The Last Wicked Rogue: The League of Rogues – Book 9

companions.
“We all agreed he needs intervention,” Godric reminded him. The duke’s eyes were full of a pain that Cedric felt deep in his bones. When one man in the League hurt, they all hurt. It wasn’t easy to explain, but it was undeniably true.
Resigned to his duty, Cedric pointed out Charles. They turned to look where he was pointing. All the faces in the crowd were turned skyward to watch the fireworks, but something was amiss. A man about twenty feet from Charles was watching Charles. Then he seemed to notice the League watching him.
“My God, it’s him,” Cedric said, half to himself.
“Who?” asked Godric.
“Gordon.” Cedric would never forget the face of the man who’d almost murdered him and his sister Horatia. He remembered the gardener’s cottage burning all around them, and how he’d been left blind for months afterward.
The man locked eyes with Cedric and gave him a nod, then turned his attention back on Charles and reached into his coat.
“Who is Gordon?” Godric asked.
“My former footman,” said Lucien. “One of Hugo’s assassins!”
Ashton spurred them into action. “Go! Stop him!”
The League broke apart, each man shoving at the crowds around them, trying to find the quickest path to Charles and the man stalking him.
Charles turned away and slipped into the hedgerows, vanishing from view, unaware of his peril. The assassin followed him like a black wraith into the shadows. Cedric was not a man to dwell on fanciful notions. He was a sportsman who needed to believe in things he could feel and touch, but the sight of that man haunting Charles’s steps in the cloaked gloom made Cedric wonder if devils were in fact real.
Cedric shouldered a rather plump woman out of his way, who harrumphed in indignation, swinging at him with her fan, but he was already out of her way. Lucien, however