Scalding heat poured like molten ore from his mouth into her. It spread in a flush over her skin, and traveled through her blood with significant haste and languid desire at the same time, pooling between her legs in a release of warmth.
Imogen clung to him as he, quite literally, kissed the wits right out of her.
His every muscle was drawn drum-tight as he rhythmically surged against her in harmony to the plunge and retraction of his tongue. He made a sound so foreign to her; Imogen could only identify it as a violent sort of appreciation.
Her throat produced a husky answer that seemed to both thrill and comfort him.
Abruptly, his behavior shifted from wrath to worship. The hand at the back of her head began to tremble as it smoothed over her hair. His tongue retracted as he dragged his mouth across hers in sweet, drugging pulls. Every breath they shared was a benediction, and he whispered something she didn’t quite catch against her.
His kisses held an element they hadn’t in that room at the Bare Kitten all those years ago. Something dangerous. Something more possessive and uninhibited.
He was no longer merely smooth muscle and lithe grace. He was teeth and bristle and unfathomable need. He nibbled at her lower lip with a sharpness that sent a shock of sensation straight to her sex.
She was drowning in him, or maybe immolating, she couldn’t rightly be sure. Waves of hot desire broke upon her. His. Hers. She didn’t seem to be able to differentiate.
His hand charted the curve of her back, her waist, and was frustrated by the bustle beneath her skirts which he gripped as though to tear the entire garment asunder.
Imogen had decided she’d let him when a scream pierced the close, humid air they’d created in the tucked-away room.
They both froze, their lips tearing from each other’s, tensing like foxes whose burrow had been found by the hounds.
Dear God. Someone had returned home before Welton and poor Cheever had managed to clear the carnage.
The shrill scream sounded again, very close. So close, that there was no chance it came from upstairs at the front of the house. Cole surged for the door, ordering her to stay where she was.
Ignoring him, Imogen scrambled at his heels on knees weakened by desire and then fortified by adrenaline.
She’d been right, she realized. The scream hadn’t come from the front of the house, but the servants’ entrance down the same hall. There, in front of the door, Cook, two footmen, and a chambermaid were huddled around something they’d found at the entry.
“What’s happened?” Trenwyth demanded.
The congregation gaped at him in slack-jawed silence for a full minute. The only sound that of the maid’s quiet sobs. Whether it was shock at whatever had caused the scream, or that of finding a half-naked duke in the servants’ hall, it was anyone’s guess.
“Dammit, someone speak up,” he ordered, sweeping closer.
Cook, a thin woman, despite the elegant richness of her fare, noticed Imogen and put up a hand. “No, my lady, don’t come any closer!” she warned. “You’ll not want to see this.”
Trenwyth shouldered past them, paying no heed to his wound. Imogen skirted him, noting the way his lips thinned and skin tightened.
“What?” she queried anxiously. “What is it?”
“Imogen, don’t—” he began, throwing an arm out to catch her.
But he was too late. She glimpsed what was perhaps the most gruesome thing she’d seen that day.
There, on the stoop, neck wrapped with the ghastly familiar neckerchief—the one she’d stained with blood when she’d stabbed Mr. Barton—was the body of a tiny, strangled kitten.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sir Carlton Morley stood at the head of neat rows of dead bodies in the morgue like the professor of a particularly macabre classroom. Hands clasped just a little too tightly behind him. Eyes narrowed in deep, almost painful consideration.
Today, London was a city of tears.
Twenty people had been killed in the iron strikes, one of his own constables among them. Dozens of injured overwhelmed area doctors and hospitals. And then … there was the inevitable chaos that accompanied a citywide incident of this magnitude. Looters and thieves took advantage of an absent police force in other parts of the city. Women had been assaulted. Offices and shops overrun.
Five of these bodies—some laid out on discarded wood pallets as they’d run out of tables—were victims of the Duke of Trenwyth’s considerable wrath.
And who could blame him?
Lady Anstruther’s property had been invaded, and Trenwyth had seen fit to take justice into his own hands. There’d been no one else. It was time to face the facts; Scotland Yard was miserably inundated and underfunded.
Something more had to be done. Something drastic and effective. Perhaps it was time to stop trusting in the infinitely slow-turning cogs of the justice system.
His nose twitched at the mingling odors of astringent, preservatives, gas lamps, and so much death. Above this room, the clamor of loved ones waiting to identify their dead, of constables and coppers doing their best to keep the peace, and sundry other souls in need of justice awaited his appearance.
It wasn’t that he hid down here, in this concrete purgatory where the dead only spent a short time, he’d merely come here to think. He’d come here to plan. Often, the departed made better company than the living. They were certainly quieter.
Morley checked his watch, and surveyed the dead with a demeanor anyone would have identified as dispassionate.
Little did they know.
As a soldier, he had created a comparable number of corpses with his own rifle. Each felled with a vital shot. The lungs, the brain, or the heart were all organs of affect that, once pierced, became utterly useless. Both literally and figuratively.
His heart had been broken too many times to count, and there were times he feared it ceased to beat. But his lungs and body were strong. His mind sharp. And those could be used in tandem to make a most effective weapon. A weapon that could be wielded in times like this, against men who incited violence. Against those who oppressed the people. And anyone who would prey upon the innocent.
Something had to be done …
What he needed was a strategy. What he needed was an army.
Morley didn’t have to look back as the men he’d been expecting filtered through the door one by one. He identified them each by their stride, by their particular scents, and by the indefinable energy he’d trained himself to recognize. As a child, he’d learned to read people, to see things that no one else saw, to observe a shift in nature, expression, or intent. As a man, he’d used that skill to be aware of those in his immediate vicinity, as he observed the rest of the world at a distance over the barrel of a long-range rifle.
Trenwyth entered first, as he was used to doing so by nature of his rank. His long stride remained unmatched by any man Morley had yet to meet, though he prowled with the light step of a spy. The duke was a particularly lethal combination of paradoxes. Patient and volatile. Principled and vicious. A nobleman, but by no means a gentleman.
To Morley, he was a wolf. The feral ancestor of man’s closest companion. A creature that often seemed most approachable, trustworthy even, but who would think nothing of ripping your throat out for the sheer pleasure of it.
As evidenced by the corpses they’d retrieved from the Anstruther mansion.
Dorian Blackwell followed Trenwyth, his expensive shoes producing an arrogant staccato on the spare floor. He was a man who hid from no one. His power evident. His name legendary. He could meld with the shadows, when necessary, but his style had always been rather elaborate. He was a man who understood both the physical and psychological benefits of warfare and terror, and had used them to his distinct advantage his entire life.
To Morley, he was a panther. Ebony-haired and black-eyed, ruling from his lofty perch, from which he only descended when the prey was ripe enough to strike his fancy.
Christopher Argent made
no noise as he followed his former employer into the domain of his current one. Like Trenwyth, he stepped with the economy of movement needed to avoid detection, though Morley always noted his presence as a rather sinister black void. To have his back turned to Argent felt a little like he imagined it would when death came to call. The kiss of a chill vibrating the hair on his body to attention the moment before the scythe fell.
To Morley, Argent was a viper. The red of his hair a warning that one strike would mean death. The cold, reptilian gaze, the deceptively relaxed coil of his muscle, and the shocking speed of his exotic combat training marked him a most efficient killer.
Liam Mackenzie, the last of their clandestine gathering, shut the door behind him, his heavy steps muffled by boots made of the softest stag hide. Warriors like him just didn’t exist in this age of elegance and industry. He possessed little to none of the shadowy grace and superlative wit of his companions. He spoke his mind, revealed his emotions, and ate the heart of any that dared oppose him, after he ripped it from their chests with his freakishly large bare hands. He was the descendant of the fierce Picts who became rebel Jacobites, his blood fortified with that of long-ago Viking invaders.
To Morley he was a bear of a man, the kind hunted to extinction on this island ages ago. A gentle beast to his family, but a ferocious, unstoppable alpha predator with a vengeful streak as long as Hadrian’s Wall.
These men were all brutally efficient predators. Most of them nocturnal in nature. And recently he’d joined their ranks. Or, rather, he was about to ask them to join his.
Morley wondered where he fit in this pantheon of predators. A bird of prey, perhaps. An eagle-eyed raptor who kept watch on his city from the rooftops, and used his unnaturally honed senses to swoop upon his prey with brisk efficiency. He was neither as large as Ravencroft, as skilled as Argent, as feared and connected as Blackwell, nor did he wield as much physical and social power as Trenwyth.
However, he had a little of all of these traits. And he possessed something he was convinced many of these men did not.
A conscience. Or, more aptly, a purpose. He’d once been one of the nameless, innumerable criminal siphons on the city, and now he’d been dubbed her protector.
Her guardian.
And he feared the job was too large for one man … as evidenced by the room packed to the rafters with the dead.
Dorian Blackwell spoke first, his cultured accent learned rather than bred, and suffused with sardonic darkness. “Let me be the first to say, Morley, that I vow none of this blood was spilled by me. I spent the day at Covent Garden with my wife and children, and can produce many witnesses.”
A pang pierced Morley at the mention of Farah Blackwell. The kind, lovely, capable woman who’d once worked as a clerk at Scotland Yard. In her quiet, gentle way, she’d stolen Morley’s heart five years prior.
And just as amiably, she’d broken it.
The years dulled the pain of her loss, but never quite erased it. Every time he saw his former nemesis with the fair-haired beauty on his arm, the wound opened anew. Their day at Covent Garden could have been his. Those children, his children, their little heads crowned with fair locks rather than dark ones.
Trenwyth stepped forward, pulling back one of the sheets providing the corpses what dignity they could. “I can’t say the same,” he said dryly. “I can claim a handful of these and each one deserved what they got and more.”
“You don’t have to fear any legal repercussions, Trenwyth, that’s not why I called you here.”
To his surprise, Trenwyth made a dry sound of mirth. “I am once removed from a royal duke, Chief Inspector, I could slaughter anyone I pleased in the middle of Westminster and leave their corpses in the street without fear of legal reprisal.”
Morley thought he heard someone mutter, “Lucky bastard,” but couldn’t identify whom. Probably Argent.
“Isna that precisely what ye did this evening?” Ravencroft helpfully pointed out.
Trenwyth sent the Highlander a dark smirk, rife with self-satisfaction. “So it is.”
Blackwell turned to Morley, assessing him with the eye not covered by a patch. “Not that it isn’t always a right pleasure to see you, Chief Inspector, but might I ask why you’ve convened this conclave of degenerates?”
“And in a morgue, no less,” Trenwyth added. “I assume you’re trying to make some kind of point?”
“What I’m trying to do is avoid public speculation,” Morley said dryly.
“Then you shouldn’t have assembled us all in one place,” Blackwell scoffed. “We are each of us identifiable. Either famous or infamous.”
“Quite,” Morley clipped, unimpressed. “It is not because of your notoriety that I gathered you. Each of you has a very specialized skill set. That, and a compelling reason to use them on behalf of someone who may be in need.”
“Speak plainly, Captain,” the Scottish laird ordered, using his former military rank rather than his current title. “I doona ken what yer getting at.”
“The lady Anstruther is in apparent danger.” Morley didn’t miss how Trenwyth’s glare turned from a cool copper to a blaze of hellfire at his words. “Because each of you shares with Lady Anstruther your more intimate connections—”
“Ye mean our women,” Ravencroft clarified. “Our wives.”
“Precisely,” Morley continued. “I’m requesting your assistance in apprehending the threat against her.”
“I’m in,” Argent said immediately, his cold blue eyes glinting arctic. “I don’t like the violence today at the house next to mine. Lady Anstruther is a favorite of my wife’s, and she’s been kind to my stepson. He paints with her sometimes in her garden. It would distress them both if harm were to come to her.”
Blackwell looked bored, as though he’d already figured out the future direction of the entire conversation. “I’m certain you’re aware that on Thursday next, Lady Anstruther is helping Farah to host another one of her charity balls, this one in support of their communal project, a home for wayward boys in Lambeth.”
Morley nodded. He was aware. “Indeed, it is that exact event where I hope to catch this reprobate in the act. To draw him out. With the four of you there and on alert, there is a much better chance of—”
Trenwyth stepped forward, his eyes glinting as dangerously as a blade. “I’ll be damned before you use Lady Anstruther as bait for a violent sadist.”
“She’s in danger from this threat no matter where she is.” Morley reasoned. “As evidenced by the morbid ‘gift’ he left on her property, the bastard is demonstrating that even her home isn’t completely safe. A structure that large is impossible to fortify without a small battalion, and we simply don’t have the resources.”
A storm gathered on Trenwyth’s features. “If she needs someone to protect her home, I’ve more than established that I’m capable—”
“She’s specifically requested that it not be you,” Morley cut in.
The duke perceptively flinched, though Morley ascertained that a shadow of guilt and comprehension crossed Trenwyth’s demeanor before he summoned an opaque façade.
“I have O’Mara in the home, whom I know both you and I trust with our lives. Rathbone patrols the grounds, and nothing gets past his notice.”
“Even still,” Trenwyth bit out. “I’m to be her escort to the ball.”
Morley realized that the duke’s feelings for the woman had progressed beyond mere neighborly concern for a kindhearted widow. He was acting like Morley would expect any of the other present men would in regard to their ladies.
Interesting, that.
“Have you discussed this arrangement with Lady Anstruther?” Morley asked hesitantly.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Trenwyth stated. “If she’s to attend, I’m taking her, or she can bloody well stay locked in the house.”
Knowing looks slid between the men behind Trenwyth’s back, accompanied by the smirks of those who’d been in just his position. Felt the same f
rustrated possession, and lost the battle to it.
Was it possible that Trenwyth was in love with Lady Anstruther? He’d been there earlier that night, had discovered the strangled kitten alongside her and her staff. The bodies of five men paid tribute to the ardency of his protective instincts toward her.
What if Trenwyth knew that she was becoming an invaluable piece to a puzzle involving a serial murderer? Would he still feel the same about her?
Morley debated long and hard whether to include the present company in his theory. Over the past three years, slim, fair-haired women in their twenties had been strangled and molested in an eerily similar fashion and in alarming numbers. The problem was, until Trenwyth had requested that Morley look into the disappearance of his lady friend, Ginny, no one had connected the murders. They occurred in very separate parts of the city and to women who had no prior connection to each other.
The latest victim, Lady Broadmore, for example, wouldn’t be caught dead in the company of Flora Latimer, the first victim, the prostitute found strangled at the Bare Kitten. Then there’d been Rose Tarlly, a charwoman who’d lived off Old Fenchurch Street. Ann Keaton, a nanny who worked in a more genteel neighborhood two blocks down from the capital building. And finally, Molly Crane, a nurse at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital.
Morley had been at a loss to figure just how the killer selected these women other than their strikingly similar appearances. Until a few hours ago, when he remembered that Lady Anstruther had introduced her sister as Miss Isobel Pritchard.
The name had struck a hollow chord in his memory he’d not placed until going over the case files. Lord Edward Millburn, Earl Anstruther, had incited quite a scandal some two years ago when he married a Miss Imogen Pritchard, his nurse at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital.
And so the first connection was made. Imogen, Lady Anstruther, had worked with one victim at the hospital, and another was found in her own garden.
Could be a coincidence, Morley had reasoned. Not a likely one, but a possibility. That was, until just a few hours ago, when a kitten had been left in gruesome effigy.
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