23
Mercy
Frank finishedthe last of the stitches on my shoulder and dabbed the wound with an amber liquid. It stung enough to make me hiss through my teeth. He shook his head at me. “You’re making this into a habit.”
“Yes, she is.” Anthea swept into the kitchen where Frank had been cleaning me up, her heels rapping on the floor. “Is she reasonably in one piece?”
“For now,” Frank said dryly. He taped a bandage over the wound and patted me on the back. “No push-ups or pull-ups for at least a few days.”
“And here I was so looking forward to busting open my stitches in the gym,” I muttered sarcastically at his retreating back.
Anthea clucked her tongue and propped herself against the counter across from me. She looked me over. Frank had gotten my arm clean while he’d been treating the wound, but my clothes and the rest of my body were still smudged with soot and dappled with dried blood, and I stunk of smoke.
Anthea might have liked me now, but she still wrinkled her nose, which I guessed was warranted. “Come on,” she said. “Clearly the boys aren’t the only ones who need ‘Auntie Anthea’ looking after them.”
She led me back to what I realized on stepping inside was her bedroom. It was twice the size of the guest rooms I’d stayed in, with a sliding glass door that led out to a small sundeck I’d noticed before from outside. The frame of her sleigh bed gleamed with dark mahogany, and I caught a peek inside a walk-in closet that held more clothes than I’d seen in one place anywhere outside of a shopping mall. The whole space smelled of the same crisply delicate perfume Anthea always wore.
“This isn’t my permanent home, but Ezra makes it clear I’m always welcome here,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound totally happy about that fact. I hadn’t pried into her relationship with her brother, but it was obviously complicated.
She shooed me toward the en-suite bathroom. “Wash yourself up, and I’ll pick out something acceptable for you to wear. If you won’t take me up on my offer to buy new clothes for you, then you can at least make sure my cast-offs go to good use.”
I doubted that anything Anthea owned was in poor enough condition to be a cast-off, but when she had that many clothes, it seemed silly to argue. “Nothing too frilly or fancy,” I called over my shoulder, and heard her snort.
I didn’t want to get my bandage wet in the shower, so I scrubbed myself down as well as I could sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi bathtub—now that was a perk I could get behind—until I was sure I wasn’t going to stain the ivory towels when I dried myself off. Anthea bustled in with a pair of yoga pants and a casual blouse that were still dressier than my typical wear but comfortable enough I could thank her genuinely.
When I was dressed and feeling more like a human being and not a walking dumpster, she brought me out onto the deck. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, casting a rosy golden glow over the lawn. We sank into the two lounge chairs there.
As soon as my back hit the cushions, my muscles relaxed. I hadn’t slept much before we’d left for the mission. I wouldn’t mind a little doze right here, but that seemed insulting to my host.
“You’re putting yourself through a lot for that man,” she said.
“Who?” I said, startling. The first place my mind went was Wylder—all his snark and his ordering me around, the way I’d jumped in front of him a few hours ago despite how he’d been treating me.
Anthea raised an eyebrow at me. “Your ex-fiancé. All this fighting and risking your life to get your revenge.”
Oh. Of course that’s what she meant. I grimaced and sagged back into the padded chair. “Someone needs to see justice done for my family. It wouldn’t be the same if I let someone else handle it. I don’t trust anyone else to make sure it gets done right.”
“Fair enough. But I’m glad you did make it back in one piece today—and that you did from Jasper as well.”
That reminded me. “Do you need your hair pin back? I didn’t have to use it, but with the kind of jobs Ezra’s already given me, it seems like it might come in handy again.”
She waved the question off. “Please keep it. I have a few on hand, and I can always make more.”
That didn’t surprise me at all. But it did trigger a prickle of curiosity. “How did you get started on the whole poisons and subtle murders thing anyway? Was it just a way to pitch in with the family business?”
“Oh, no.” Anthea’s laugh held no humor. She tipped her face to the brightening sunlight. “My and Ezra’s father didn’t believe in women having any role in the business other than as a bargaining chip. He didn’t even bother to have me trained as your father clearly did for you, although I still managed to pick up plenty by watching. It’s hard to live in a house like this without absorbing some knowledge.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. At least half of the things I’d learned over the years had been in spite of Dad, not because of him.
“In more ways than one, I’m sure. As soon as I was eighteen, he married me off—to a man nearly three times my age, who was looking as much for a punching bag and slave as a wife.”
I winced, able to picture the type of man she was talking about far too easily. A fragment of memory came back to me from an earlier conversation. “You got rid of him. As he obviously deserved.”
The corner of Anthea’s mouth quirked upward. “I did, and he did. There was nowhere to go when my father would have tracked me down and punished me even worse if I’d tried to run. So I kept myself sane by researching every possible way I might be able to off the bastard without it being obvious I’d done it. The internet is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t help grinning, thinking of all the parkour moves I’d learned that way. “It sure is.”
“Well, dear old Dad took a bullet in a bad way during a deal gone sour, and my brother stepped up to lead. Ezra can be harsh and unyielding, but he’d never liked the man who’d been picked for me. He’d argued against the marriage. And at that time I’d gathered plenty of knowledge. My husband had a shocking accident that of course I had nothing to do with, and Ezra welcomed me back into the fold.”