Turning his throbbing head to look at his desk, Leo saw that the geminus was gone. He tried to focus on the clock on the mantel, but his head spun.

“My wife,” he rasped.

The head footman shot an anxious glance over his shoulder, toward the other servants. A girl Leo recognized as Anne’s maid shook her head.

“Gone, sir.”

“How long?” Leo forced himself to standing, his whole body aflame, his head aching.

Munslow could only offer a shrug.

Leo pushed past him and the gathered servants as he staggered from the study. He barely heard Munslow’s calls to him, the nervous offers of bringing in a physician. As he lurched up the stairs, he shouted, “Have my horse saddled and ready to ride.”

“Sir?”

“Do it.” Leo gained the top of the stairs. His head still pounded, but the floor became steadier, and he ran into the bedchamber.

He would not allow himself to look at the bed, to think about the life shared between him and Anne that now lay in ruins. He had an aim, a purpose; he would not falter.

Her clothespress. He strode to it and threw open the doors. Gowns of every color and fabric lay in neat arrangement. They carried the sweet fragrance of her body, the echo of her shape. Plunging his hand between the gowns, his fingers brushed against smooth cotton, the pleats of ribbons.

The room around him vanished. He found himself in a darkened pavilion, though the night could not fully disguise the brightly painted arches and columns. And there, on the ground, curled into a ball—Anne.

The vision dissolved. Once more, he stood in his own bedchamber, and Anne was gone.

If ever he had been glad of his Devil-begotten power, nothing compared to his appreciation for it now. For without it, he would never know where to find his wife, and this was his lone aim. Without her ...

No. He refused to think of it. Instead, he ran back downstairs to the study. There, he loaded his brace of pistols, then slipped them into shoulder-belt holsters and slung the whole of it across his chest. His primed hunting musket hung across his back. Into the top of his boot, he sheathed a knife. Damn that he could not carry a sword. Any means of attack or defense, he would use—he would never use them against Anne, but London after dark was not safe, now worse than ever. The riot at the theater remained lodged in his brain like a thorn.

He started to stride from the room, but froze in his tracks when he saw the geminus. Not the geminus, he realized, but his own reflection in a glass. The man who stared back at him bore no resemblance to the wealthy businessman he had fashioned for himself. His hair undone, his expression wild and fierce, heavily armed, he looked every inch the brute the aristocrats claimed him to be. Good. Now was not the time for aping the manners of the gentry. Now was for survival, for reclaiming what he had foolishly lost.

He left the study. His saddled bay gelding waited for him outside his house. Leo snatched the reins from the groom and, without a word, kicked the horse into a gallop.

Tearing through the streets of Bloomsbury, bent low over the horse’s neck, he saw nothing but the roads ahead. Each beat of his mount’s hooves was the pound of his heart. Fear and anger and need clawed at him. Nothing in his mind made sense, only the single directive: Find her, find her.

It took too long, but eventually the vast shadowed expanse of Kew Gardens rose up before him. He’d come here before on a rare daylight expedition with the other Hellraisers, yet they had not tarried, for artificial ruins and ornamental follies held no interest for men such as they. Far better were the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Now Leo sent up a fervent prayer of thanks that he had come to Kew, for he knew precisely where to find his fleeing wife.

He galloped up to the Alhambra and flung himself down from the saddle. With long strides, he sped into the building, terror thick in his throat, shortening his breath. He found Anne still curled on the ground, eyes closed. Another spike of fear stabbed him. Was she hurt? Worse?

But he saw her shudder, and her own breathing came in a low, frantic rhythm. Trembling movement flickered behind her eyelids. She slept. Only then did he gain the ability to draw air into himself again. Relief poured through him, sending his head spinning once more. He thought he might black out again, but he forced himself to remain standing.

His boots echoed sharply beneath the vaulted ceiling as he took a step toward Anne.

She came instantly awake. And when she saw him, saw his face and the weapons he carried, she sat up and scrambled backward on her hands.

He thought he understood pain of every variety. Physical, he had felt many times in his life, in brawls and fights. Whit’s rapier in his shoulder. The body-jarring agony of being slammed into a bookcase. And burying his father had reduced him to spending weeks at the bottom of a decanter, as he fought to think of life without the massive presence of Adam Bailey.

Yet none of those moments of pain could ever match what he felt as Anne now looked at him with fear and despair. The misery of betrayal shone in her eyes like poison in a fresh mountain lake. And the poison burned him from the inside out.

“Anne—” He took a step toward her.

“Don’t come near me.” She flung up her hands, and a gust of cold air buffeted him.

They both stared at her hands as she lowered them. She, with wide-eyed shock, and him warily.

“That is ... new,” he said, cautious.

She continued to gaze at her upturned hands. “The Roman woman. She gave me this somehow.”

“Tonight.”

“Weeks ago. I never understood, never truly knew. Until this night.” Her tortured gaze rose to meet his. “So many impossibilities I learned tonight. Things I did not want to believe.”

A beam of moonlight silvered her face, the tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, and his heart wrenched. Seamless, this pain, stretching from her to him in an unbroken band.

“I’ve come to learn this world is far more treacherous than I ever understood.” His mouth twisted. “And this world has ever been my enemy.”

“Is that why you did it? Why you made that bargain? Because you see everyone as an enemy?” Her eyes were gleaming and fierce.

Leo clenched his jaw. “He offered me what I wanted most. Power.”

“He being the Devil.” A rasping laugh broke from her. “I cannot believe I am saying these things. And that they are true.”

“What would you do?” Leo threw back. “When presented with everything you ever desired?” He stepped closer, hot anger and fear pulsing through him. “None of us are pure and virtuous. If someone appears before you and offers you your heart’s deepest want, you take it. Just as the Hellraisers did. Just as I did.”

She pushed herself up to standing, and it was all he could do to keep himself from helping her to her feet. “But the cost, Leo. A businessman knows you cannot get something for nothing. You taught me that.”

Heat spread along his back. He felt a burn also climb up his calf. “We didn’t consider the cost.”

“Your soul.”

“And more.” He continued to close the distance between them. As he neared, he saw the dirty hem of her gown, and the tips of her tattered slippers. She had run far from him, fragile as a moth wing. Yet she still stood before him, her chin tilted up, shoulders back. The delicate girl he wed had transformed into this storm-tossed but defiant woman. If he could claim even a dram of her strength as his doing, he might congratulate himself. He was in no humor for congratulations. Not when seeing the betrayal in her eyes left him bleeding and raw.

“You.” His gaze pinned her in place. “It cost me you.”

She swallowed hard. “Everything between us is lies. From the beginning, nothing but deception.”

“Both of us were strangers to each other. But yes,” he acknowledged, “I played you false. Not with another woman, but with my secrets.”