To Millie his regard was like a tangible caress reaching through the layers of her clothing and consciousness to touch places she’d previously been unaware of.
The year prior, she’d taken Jakub to the fair and a traveling snake charmer had the most extraordinary creature in a glass box. A long-fanged terror, the length and width of her arm, with a dark, unsettling rattle at the end of his tail. The performer had called him a viper of the New World and explained that when the creature coiled into a perfect spiral, it was at its most dangerous. The rattle warned that attack was imminent. And when the beast struck, Millie had never seen speed and lethal force of the kind before or since that day.
When Christopher Argent spoke in his low, silken voice, it evoked the memory of that warning rattle. One note, one inflection that rarely changed. An unmistakable warning that death could strike at any moment.
“Your gladiator is worth every penny, I’d wager,” Throckmorton mused.
Something in the actor’s voice set McTavish to squirming. He buttoned his coat and inched toward the door. “Miss LeCour, Argent, I’m certainly glad tonight ended as it did. I’ll leave ye to yer evening for now, but expect a follow-up in the days to come.”
Millie stood and only released Jakub with one hand, which trembled as she offered it to McTavish, though her grateful smile was abjectly genuine. “Thank you, Inspector. I shall sleep better tonight knowing you have that fiend in your custody.”
If Argent allowed her to sleep at all.
“A sentiment I share.” McTavish paused. “And might I say I’m a rather fervent admirer of yers. I saw ye in Paris two years ago, if ye’d believe it. I’d just wandered into the theater needing to hear some of the Queen’s English, and it was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my entire trip.”
“You are too kind.” Millie turned and addressed Throckmorton. “Please make certain that the inspector here has tickets to the next production, gratis, of course.”
“Of course,” Throckmorton agreed genially, though his eyes dimmed when McTavish quit the room.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Argent though his regard still raised chill bumps on her skin. Gratitude overshadowed her fear. He’d done as he promised and protected her boy.
But at a price.
Every time her eyes found the silent, disturbingly still man, his body hurled words at her that she’d rather ignore. His tremendous shoulders bespoke an uncompromising strength that hinted at a way of life far beyond her comprehension. What must a man do to build a frame such as his? What feats must he endure?
His arctic eyes said, Approach at your peril.
When in his vicinity, every survival instinct she possessed alerted the primitive woman within the cultured lady. Run, it told her. Run as fast and far as you are able, and pray that he doesn’t choose to follow.
But part of her acknowledged there would be no escape. Not from him. He wasn’t the sort of hunter to cull the weak from the herd. He honed in on his prey and was relentless in the chase, precise in the capture, and absolutely lethal.
Millie understood now, more than she had before, that evil had her and Jakub in its sights. That her destruction would be its persistent goal, turning her charmed reality into a twisted nightmare.
Christopher Argent was a creature born of nightmares, a man who looked evil in the face and challenged it to a duel. Millie acknowledged that in this instance, she didn’t need a white knight, but a shadow that could traverse the darkness with the cunning and speed of that lethal viper.
It was the only way she and her son would survive this. He’d proven that tonight, when he’d saved her precious child. Every time she looked up at him, she was reminded that everything in this world had a price. And she’d gladly pay it for the boy clinging to her hand.
Her belly quivered.
It was time for the devil to collect his due.
“Let’s get you home, my son.” Millie gathered herself and Jakub, but the stage manager blocked the door.
“But darling, you forget, the theater benefactors will be gathering at the Costumes and Cocktails soiree in the grand foyer. How would it look if our star was not in attendance?”
Millie made a sound of disbelief. “But Mr. Throckmorton, after such an ordeal, you couldn’t possibly expect—”
“No, no, of course I wouldn’t, but the benefactors, you see, and the contract you signed … what would you say to the lawyers and solicitors?”
“I don’t know what I’d say to them.” The look she directed at Throckmorton caused him to step back. “But I’d take a word or two from Mr. Argent’s vocabulary. Now I am bringing my distraught son home this instant and putting him to bed.”
“But if you don’t go, they might not pay you—”
“They’ll pay her.” Argent’s voice cut through the room like a guillotine. “And you’ll step out of her path.”
The stage manager blanched.
Millie put a hand to her own throat. Heavens, that voice could probably command the sea if he so desired. Mr. Throckmorton trembled, and the assassin behind her hadn’t even issued a legitimate threat.
He hadn’t needed to.
Jakub tugged on her hand. “I’m not sleepy. I don’t want to go home yet. I’m hungry.”
“T-there, you see,” Throckmorton stammered. “We’ll serve food. Bring dear Jakub and your … protector. They’re both well behaved enough to charm the contributors.”
“Please, Mama?”
Millie looked down at Jakub, and then finally over to Argent, whose face could have been carved of stone for all it gave away. Did he want her to stay, to draw out the anticipation? Did he want to take her home, to collect what she owed him?
She couldn’t tell. He gave her no cue.
What was she supposed to do with that?
A part of her wanted the charming Bentley Drummle back. He’d been so expressive, so friendly and interesting. Or was it interested? Either way, when they’d danced he’d swept her off her feet, quite literally, and though he’d made her nervous, she hadn’t feared him.
What a fool she’d been.
And what an accomplished actor he was.
“I suppose we should stay long enough to make an appearance,” she acquiesced. “And anything Mrs. Brimtree prepared would be cold by now.”
Jakub made a face.
“Oh, wonderful! I’ll just go check on the preparations whilst you … attend your toilette.” With that, he rushed out the door with an impressive speed for someone of his size.
Millie glanced at her reflection in one of the vanity’s many mirrors and grimaced. She was a sodden mess. Hassan’s masterfully lined eyes were ruined by her tears of fear and subsequent relief.
“Lord, I look dreadful.” Collapsing onto her vanity bench, she rested her face in her hands for a moment until two small arms encircled her waist.
“Just smudged, Mama, we’ll fix it.”
Millie patted him, her chest swollen with love and still more abject gratitude that he’d been spared a terrible fate this night. “I’ll fix it. Why don’t you gather your things and I’ll have a stage boy hire a carriage and pack it out?”
“Yes, Mama, but do let’s hurry. I am hungry.” He scrambled to his corner and meticulously began to pack up his art supplies.
Facing the mirrors, Millie turned the wick up on the lantern, illuminating her red eyes and fraught demeanor. Her hands shook as she reached for her powder; she met a pair of intense blue eyes from behind her. He still said nothing, so she took his lead and kept her own confidence, blending her makeup with movements that had become as familiar as breathing.
It seemed as though her gaze were an unruly lapdog, and he held the leash, jerking her notice back to him with undeniable dominance every couple of seconds.
“I—wish you wouldn’t stare like that, it isn’t polite.”
“Shouldn’t you be accustomed to people watching you?” His eyes deftly followed her hand as it swiped new rouge on her cheeks.
“It’s true, Mama, people stare at you always,” Jacob chimed in from the corner.
Perhaps she should stop encouraging the little darling to speak his mind.
The liquid kohl felt pleasant and chilly next to her warm, puffy eyes as she applied the liner with a brush. She’d never get it as good as Hassan had, and her trembling hands made it all the more difficult, but she finally swiped an acceptable line and darkened her lashes, as well. Crimson rouge turned her mouth into a rose petal. Finished, she stood and gathered a shawl, pulling it around her sixteenth-century costume.
Argent rose when she did, his shoulders filling the space in which he stood. How had this dressing room ever contained more people than this with a man of his size in here? She couldn’t avoid him. She couldn’t face him.
He was so tall. So remote. His height removed him from anyone in his vicinity, forcing him to look down upon them like a mountain would the hills beneath it.
And soon enough, she’d be beneath him.
Something warm and wet awoke within her. Something dormant until this very moment, or maybe it had never existed until now. Until him …
“I’m ready, Mama.”
Thank God.
She took Jakub’s hand, and he squeezed. “Your hands are cold.” He giggled. “Even through your gloves.”
“Sorry, kochanie,” she mumbled absently as she all but dragged him toward the door. Her hands and feet felt cold, as though all the blood had drained from them and now hurried to her pounding heart and rushed in her throbbing ears.
The large assassin shadowed them down the hall, without her bidding him to do so, and though she knew he was working on her behalf, it still made her spine tingle to have such a man behind her.
Actors and stagehands alike stopped to ask after her and Jakub, showing their concern and gladness, but then demanding the entire story. She begged off, promising to regale them later and trying very hard not to resent their curiosity.
Millie paused at the door that led from the stage to the carpeted staircase that would take them to the grand foyer below. She took a bracing breath and affixed a smile to her lips that she forced into her eyes with painful effort.
They wouldn’t stay long, she thought as she pressed through the door. The carpets beneath her slippers were plush and silent, though the dark red that she’d once found enchanting threatened to give her a headache.
Peering over the dark banister embellished with gold filigree, Millie noted that some of the cast had already arrived. Rynd, the Othello to her Desdemona, tall and handsome, stood out like a dark and sinewy wolf in a pen full of fluffy, bleating sheep.
He made twice the predator, kissing every lily-white glove and charming every vapid lady with an off-color compliment and a saucy grin. Jane, her dearest friend, deftly avoided the roaming hands of their husbands in the corner by the punch bowl and hors d’oeuvres.
Millie looked down on them with trepidation. Like sparkling butterflies, the noble ladies of the ton drifted from one to another in a swirl of silks, chiffons, and pretense. Their escorts clustered in dapper, expensive black suits, their hands gesturing with the fervency of moth wings in pristine white gloves.
What if someone in the crowd below wanted her dead?
Charles Dorshaw was imprisoned now, to be sure, but he was a hired hand. The second one to make an attempt on her life in as many weeks. Was this what her life had become? Every admirer and theater enthusiast would now be a suspected enemy? She would look for malice beneath propriety.
And for what? What did anyone have to gain from her death?
She started at an abrupt outburst of applause, and blinked rapidly as she became aware that the entire assembly had turned their delighted faces up to her. She’d been announced.
This was her cue.
Unwrapping stiff, cold fingers from their death grip on the banister, she lifted her hand in a wave, hoping the warmth and delight she shoved into her smile didn’t look as brittle as it felt. Adding a little modesty to the expression, she descended the stairs gripping Jakub’s hand like a lifeline.
Argent was only a step behind her, and she speculated at how many people were really concentrating on his cold, brutal, and imposing features. Did anyone recognize him? And if they did, was it because they’d hired him to end her life?
