Free One Night With a Spy by Celeste Bradley

fairs of the year.
    There was nothing to do now but wait to hear from them as well as from the Royal Three.
    She slipped from her bed and pulled her wrapper about her. Pickles was used to her doing for herself in the mornings and doubtless assumed that Julia would be having a bit of a lie-in now that there was no need to rise early.
    The heavy draperies still covered the window, keeping out the light and the chill. Julia tugged one aside to peek out at the day.
    It was gray and misty outside, which was no surprise. The hills were nearly revealed now that the trees stood naked in their carpet of fallen leaves. There was little doubt the winter would be—
    Something moved between the stables and the house. Not a deer, not a servant about his business. The motion had been furtive and quick. Someone did not want to be seen.
    Julia blew out an irritated breath. Her suitors were truly pressing her patience! She tugged the belt of her wrapper loose and moved quickly to her wardrobe. Someone evidently hadn't taken Elliot's claims seriously!
    It was a good thing that Sebastian was safely in bed.
     
    Marcus made his way back down the wall of the house without incident, until he was only ten feet from the ground.
    Then a great bestial roar shattered the dawn's stillness.
    Marcus would never admit it later, not even to himself, but he flinched. Very well, it was more than a flinch. He went rigid with shock, lost his grip altogether, scrabbled uselessly at the wall for a split second, and then fell to the ground like a rock.
    Thud.
    He landed flat on his back, no wind left in his lungs. His teeth snapped hard on his tongue and his brain rattled in his skull.
    First thought—
Ow
.
    Second thought—
What in the hell was that
?
    The Beast of Barrowby? Surely not. Yet, whatever it was, it was undoubtedly large and predatory and Marcus had no intention of being prey. He dragged air back into his lungs and scrambled to his feet with his back pressed to the wall of the house.
    How could anyone have slept through that horrible noise? Unless they were used to it—or, more likely, knew the source and discounted it? Which meant that everyone in this house knew something he didn't.
    Marcus just hated that.
    The roar did not repeat. He almost wished it would. Fleeing—er, making a strategic retreat—from a beast would be easier if one knew where said beast was located.
    Searching through the shadowy grounds of a strange estate for some mighty beast—as rabidly as his curiosity twitched within him—proved too stupid a concept for even his rash nature.
    No, better to leave while he still had the chance. He carefully, silently left the way he'd come, a mere shadow among shadows. The secret of the beast could wait. A stick cracked behind him.
     
    Julia was still fuming over the invasion of her valued privacy. It seemed some of her erstwhile suitors would take more convincing than others.
    Now fully dressed, she pulled one slipper over her stocking foot and reached for the other. If it was that overeager bore Eames, she was going to stuff his pompous—
    Suddenly a great roar shattered the morning quiet—a roar that most definitely wasn't coming from the specially heated stable addition she'd had built as far from the horses as possible.
    Nor was that the "I'm bored and need entertainment" roar, or the "someone forgot to feed me" roar.
    That was the hunting roar.
    She jumped to her feet and ran from her bedchamber, hopping on one foot to pull on her other slipper as she went. She was joined in the hallway by Beppo and Pickles, moving at a run. There was no need to exchange words—the entire staff knew what to do.
    Sebastian was loose—and there was a stranger on the grounds.
     
    The beast stood on Marcus's chest, its great weight pressing the life from his lungs, its hot, stinking breath bringing up primordial instincts of fear, its mighty jaws opening wide to—
    There wasn't a single bloody tooth in its mouth. Not even one lone, ivory