The Last Wicked Rogue
Prologue
London, December 1821
The deafening crack of ice breaking was like a gunshot. It halted Charles Humphrey, the seventh Earl of Lonsdale, dead in his tracks. He’d been racing across the frozen Thames, twilight bleeding over the wintry landscape ahead of him, creating eerie shadows that led to the figure just beyond his reach.
“Stop!” Charles shouted. Pain and rage filled him to the point that nothing else existed within him. He was a beast driven with one purpose: to kill the man he pursued.
His own brother.
But the sound of breaking ice was all around him now, echoing across the Thames. The man ahead of him stopped, skidding briefly along the ice. Charles did the same, listening for another warning sound, but he could see no obvious cracks in the surface
