Authors: Kerrigan Byrne
“Hmmm?” Argent brushed the hair from her neck and arranged it down her back, exposing her throat and shoulder. She didn’t tremble in fear this time. She barely gave it a thought.
“A father, especially a nobleman, would want him to be a hunter, or a soldier, or something equally manly. He wouldn’t understand his artist’s heart; maybe even hate him for it.”
“Not every man would see things that way.” Something in Argent’s voice made it impossible for her to look up.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter. I never did find out who his father was. I don’t even know if he’s the one who’s after us.”
“That’s the reason you should have told me the truth from the beginning.” Argent said this as less of a rebuke this time, and more of a statement. “Because I think I know who Jakub’s father is, and I’m almost certain he’s the one who wants you dead.”
Millie’s lungs emptied of breath. As dramatic reveals went, his was unparalleled. She was afraid to ask. Unwilling to know. And yet, her ignorance had to be the worst form of torture.
As she opened her mouth to demand he tell her, Argent asked. “Do you still have that letter? The one your friend Agnes gave you from Jakub’s father?”
“I do.” With a sick sense of dread building in her belly, she reached down the left side of her corset, where’d she’d sewn pockets in each of her underthings to carry the two documents that were most important to her for years and years. The papers proving she was an English citizen, and the letter Agnes had given her all those years ago. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d needed to produce either document, but having them next to her skin always made her feel more secure, somehow.
After five years, the fine paper had faded and dark creases marred the masculine script, but as Millie pressed the two sides of the broken wax seal together revealing a phoenix at rest, something sparked in her memory.
Unfolding it to study as she had done countless times before, she turned her shoulder to Argent so he could read it along with her.
Dearest Agnes,
Too long have I allowed us to be kept apart by convention and society. What seemed so dire in the past years together now has become a trifle in the months I’ve spent without you. I’ve come to understand that life is fleeting, and we only have the one to live. How can I finish the rest of my days without you and my son next to me? That’s right, my love, more than anything I want to claim Jakub as my son, the legitimate and legal heir to my titles, lands, and legacy. I’ve already secured the proper papers from the crown.
I’m divorcing my wife and leaving her all of our assets in town. I am so miserable with her, so utterly unsuited. For once, I am glad that she’s never given me a child, as it makes leaving her excusable. I’ll take you to the country estate in Yorkshire where we will marry. And you will live there with me as my lady, and my wife, everyone be damned.
She’s become increasingly suspicious and, dare I say, unhinged, so we must do this quietly until we’re out of the city. Please meet me at the little tea room by St. Augustine’s at half past two and I’ll give you a train ticket and some money for you to make our plans. It’s safest that you tell no one until what’s done is done.
This is the beginning of the rest of our lives together, my darling.
All my love,
D
“So she never told you who this man was,” Argent stated.
Millie looked over her shoulder. “She promised she’d tell me when she returned that night, but…” She swallowed some fresh grief. “Are you saying that you know this man?”
“I’m saying
you
met this man and his family tonight. I believe this letter was written by Lord David Albert Fenwick, Earl Thurston.”
“Oh my God.” The letter shook in Millie’s hand. “
D
for David. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Argent nodded. “Sir Dashforth, the man who hired Dorshaw and … myself … to murder you and take Jakub, is the Fenwick family’s solicitor. And, though he also worked for the St. Vincents, his wife’s family, this bird here on the seal, the resting phoenix, is eminently displayed on the Fenwick family crest.”
“How did you know that?” Millie asked, wide-eyed.
“It is my business to know.”
“Your business…” she echoed. As if she were his business now, because payment had been rendered. Glancing at the bed, Millie took her time folding the letter and placing it back into her corset, unable to look back at him. “What—what do we do next? I can’t take this to the police, can I? I have no proof that it was he who hired Dorshaw, or even that he hired Dashforth to contract out to you. And … if they find out Jakub isn’t mine, they could take him from me.”
“That’s what you hired me to fix,” he clipped. “Speak nothing of this to the police.”
“You’re going to … kill him, Lord Thurston?”
“He murdered your friend, ordered your death, and wants who-knows-what with his son. He’ll be tied up in Essex tomorrow. I’ll kill him the day after.”
Scheduling a murder, as one would a hair appointment or high tea. “What about Chief Inspector Morley?” Millie suggested. “He said there were more women dead by the same killer. More children missing … You don’t think they were all connected with Lord Thurston, do you?”
“I think they were casualties of Dorshaw. I think he was the man they hired all those years ago to murder Agnes.”
Millie’s eyes widened. “Why do you think that?”
“Because Dorshaw likes to cut on people and leave organs behind. Especially women.”
She shuddered. “Then perhaps we
should
tell Chief Inspector Morley; he’s investigating what happened to all those other women. He’d want to know who’d ordered those deaths, at least to let the families know that Dorshaw has been captured.”
“You would have me give Thurston to the police? Their record is not exactly stellar when it comes to prosecuting a peer of the realm for the death of prostitutes. If you want to keep Jakub, keep him safe, what other recourse is there than the one I offer you?”
“Agnes was not a prostitute, she was an
actress
,” Millie huffed.
“That’s not what they’ll say at court, if it even makes it that far. You know as well as anyone that society makes only a minute distinction between the two vocations.”
Millie retreated from him, making her way to the window on unsteady legs. She was beginning to feel the aftermath of what they’d done. A dull ache in her loins and a stinging in her heart. “Must you be so cold all the time?” He was right, of course, and she resented him for it.
“I must be what I am,” he answered cryptically.
What this ugly world made of him,
Millie thought, staring out into the night. The bright, late-winter moon sparkled off the frost that settled on the cobblestones and clung to the garden. This was a perfect time and place for him, this part of the city, this time of night. Still and so bitter cold, it drove everyone away. Inside.
For fear of catching their death.
Millie had never considered murder before, let alone ordered one. That made two things in one night she’d never done. Two sins she’d never committed, carried out in this very room.
She, too, must be what she was. And before everything, she was a mother, and a mother protected her child, even at the peril of her very soul.
“Then do what you must,” she murmured, a pang of insecurity slicing through her. “Is the price I paid … enough?”
“It was sufficient.”
She whirled to face him, her ego smarting. “Sufficient?” Damn his face carved of stone and his heart of ice.
Sufficient!
Honestly. If she’d received a review like that from a paper, she’d have torn it up and thrown it in the fire.
“It’s what we agreed upon, was it not?” he said carefully, studying her face with an arrested expression. As if he didn’t understand what she was thinking.
“Well … yes—” Technically, she supposed so. Then why did she feel so unsatisfied? What was she looking for from him? She knew he’d liked it.
Sufficiently
…
She should know better than to seek validation from a man like him, but something in her thrived on it. Had she done it right? Was that all there was to do? Just lie there until he finished … Was he disappointed at all? Did he
feel
anything? Because she was little more than one pulsating, raw emotion wrapped in a pretty package. She’d thought she’d seen a crack in the glacier, a bit of frenzy followed by a few moments of intimacy. Not passion, per se. Nor tenderness, but a whisper of … something. Some warmth behind the bleak void of his eyes.
Had she imagined it? Was she creating it for the sole reason that her own feelings for this strange and lethal man were becoming more opaque?
“Sufficient.” She sighed, then nodded. It was enough. Either way he was still going to do what he’d promised.
“I’d slaughter every soul in this city if it meant you’d let me fuck you again.” That blue fire had returned to his eyes, the flames licking at her from across the room. “If you would just—” His mouth clamped shut, and he shook his head, whether at her or to himself, she couldn’t be certain. “It was sufficient, it was what we agreed upon. But it
wasn’t
enough, damn you.” Turning on the heel of his boot, he stalked to the door, slamming it behind him and leaving her alone in a shaft of cold moonlight.
Christopher rose at dawn, as was his habit, and dressed in the loose-fitting silk trousers he wore for martial art training. Stepping out of his room, he paused to study the closed door at the end of the hall. Did the woman behind it sleep well, or was she plagued with fitful dreams? Did she sincerely trust him to keep her alive? How did she fare, he wondered, after last night’s encounter?
Turning, he strode toward the stairs, feeling the need to punish himself physically with some brutal drills. A drop of awareness trickled down his spine, and he paused to glance back at Millie’s room, expecting to see her standing there.
She wasn’t, but his feet remained rooted to the floor as he, again, contemplated the door and the woman who slept on the other side.
Millie
.
He’d taken her virginity. Coerced it from her. Mounted her like a randy stallion and pushed inside of her like a brute.
Christopher pressed his lips together, as the contrasting memory of her unparalleled warmth combined with the cold discovery of her blood on him. He’d washed the evidence from his body that night when he’d bathed after leaving her room. His fingers had lingered over the wet patches her tears had left on his shirt and, in a moment of unguarded sentimentality, he’d lifted the garment to his cheek in the chance he might catch some of her warmth left from where she’d clung to him.
He’d sent a bath to her, as well, hoping to assuage the tight and uncomfortably oily sensation he’d been unable to escape from. No matter how vigorously he scrubbed, his skin felt tainted by his own impulsive, undignified need.
Was this what shame felt like?
If so, he didn’t at all like it, or its bedfellows, whom he’d hesitantly identified as doubt, regret, and concern. He’d lain up half the night picturing Millie in her canopied bed, vigorously hating him, or worse, hurting because of him.
Where there was blood, there was a wound. One he’d created, one that nature had made necessary, to be sure, but even so …
It troubled him in a way it never had that he’d caused her pain. Which bemused him further because pain was his business, was an intrinsic part of his life. He’d been born to it. Pain had honed him to a razor’s edge, a weapon as sharp and lethal as any blade. So why would it bother him so much that he’d caused her even the slightest pinch?
Because she’d met his sharp edges and rough ways with softness and amiability. Because beneath all that smooth, creamy skin and sweetness, was a woman with untold courage and strength. Because she’d fallen apart in his arms, and he’d somehow helped to stitch her back together.
Because the thought of her hurting set his muscles to twitching and an uncomfortable fury simmering through his veins. There in his cavernous hallway, surrounded by emptiness, something cold and sharp found him. Something he thought he’d left in the iron darkness of Newgate. It washed over him with the breathtaking shock of the Thames in winter, bringing with it a myriad of rapid-fire questions ricocheting through the quietude.
Fear?
What about when this was all over and he was no longer at her side? Who would protect Millie and her son from the dangers that lurked in the shadows? From men like him? What if someone else hurt her?
The thought had barely formed before he found himself at her door, pushing it open and plunging into the dark room. With the heavy drapes drawn closed, he could only make out little silvery motes of dust sparkling in the sliver of daylight that filtered through the slit in the curtains. Making his way to the window, he bashed the meat of his thigh on an unfamiliar piece of furniture and swallowed a grunt before he reached it and threw open the drapes.
Turning, he caught his breath as the silver rays of dawn illuminated her dark hair with angelic beams of light. Millie slept curled on her side, her knees drawn up and her elegant fingers cupped ever so slightly in repose. Her skin, nearly as pale as the linens upon which she lay, created the most stunning contrast to the inky curls draped behind her on the pillow.
Christopher had seen her from every perspective imaginable. On stage, glittering like the empire’s crown jewel. In the shadows, lids heavy with desire. At the bathhouse, naked, wet, and slippery. Bent over this very bed, exposed, lush, and warm.
But not like this. Not quiet and unguarded, the electric life in her eyes dormant and the smile she shared with the world hidden behind slack, slightly parted lips.
The ridiculous notion to kiss her soft mouth awake caused Christopher to swallow profusely.
Twice.
He didn’t dare move, couldn’t trust himself not to do something idiotic, like curl himself around her body and cradle her against him. To use his own mangled flesh as a shield for her perfection.