The heavy, custom chassis of the Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire glided through the iron-wrought gates of the Grant Estate with an almost supernatural silence. Thirty minutes prior, Lucas had looked down at the fragile, breathing weight anchored against his chest and given the driver a single, flat command to drop the speed to a mere crawl.
The usual twenty-five-minute sprint from the Savoy through the heart of London had been stretched into a meticulous, forty-five-minute journey. He didn't care about the lost time. He didn't care about the midnight market updates waiting on his tablet.
His sole priority was the fragile, alcohol-induced sanctuary of the girl sleeping in his lap, and he would have ordered the car to crawl at a snail's pace before he allowed a single pothole on the Thames Embankment to disturb her.
