A kitten … found strangled behind her home. And one of the famous kittens of St. James’s Street found strangled in the alley behind the Bare Kitten.
He’d be a fool to ignore that as coincidence. He was many things, but a fool was not one of them.
All he had to do was figure out how the countess Anstruther, or the nurse Pritchard, was linked to one or all of the other victims … His only option was to dangle her in the open like a morsel ripe for the picking, and wait for the fiend to strike. In the meantime, he’d do his best to connect the dots.
Start at the beginning, he thought. It was time to pay another visit to the Bare Kitten.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Imogen had fully expected the daggers aimed at her from Trenwyth’s glare as they trundled over the cobblestone streets of Westminster in the duke’s fine carriage. In the days after their encounter with O’Toole—and then each other belowstairs—Cole had done his utmost to maneuver some time alone with her.
Thus far, she’d deftly been able to avoid him. Then, for a few days, he’d been conspicuously absent. Silent. Though every time she looked to the east, there he was. A specter in a window, his gaze burning down at her.
Chief Inspector Morley had called two days ago to inform her that Trenwyth had accepted the assignment to escort her to the charity ball.
It wasn’t her lack of desire to be alone with Cole that inspired the rude and desperate actions she’d taken. It was the presence of desire, that traitorous, pervasive, and primitive emotion, that had prompted her to invite Lord and Lady Ravencroft to accompany them the short distance from her home to that of Farah and Dorian Blackwell’s residence.
She’d sensed Cole’s displeasure immediately when she’d descended the stairs arm in arm with Mena. She’d sensed his desire as well. Lady Ravencroft’s shimmering blue gown set off the brilliance of Imogen’s crimson silks. Never in her life had Imogen felt more beautiful.
When he lifted his chin to watch her, his ever-tense jaw had slackened and his wolfish gaze roamed her body, leaving no place untouched. Imogen could feel herself turning as red as the Anstruther rubies dripping over her clavicles, and resting in a tear-drop point between her breasts. His gaze lingered there, his lips pressing together as though to stem the rush of involuntary hunger.
She’d not seen that look on his face in three long years. The heavy-lidded veneration of a lover. The abject, unabashed appreciation of a man who’d tested a sip of honeyed wine, and was ready to devour every last drop.
To slow the gallop of her runaway heart, Imogen tried to transpose the bare-chested barbarian in her basement onto the suave and haughty duke that stood before her, resplendent in white-tie finery.
When that was a miserable failure, she’d informed him that she’d invited his acquaintances, Lord and Lady Ravencroft, to accompany them as she was certain his ducal carriage could accommodate them all.
He’d not been fast enough to hide his scowl from her before he’d informed the Mackenzie laird and his wife that he was, of course, delighted. Judging by the uncomfortable tension in the carriage, he was about as delighted to see them as a vampire was to see the sunrise.
He’d planned on being alone with her.
She planned to never again allow that, as each time they spent alone together seemed to result in a kiss.
And those kisses were becoming more and more dangerous.
Imogen managed to avoid his dark regard, doing her best to keep up a stilted conversation with Mena regarding marriage prospects for the season for Isobel and Mena’s stepdaughter, Rhianna.
Ravencroft and Trenwyth sat uncomfortably close, the combined width of their shoulders forced to touch, even though pressing against the walls of the spacious coach. Though Imogen avoided looking directly at the duke, she sometimes caught the marquess Ravencroft sliding curious and amused glances at Trenwyth from beneath heavy ebony brows. He wasn’t a man given to much mirth, Imogen gathered, but the ghost of a smirk quirked the corner of his full lips. As though he’d guessed the entire situation.
When the coach arrived at the Northwalk mansion in Mayfair, Ravencroft leaped out and brushed the footman aside, offering his own wife assistance from the carriage.
This obliged Trenwyth to do the same. In a lithe movement, he ducked from the coach and turned, offering her both of his hands for support.
Imogen stared at them. Since he wore pristine white gloves, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference, but for the unnatural stillness of his left. Or perhaps it only seemed thus as his right fingers twitched with impatience.
Reaching for him, Imogen found herself seized and abruptly swept to the ground, her waist supported by one strong, warm hand, and a cold steel one. Just as swiftly as she’d been pulled into his arms, she was released, before anyone really had a chance to notice the breach of conduct.
Feeling dazed and a little breathless, Imogen blinked up at Trenwyth, who gestured down the grand path to the entry in an “after you” motion. She made a sour face at him and said nothing as she made her way on unsteady legs toward the mansion. This was how it would be between them, she lamented. Their every interaction fraught with intensity and underscored with unfulfilled need.
Imogen envied him. It was unfair that he remembered so little of what transpired between them on the night he’d paid her for pleasure, and had given it in return.
She remembered everything, and sometimes that memory tormented her to the brink of a sweet and aching madness. He’d awakened within her a fiendish, feverish sort of need that night, which she’d done her best to ignore ever since. Never to indulge. Nor to reminisce.
But every time he touched her, carried her, confounded and kissed her, the fever had been rekindled in ever-increasing increments. Sometimes, when she was alone at night, she’d toss and writhe in heated agony, kicking off her damp covers in a fit of frustration. Yearning for another, warmer, more substantial weight upon her. Remembering how their sweat had mingled and their muscles strained. Wondering if making love to Cole now would resemble anything like what it had been so long ago.
Wondering if she wanted it to.
They’d arrived at the Backwell manse a bit early, as Imogen had requested, so that she and Farah Blackwell could consult upon last-minute preparations for the event. Usually, the men left them alone to do so, but as Mena, Farah, Millie, and Imogen wandered the house, inspecting the preparations and so on, they noted a very badly concealed entourage.
“I do believe our procession has acquired a vanguard,” Mena remarked from behind her glass of champagne, her green eyes dancing with merriment.
Using a poorly ruffled valance as an excuse to glance over at their hovering husbands, Farah giggled as she picked and fluffed at the bit of cloth. “I do believe you’re right, dear. You don’t think they actually imagine they’re being subtle, do you?”
As the men noted they were being observed, they suddenly became absorbed in an expensive John Constable painting to which Dorian directed their respective attentions.
“Your husband certainly has excellent taste in art,” Imogen ventured, placing her empty champagne flute on a servant’s tray and happily accepting another.
“My husband wouldn’t know Renaissance from Rococo,” Farah scoffed.
“Nor mine,” Millie blithely agreed, her midnight eyes narrowing.
“I acquired that painting and he’s never before noticed it.” Farah narrowed her eyes. “Now I know they’re up to something. The question is, what?”
“I fear their odd behavior is my fault.” Imogen sighed miserably.
“Oh?” Millie arched a quizzical brow as she sipped her champagne. Diamonds winked from rings she’d slid over the lavender gloves perfectly complementing her paisley purple gown. “Do tell. I love a bit of intrigue.”
Imogen took a few bracing swallows of her own champagne before explaining in a halting voice, “Chief Inspector Morley thinks that there is perhaps a serial murderer after me.”
“Is that so?�
�� Farah exclaimed. “Is that why he actually accepted one of my social invitations for once? Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it?”
Imogen gaped at the countess, trying to process her calm reaction to the news.
“It’s a good calculation on Sir Morley’s part that, due to what happened to poor Lady Broadmore, the killer might be inclined to strike again at a similar event,” Mena postulated reasonably.
“Yes,” Millie agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “And of course he’d have notified Christopher and present male company for … obvious reasons.”
“I feel like a half-wit,” Imogen admitted. “But the reasons aren’t so obvious to me.”
The women shared a look. Farah nodded with a gentle smile, and they each surrounded Imogen in a sort of conspiratory huddle as they pretended to resume their inspection.
Farah slipped an arm through Imogen’s, the silver of the countess’s glove complementing the ruby silk of her own. “Surely you’ve heard that my Dorian is … somewhat notorious.”
“The Blackheart of Ben More, you mean?” Imogen blurted, and then decided that two glasses of champagne should be enough so early in the evening.
“Indeed,” Farah said with a wry smile. “Millie, Mena, and I share a distinct and singular friendship as the men we love are brothers, either by blood bond or bloodshed.”
“Blood bond, in my case,” Mena supplied.
“And bloodshed, in mine,” Millie finished, with a proud and rather fierce glance of adoration in the direction of the auburn-haired Viking.
Imogen had yet to recover her wits, but she realized that her suspicions regarding the familial resemblance between the laird of the Mackenzie clan and Dorian Blackwell were confirmed.
“Each of our husbands, in their own way, have their demons,” Farah continued solemnly.
“Those demons have sometimes spurred our men to do … questionable things in the past,” Mena confessed. “But those skills they have acquired along the way are most … effective when wielded in protection of those they love.”
Imogen thought that Mena’s use of the word questionable had to be the understatement of the century. She remembered the lethal skill and power Argent had wielded against Trenwyth as they sparred. She’d read about the Demon Highlander in the papers to dear Edward, and remembered that the man had infiltrated an Ottoman prison on his own. Also, she was quite certain Dorian Blackwell hadn’t acquired his moniker, his influence, his fortune, and sinister eye patch in his wife’s lovely parlor.
Millie put her hand on Imogen’s other arm. “Each of us has our own story of peril and danger,” she confided with twinkling eyes. “Either from, because of, or in spite of our men, but they’ve always protected us. And Morley knows Trenwyth will protect you, too.”
“Trenwyth is fast becoming a part of their blood brotherhood,” Farah observed. “Which, of course, means you’re one of us.”
“A sister in all but name,” Mena agreed.
“You’re not like the other missish, useless noblewomen the ton spits out every season,” Millie said heartily. “You help us achieve the good we want to. You have a quick mind, a tough hide, and a kind heart. All of which are needed if you are to take on men like them.”
Imogen had to clear the gratitude out of her throat before she could speak. “You are so very kind,” she said. “But neither Trenwyth nor I are interested in ‘taking on’ one another. He is only here as my escort because Morley recruited him.”
Millie let out an undignified snort. “I’d wager my entire fortune that is not at all the reason Trenwyth accompanied you tonight.”
“Pardon my saying so.” Mena smiled gently. “But it is very clear that Trenwyth would take you on whatever surface you’d permit him to.”
“Mena!” Farah laughed. “The uncouth Highlands are certainly rubbing off on you.”
The marchioness’s secret, self-satisfied smile had to be the loveliest thing Imogen had seen in some time.
“There is too much that stands in the way of a relationship between Trenwyth and me,” Imogen breathed as she glanced over at the man who stood taller than his companions, the lamplight gilding his neat hair a familiar shade. Tinting her memory in sadness and longing. “There are too many shadows in the past, too much pain, and too many secrets.”
“Be careful of secrets,” Mena warned. “They can ruin everything.”
Imogen nodded, and found herself with another glass of champagne in her hand as the women decided to turn their attentions to the arriving guests. She was well aware that secrets could ruin everything between her and Cole.
They already had.
* * *
The color of Imogen’s gown forced Cole to admit that crimson would always remind him of fucking. It also occurred to him that for a man doing his best to avoid said activity, her choice of dresses was a damned irritant. She looked like a sin wrapped in confectionary paper. The entire torturous night, a verse from the Bible, of all things, repeated in his head, leaving trails of madness.
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit, indeed, is willing …
“But the flesh is weak,” he concluded, his eyes glued to the graceful lordling twirling Imogen about the dance floor in a perfect waltz.
“What was that, Your Grace?” Colonel Percival Rollins, Lord Winderton, tugged at the corner of a mustache curled in such a way that the jowly man seemed to be perpetually smiling.
“Nothing,” Cole replied. “Please continue.”
“I was saying the the Rook took a horsewhip to a Prussian lord not a week ago,” the man blustered. “If he has no respect for nobility then, mark me, the British aristocracy is next, by Jove.”
Cole made a noncommittal sound of dismay as he allowed the old man’s dialogue to fade into his periphery. He had chosen this spot by the fireplace as a perfect vantage because he could survey the entire ballroom, each point of entry, and glance into the gaming room. The drawback was having to mingle with the circle of men gossiping like a gaggle of matrons about the latest antics of the Rook.
That, and watching Imogen work through her full dance card on legs made increasingly unsteady by the bottomless glass of champagne that seemed threaded to her fingers. Cole wasn’t the only one to notice. The men who held her in their arms for the waltz took liberties with her that no one would dare with a countess in control of her wits. Their bodies pressed too close, their hands slid too low on her waist, shaping the delicate swell of her hip. They charmed and cajoled her, praised and appreciated her, and she seemed to treat each one with more interest than the last. She clung to them, using them to hold her aloft as she spun and danced and laughed.
All the while avoiding him like he had some form of leprosy.
It was enough to make his hand twitch with provocation. It hadn’t been so long since he’d broken bones with nothing but his brute strength. How he longed to do it now. Here. Every finger that trailed along her waist, every arm that pulled her in close. It would be but nothing to snap them, a few deft movements, really. Practiced and relished. The sounds wet and sharp.
Oh yes, this was a pleasant fantasy. A violent one, granted. But it filled him with an odd sort of delight.
Two more dances. Two dances and she’d be his. Even though he was her escort, custom dictated that he dance with her but once. Only courting couples waltzed twice at the same social gathering, and a third turn about the floor was tantamount to declaring marital intentions.
And how could he possibly have any intentions toward her, when he’d spent the previous week searching for another woman?
He’d found that Devina had been taken by her lover to Paris. He’d dispatched someone after her, but a reply could take weeks. Blackwell had reported that Ezio del Toro had died of natural causes a few months prior, and further investigation had revealed no one of Ginny’s age or description in residence at his villa, or in his employ. In fact, his mistress had been a robust Russian woman who’d robbed him blind by the end.
> He’d like to say that it was his conversation with Argent that had spurred another manic sweep of the isles and beyond for Ginny, only to be frustrated at every turn.
However, if he was honest … he had to admit that it had been the kiss he’d shared with Lady Anstruther in that tiny dark room belowstairs.
There had been power in that kiss. Something that had alternately awakened his beast, and soothed it. To Cole, it had felt as though they’d somehow transposed parts of themselves to the other through the searing contact of their lips. She’d reacted to his passion with a fire he’d not anticipated, with a wildness he’d not known she’d possessed. For his part, his animal desperation had been tempered by a curious tenderness. A sense of warmth and familiarity he’d not thought to find. He lusted after Lady Anstruther from the first moment he’d seen her, he could admit that now. However, the description of his regard for her had suddenly become quite obscure. It went beyond the physical now, past the temporal. He … respected her. Enjoyed her, even when they were in disagreement.
Which was most of the time.
She stimulated him, body and mind. When she didn’t provoke him utterly, she comforted him. His arrogance and bitter guile was met with patience and also strength, if not sympathy.
Imogen spent as much time standing up to him as she did encouraging him. Surely that was … admirable.
Admiration. There was an applicable word. There was so much to admire about her. Indeed, some of the things he’d initially found infuriating now seemed to stoke his approbation. Her courage and pluck. Her ceaseless optimism. Her apparent disregard for policy and convention. All traits the Talmage family would have scorned and scoffed at had they still abided with him in Trenwyth Hall.
His father would have pitied her for her ignorant idealism and low birth. His mother would have accused her of smiling too openly and speaking her mind too often. His sister would disparage her flagrant style and her nerve to marry above her station.
And he’d done all of those things, hadn’t he? Every one. Because he’d been raised to believe thusly, and because he’d needed reasons not to like her.
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