mentioning such thoughts and feelings. He’d forgotten our recent past and knew only the hatred from fifteen years ago. Had I told him we’d been on the cusp of rekindling a heat I’d once thrown in his face, he would not have reacted well.
“The sooner you can find evidence of his guilt, the better,” Rochefort continued. “This sordid business needs to be buried. Figuratively and literally.”
“Jacapo has not been buried?”
“Due to the circumstances in which the body was found, as you know, I halted procedures.”
“Right. Of course.” I needed to remember where I was in the order of things and not rush ahead.
“You really are out of sorts this evening. I hope this isn’t an indication of your typical reasoning skills, sir. I’d heard you were at the top of your emerging field in criminality of the mind. No?”
“Yes—yes, no, I’m out of sorts, as you say. Apologies. I’m still settling into things.”
