“Pick any girl, my lord,” Mrs. Able said, gesturing to the women upon the settees. “Almost all are at liberty tonight.”

It was then he realized that the brothel suffered from the inverse of Lord Millom’s assembly. Normally, men crowded Mrs. Able’s establishment. But aside from one morose gentleman with an anxious girl upon his knee, Bram was the only man in the drawing room.

“Slow this evening,” he murmured.

“Aye,” agreed the madam, and she made a sound of displeasure. “Patrons haven’t been coming round much these past weeks, and those that do want the kind of services we usually don’t provide. Not our usual sort of client. And when we do get regulars, the girls don’t want to go with ’em.” She tightened her painted mouth. “Uneasy, they are. Scared.”

So they were. Even the most veteran of Mrs. Able’s girls had a pinched, nervous mien, twisting their hands in their laps and casting fretful glances around the normally cheerful drawing room.

If he sought solace and peace, they wouldn’t be found here. Acid churned in Bram’s stomach. Piece by piece, the world rotted away, leaving decayed flesh and pallid bones.

Mrs. Able seemed to recollect herself, and to whom she spoke. “Of course, my lord,” she beamed, “any of my ladies will be more than happy to entertain you. Let me arrange it for you. Kitty, Cynthia!” She clapped her hands.

Two girls rose up from a couch, one fair, one with hair tinted a vivid shade of red. Though they were dressed in audaciously transparent robes, they approached slowly, timorously. The redhead took hold of the blonde’s hand. It wasn’t a flirtatious gesture designed to stoke a patron’s lust, but one that sought reassurance.

He’d believed that he had no heart left, that his time in the Colonies and since then had cut it from him. But, to his surprise, he now felt it withering in his chest, watching these two whores approach him like martyrs going to the lions. He could use his power, say something persuasive to both women so that they would eagerly take him to their bed. The idea tasted rancid.

He turned away, and Mrs. Able peered at him, a worried frown creasing lines in her face powder.

“Some other girls, my lord? You might enjoy Rosabel. A very sophisticated one, Rosabel. She can—”

“No. I don’t want any of the girls.” The words came of their own will, and it stunned him to realize he meant every one. He’d become a stranger to himself.

Mrs. Able’s mouth dropped open. “But—”

Bram did not hear her objections as he felt Livia’s presence come rushing into the chamber. Though she kept herself unseen, he sensed her distress. Candles flickered and the fire guttered. Shivering, several of the girls wrapped their arms around themselves and huddled close to one another.

“What is it?” Bram demanded.

The madam glanced around. “Are you speaking to me, my lord?”

He paid her no heed. Instead, he heard only Livia’s voice in his mind.

Go upstairs. Go upstairs right now.

“Why?”

Hurry.

He stalked from the chamber, leaving a room full of baffled women behind. One hand on the hilt of his sword, he took the stairs two at a time. Livia’s faint outline drifted at his side.

Reaching the next floor, he saw nearly all the doors lining the corridor standing open—a testament to the brothel’s lack of business. Two doors, however, were closed.

“Behind the door on the left.” Livia spoke aloud, not attempting to hide her presence.

He hesitated outside the door. The sound of a woman weeping forced him into action. Trying the door and finding it locked, he pounded his fist on the wood.

“Let me in,” he shouted through the door.

The woman inside only cried harder.

Cursing, Bram backed up then kicked the door’s latch. Several girls peered fearfully from open chambers, but none tried to stop him. With another kick, the door to the locked room flew open.

Bram strode inside, then stopped abruptly. A nude woman huddled in the corner, her head on her knees. Sobs shook her. Sprawled on the bed lay a man, partially dressed. A stiletto stuck up from the side of his chest. His eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Judging by the amount of blood soaked into the mattress, he’d been dead for several minutes.

Throat tight, Bram moved toward the bed and stared down at the dead man’s face.

“Thomas Auden,” he said quietly. “Poor bastard.” He’d been a genial man, always quick to laugh.

“He attacked me!” cried the woman in the corner. Her paint ran down her face in watery streaks. She tilted up her chin, revealing a necklace of bruises around her throat. “Just started throttling me, calling me filthy names. He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t—” She glanced at the knife protruding from Auden’s ribs and burst into tears again.

Bram backed from the room, his gaze riveted to the stiletto. Not so long ago, he’d seen a sword plunged into Edmund’s heart. They buried Edmund last week. Auden’s family would bury him, too. But the chain of death would continue. On and on, until the dead outnumbered the living and the cobbles were slick with blood.

Heedless of who might see her, Livia appeared before him, her face tight and grave.

“This is how it will be,” she said. “I’ve seen all of it before. I know what will follow. Whether you believe it or no, this world is truly going to hell.”

She was coming to know his bedchamber very well. The tall windows that looked out upon a narrow, well-tended but never used garden. The heavy furniture, carved from dark wood. The silver paper-covered walls, sparsely adorned. The bed, large and canopied also in silver. The man slumbering in that bed.

Livia stared down at Bram as he slept. A restless, active sleeper, he’d twisted the covers around him as he shifted his long body, sometimes muttering faintly in the half-coherent language of dreams. At that moment, he’d turned onto his back and flung one arm overhead. Both his hands were knotted into fists.

A sliver of light worked its way between the drawn canopy curtains, tracing the contours of his body, its planes and ridges. The light caught along the sharp lines of his face, no softer, even in sleep. Already stubble darkened his chin, despite shaving earlier in the day. She placed her palm against his jaw, wanting to feel its roughness, and silently cursed when she felt exactly what she always did—nothing.

He muttered again, his muscles tightening, and she moved away. Spending the long hours whilst he slept in a study of him offered no distraction, only emphasized what she couldn’t have. Enough slack existed in the bond between them that she might go elsewhere in the house. So she had, invisibly exploring its numerous floors, the narrow chambers where the servants slept, the countless unused but elegantly furnished rooms. Yet she had returned here, to the bedchamber, and its sleeping occupant.

She could loosen her hold on the mortal plane, drift back to the in-between place where time dissolved and the world retreated. But she’d spent too long there already. The realm of mists and shadow held no appeal. She wanted to be in the world, and of it. Which left her here, spending the hours alone and keeping watch over a restively slumbering man.

An empty decanter of wine lolled on the floor just beside the bed. He’d drained it in order to sleep. He didn’t say as much, but she knew that the murder in the brothel shook him, deeply. Bram had lingered as men of the law were summoned, the body carted off, the girl who had killed him also taken away. Livia had not seen the murder itself, coming upon the girl moments after it had happened. To the men of the law, the girl had tearfully explained her self-defense, but whether the law would show her mercy, that was uncertain. Even when Livia had been alive, whores hadn’t received much in the way of justice. This modern era didn’t seem so different.