Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) by Lisa Kleypas

They were standing over a body.

Merritt felt her limbs turn to lead. The man she’d been intimate with only last night … the tender, passionate lover with laughing blue eyes and wicked hands … might be lying dead a few yards away from her.

She experienced a sensation she’d felt only twice in her life. Once when she’d been kicked in the stomach by a pony that had spooked at an unexpected noise. The glancing blow had driven out her breath and filled her with nausea.

The second time was when she’d learned about Joshua’s ship sinking.

With an incoherent sound, she started forward.

Luke caught her around the waist. “Merritt, no. Stop.”

She writhed in his grasp, focused only on the scene in front of her.

“Merritt,” Luke persisted, grasping her chin and compelling her to look up at him. She blinked and subsided at the sight of her brother’s strained face. He stared down at her with intense dark eyes, the same color as her own. “Let me go look,” he said. “If it’s him, it … you may not want to see.” He paused. “Whatever happens, I’m here with you. Don’t forget that.”

Dazedly Merritt realized her younger brother, once a baby she’d helped to dress and bathe, and later a toddler she’d taught how to eat pudding with a spoon, had become a man she could rely on.

She set her jaw and nodded to let him know she wouldn’t fall apart.

Luke let go of her and went to push his way into the gathering. He crouched on his heels beside the form on the ground.

Seconds passed as if they were years. Five … ten … fifteen … while Merritt stood like a cemetery statue.

Remaining in a crouch, Luke twisted and gestured for her to come.





Chapter 12


GALVANIZED, MERRITT RUSHED FORWARD as a few of the men shuffled aside to make room for her. She saw the gleam of golden-amber hair, and knelt beside the long body on the ground to look over him frantically.

It was Keir, and he was alive. At least for now. He was battered and filthy, but to her amazement, he didn’t seem to have suffered serious burns. He must have been outside the warehouse when the fire had started, but close enough to have been caught in the explosion. She stripped off her gloves and gently touched his face. “Keir … Keir.”

The thick lashes fluttered and lifted slightly, but he didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t breathing at all well, his chest spasming in a struggle for air. After pulling a handkerchief from a skirt pocket, Merritt wiped at a trickle of fresh blood at the corner of his mouth. She longed to take him away from all this smoke and filth, and put him in a clean, soft bed, and make him well again.

As she moved to cradle his head in her lap, the change of position caused him to cough and gasp like a landed fish. Merritt held the handkerchief to his lips, and it came away spattered with blood. She glanced up at her brother, who had stood to talk to some of the men. “Luke,” she managed to say unsteadily, “I need your coat to keep him warm.”

Without hesitation, Luke unbuttoned the wool garment.

“Why can’t he breathe?” Merritt asked desperately. “Is it smoke inhalation?”

“Broken ribs, maybe. Someone saw him jump from the window of the warehouse flat just before the first explosion.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “He suffered a three-story fall?”

“Yes, but not all at once. He landed on a shed roof about twenty feet down, and then the blast knocked him the rest of the way to the ground. A couple of lightermen risked their lives and went to haul him away from the building.” Luke bent to drape his coat over Keir’s supine form. “I’m going to find a cart or wagon,” he continued, “and have these fellows help me move him. The question is, where to? The nearest hospital is Mercy Vale, but I wouldn’t take my worst enemy there. We could try for Shoreditch Hospital, although—”

“My house.”

After a brief silence, Luke replied, “You’re not thinking clearly.”

Merritt shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “My house,” she repeated. She was going to protect and take care of Keir, not leave him to the mercy of strangers.

“Whether he survives or dies there, it’s going to cause a bloody scandal.”

Merritt shook her head wildly. “He’s not going to die. And I don’t give a damn about scandal.”

“Maybe not now, but later—”

“Please, Luke,” she said urgently, “let’s not waste time arguing. Go find a wagon, quickly.”

“I’LL TAKE IT as a good sign that he’s still breathing,” Luke commented later. “I was sure he was going to kick the bucket before we even reached the house.”

Although Merritt didn’t like the way her brother had put that, she’d had the same thought on the torturous ride back to Carnation Lane. She’d sat with Keir on the back of the vegetable wagon, keeping his head and shoulders on her lap, while loose turnips had rolled around them. The jarring of the wheels on rough road had drawn a few groans from him as he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness.

After Luke and Jeffrey had carried Keir to a guest room, the footman left immediately to fetch Dr. Gibson.

Luke stood at the foot of the bed, watching with a deep frown as Merritt removed the unconscious man’s shoes. “I’ll stay if you want me to help with him,” he said. “But I’d like to go back to the wharf and find out if anyone else was injured. I also have to meet with the salvage corps and notify the insurance company.”