Etiquette With The Devil

by Rebecca Paula

Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Paula. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher, Rebecca Paula.

Cover design by Maggie Hall.

ISBN: 9780990739548

EPUB Edition

ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For information about the author, visit
www.rebeccapaula.com
.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Prologue

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Part II

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Note to my Readers

Excerpt from A Proper Scandal

Acknowledgements

Calcutta, India

March 1882

T
he devil is in the details, or so it’s said. For Bly Ravensdale, as he crept into a darkened palace on a cool March night, he’d argue the devil was in fact everywhere, that he had no mind for the particulars.

Bly chased shadows, keeping his body low to the ground as he signaled to his partner, Graham, to follow as the pair traveled deeper into the palace, searching for their kidnapped counterpart, Barnes. It was damn foolish of their superiors to believe that a young duke better suited for the ballrooms of London could ever hold his own in the political frenzy of the Indian courts. Assassin or no, the duke was still far too naïve. He played well in the light, was better with a gun, but was too kind to navigate the dark underbelly of India.

There was a certain intoxicating glamor to the balls thrown by the Indian princes. It had a lot to do with the gold accenting their palaces, the jewels, the beautiful women hidden behind gossamer veils in their harems and ballrooms. There was the champagne as well, the heady scent of love and jasmine. It was easy to slip into the cracks of fantasy and lose sight of one’s mission.

Bly had no such luxury. He was the man called in for such jobs, the one sent deep into the jungle, the one sent to retrieve priceless items desired by the crown in the harshest of environments. He was invincible, or so the stories went. He was the devil himself, or so everyone called him. It was difficult for a man like Bly Ravensdale to care much when he was constantly running for his life.

“Ravensdale,” Graham whispered behind him. He rested against the half-height stone wall of the courtyard, peering around a column to study the darkened hallway in front of them.

The smell of cheap cigars and cheaper women clung to the older man. Bly peeked over his shoulder, holding his hand up for silence. Graham might be his partner in the field and possess a brilliant mind for intrigue, but he never excelled at stealth, especially after a day of drinking. In the room’s plum glow reflected from the glass tiles of the ceiling, his rosy nose appeared rather scarlet.

Footsteps echoed across the marble hallway, heavy footsteps signaling pursuit. Through the moonlight filtering in from the intricately carved windows, the figure of a man could be made out twenty paces away, as well as the man’s rifle. They must be getting close.

This whole rescue might have gone more smoothly if Bly had went by himself, as he had wanted. If only Graham hadn’t caught him as he was leaving the small room he rented by the Chandpal ghat. If only Graham hadn’t spent the day celebrating with his fellow officers about nothing in particular, only that they had air in their lungs and had all survived another week without contracting malaria. It took little for Graham to celebrate these days.

“We should return with a few others,” his mentor said, ignoring Bly’s earlier request.

The damn fact was, Bly knew he was right. He didn’t know what Barnes had done to clue in someone within the prince’s royal court, but Bly wasn’t about to abandon Barnes to their questioning.

In India, a man kept his friends and enemies close. Oftentimes, they were one and the same. That much hadn’t changed in the Raj after the uprising. The India of his boyhood was certainly more violent, but that sharp cruelness never vanished over the years. It had only faded into the background. The country was a tiger, stalking is prey in the jungle, lying in wait.

Waiting, waiting.

Bly turned his torso, resting on the balls of his feet in case he needed to make a quick move. He had one guard accounted for, but there were others. Many. If there had been time, he could have scouted properly. Instead, he had heard of Barnes’s capture, grabbed his pistols, and stormed for the palace.

“What are you going to achieve by marching in there, except exposing you and Barnes?” Graham fiddled with a cigar tucked into the pocket of his shirt, stained with layers of dirt and rings of sweat. Like the sweat glistening across his wide forehead now. “Why are you going to rush in and ruin our hard work? We have spent months trying to untangle the corruption here.”

Bly didn’t like the challenge buried in that question. He heard more ‘go ahead if you dare,’ than ‘use your judgment.’ After nearly fifteen years in service, Bly had excellent judgement when it revolved around work. He wouldn’t be alive otherwise. His personal life was a different matter.

“You should—” Bly bolted to his feet, blocking Graham as a figure emerged from the shadows. The man spoke harshly in Hindi, and Bly returned in kind. And then good intentions broke into chaos.

Bly charged the guard, knocking him unconscious with the man’s rifle, but only after the man had cried out to the other guards. Another six swarmed in, half-cloaked in moonlight, half-hidden in darkness, but deadly all the same. They tried to tackle Bly, tried wrestle him to the ground, but he was too strong. He wrenched out of their hold, ducking and weaving through gunfire.

“That didn’t take long,” Graham said, pulling a revolver form his waistband.

Bly grabbed hold Graham’s meaty arm and rushed them both further down the hall, dodging fire as bullets ricocheted off the plaster pillars and stone walls.

“This was your grand idea?” Graham asked, out of breath. He hid behind a pillar to reload. “You don’t even know where they’re keeping him. He’s probably charmed his way out by now, knowing Barnes.”

Not that Graham could see him well enough, but Bly shrugged. Being shot at, being chased—it all meant nothing now that it had become routine. His work as a spy, his adventures privateering, wore him down until danger was only another aspect of living, just as the air he dragged into his lungs was merely habit.

Except there was a burning certainty pressing against his chest. They must be close to Barnes. He squinted his eyes, gazed down the sight of his pistol, and fired off another warning shot three inches above the approaching guard’s head. He pushed Graham in front of him, spun, and faced the onslaught of guards, deftly running backward. “Open the door, Graham.”

Graham stumbled uncharacteristically, awkward on his feet, terrible with his aim.

“The door. Behind us, Graham.” Bly repeated. “Now. Open it!”

Bly backed into Graham, who stood with his gun pointed at the ceiling, frozen. Sweat beaded at his lips. Another shot barreled through the humid air, brandishing a sharp hiss of a breeze as a bullet narrowly missed Bly’s neck.

He shot back, this time not caring about his aim.

He pushed Graham aside from the large wooden doors, then shoved his shoulders into the wooden barricades until they gave to a smaller room. Another shot echoed, landing close by. He tugged Graham inside, slamming the doors, then found a chair. He raised it above his head and pummeled it to the ground, splintering it into pieces.

“That was a perfectly good chair, Ravensdale,” Barnes spoke from the center of the room. Not a hair had been harmed on the handsome mug’s head. His dinner coat hadn’t even a wrinkle.

“I’m busy,” Bly countered, stuffing the broken legs through the handles to barricade them inside. It would buy them a few minutes at least. “Graham, are you hurt?” He turned and faced Barnes. “What did you do to get into trouble now?”

“I’ll live,” Graham mumbled, clutching his chest. Blood dripped from his hand, his pistol dangling from his fingers.

“Nothing out of the ordinary except I got caught this time,” Barnes returned. “They took my favorite gun, the bastards.” He scooted over the floor, grating the chair legs over the terracotta tile in an irritating screech. “Untying my hands would be much appreciated.”

Bly ignored his friend, motioning for Graham to help, while he searched for a way to escape. Judging by the sound of the guards on the opposite side of the door, they had a minute at most to make a run for it before another there was another gun fight. A gun fight where Bly would be left without ammunition.

“Unless you’ve grown wings, there isn’t a way out,” Barnes said, as if reading his mind. “That window there overlooks the palace’s walled garden. The drop alone will break our legs.”

“Graham, untie him, will you?” Bly snapped. The door bulged from the weight of the guards on the other side, their shouts filling Bly’s ears. His heart raced, his mind traced out the exits, exploring the shadowed corners of the dark room. “Graham?”

One piece of splintered wood flew from the rattling door.

“We should have waited,” Graham answered Bly. He removed his hand, revealing a wound high near his shoulder. Blood seeped in a dark circle, spreading outward. “You never were patient though, were you Ravensdale?”

Waiting is what caused everything to go wrong in India. It’s what caused everything to go wrong in Bly’s life, as well.

The door gave, and in two large strides, Bly raced forward to Barnes and ripped the ropes from his hands. “You better learn to fly.”

Another gunshot echoed across the room, tearing Bly’s attention away in time to see Graham struck by his hip. His mentor fell back to the floor and pointed at Bly, his voice drowned out by the commotion. Barnes dragged him forward, launching the pair through the shuttered window, out into the darkness, lost to a free fall and the heady scent of jasmine from the garden below.

Hell is empty. All the devils are here.

–William Shakespeare

Yorkshire, England

Five months later

L
ife was defined by two sets of people—those who followed the rules, and those who did not. Clara Dawson, having been born outside the realm of polite society, never had the luxury of belonging to the former, but she didn’t wish to belong to the latter, either.

It was an impossible place to be stuck, teetering on the edge of less and more, without providence to move one way or another.

She forced on a grudging smile at the woman who openly gawked at her from the opposite end of the train platform, then shifted on the uncomfortable bench. Her backside was growing numb from several hours of waiting. Clara’s new employer could not have forgotten her, even if the cry of the day’s last train signaled just that.

Her heart raced with the painful truth of abandonment. It was not a new feeling, but it was galling nonetheless. As a bastard, Clara had been prosecuted her entire life for the passionate mistake her parents made. It was a mark against her that would never fade, much like the healing wound across her midsection now. She was truly alone. Completely unwanted. And also on the run.