Reconnaissance. Argent answered his own internal question. That’s what he was doing at the gin-soaked club at midnight. The Sapphire Room was little more than a veritable mélange of shadowed nooks and private rooms sprouting from the main dance hall with no shortage of cushioned furniture from which to drape oneself.
The cacophony of the revelers packed beneath the crystal chandeliers all but drowned out the chamber musicians. Everything sparkled. From the gowns of the waltzing demimondaines, fashionable in their jewel tones, to the ladies’ intricate coiffures, to the champagne, all glimmered and winked like fallen stars beneath the new electric lights of the Sapphire Room.
Christopher had to suppress a wince as a woman’s high, fake cackle breached his eardrum. He never understood why people pretended amusement or hilarity. It was as though they believed that if they laughed loudly enough, they would create happiness where there was none. Their worthless lives wouldn’t seem so meaningless if they could drown out the sound of their own empty existence with enough champagne and laughter.
What fools.
At times like this Christopher appreciated his uncommon height, as he could stand a head above the crowd, and scan the herd for his prey. It wouldn’t be difficult to find her here. Millie LeCour’s hair was an uncommon shade of ebony. Her eyes, though nearly black themselves, shone with such life, they reminded him of multifaceted volcanic glass.
Those eyes. He’d watched the abundant life drain out of them as Othello had strangled her with his large, dark hands. Above them, alone in his box, Argent had held his own breath as the light that captured all of London dimmed and extinguished to rousing, thunderous applause.
He’d leaned toward her then, gripping the railing of the box. Willing her to wake, truly wondering if he hadn’t just watched someone carry out his own charge to murder her in front of an audience of hundreds.
Argent had seen the real thing so many times he’d lost count, and she captured the dull lifelessness with such precision, he didn’t breathe again until the curtain lifted for a final bow. And there she was, her smile brighter and more prismatic than Covent Garden’s crystal chandelier.
He’d actually slumped back into his chair.
She’d turned to him, pressed her hands together, and curtsied with such grace, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Alive. Not only alive. Full of life. Brimming with it. Pressing her rouged lips to her hand, she’d tossed a kiss to the crowd. And again, he could have sworn, she turned and tossed one to him.
She’d been happy. He’d observed enough of humanity very closely to recognize the emotion. The true glow of transcendence. And as she’d waved at the boxes, his box, beaming that elated smile at him, he’d felt the most peculiar impulse to return it.
He’d become unsettled by that. Restless, chilled, and uncharacteristically prone to movement. His fingers curled and uncurled. His jaw clenched. His heart quickened its pace along with his breath. A pressure exerted itself against his heavy ribs and squeezed.
At first he’d considered apoplexy. Now he was altogether convinced it was something else, entirely.
He’d … felt. Not only that, the phenomenon hadn’t abated.
For the first time in more than twenty years, he’d been a victim of affect. Something he’d thought himself rid of indefinitely.
Even still, at this moment, he was searching the crowd for her with a stunning sense of … what he could only identify as anticipation. Not for the violence, but just for another glimpse of her dark and mesmerizing eyes.
Grimacing and shaking his head, he took up a silent guard against the far wall, hoping the odd sensation would dissipate. That she could affect him so was an impossibility. What sort of creature was she? According to Dashforth, Millie LeCour was a liar and blackmailer. A charismatic narcissist dancing with a death sentence. A mark with private rooms above Bow Street. It was all Argent needed to know.
Wasn’t it?
So … why was he here prowling amongst the crowds of common people like a serpent in a container of mice?
Oh yes. Reconnaissance. He’d do well to remember that.
A murmur of pleasure and surprise swept through the crowd, followed by a swell of applause directed toward the entrance.
The first thought that occurred to Argent was that Millie LeCour couldn’t be more porcelain white if she were, in fact, a corpse. His second, that the crimson and white striped dress accented her pallor so absolutely, she brought to mind the Countess Bathory, a woman famous for bathing in the blood of virgin peasants to maintain her skin’s youthful perfection.
Her smile was brilliant in every sense of the word, and Argent found himself with his hand pressed to the chest of his jacket. It happened again. That curious little jolt in the cavern of his ribs. It was the same when she’d smiled at him from the stage. A startle of sensation. A current of awareness that singed along the nerves beneath his skin with warmth and maybe a touch of pleasure.
It seemed, if she was the Countess Bathory, tonight he was Vlad Tepes, dead but for strange, lethal animation and his insatiable hunger for blood. Not for physical sustenance, like the vampire, but just as necessary for his survival.
For in the spilling of blood, he made his living.
Beaming, Millie LeCour let go of her foppish escort to execute a curtsy at the top of the stairs before descending down to her adoring public, rouged lips pursed to receive and return a plethora of air kisses.
Of all the jewels on display at the Sapphire Room, she gleamed the brightest. Christopher had marked the tired cliché that men would often tell their female companions. They would say that a woman lit up a room. In the past, it confounded him that such a sentiment would occur to either party as a compliment.
But now …
What was once a tepid room filled with the press and stench of people flirting with debauchery, now seemed to glow with whatever luminescence was contained beneath her nearly translucent skin.
Objectively, it was a shame to rid the world of such beauty. Such talent. Though her smile might just be an illusion, and her graciousness may amount to artifice, her loss would further tip the scales toward the desolation of humanity by means of mediocrity.
It wouldn’t stop him, though. If he fulfilled his vocation, she wouldn’t live to see the dawn. He could do it here, he supposed. Draw her into a corner and snap her pretty neck, drape her limp body across a chaise and disappear before the alarm was raised.
He’d have to charm her. To lure her into the darkness with him, into his realm. As a creature of the spotlight, she’d be vulnerable there. She’d be defenseless.
The idea shouldn’t excite him, but he’d be a liar if he didn’t admit having Millie LeCour to himself in the darkness didn’t arouse urges other than the one to kill.
Dangerous urges. Dangerous to him.
Though surrounded by people, Millie found him at once. Her head snapped up as though she’d heard his thoughts articulated above the drone of the crowd.
But Argent was certain she knew nothing of his intentions, because her eyes became warm midnight pools of delight the moment she noted him.
Excusing herself from her adoring public, she pressed through the throng as the orchestra began to play once more. She didn’t stop until she stood in front of him, unaware, or uncaring, that all eyes were on them both.
“I have found you,” she announced with a coy smile.
Argent had no idea what she meant. Maybe she knew why he was here. Maybe someone had warned her of the contract drawn against her life. Perhaps she was as unafraid and unfeeling as himself. A human free from the chains of pathos.
It still didn’t change anything.
“It is I, Miss LeCour, who have found you.”
And it is I who will end you.
* * *
Millie couldn’t believe her luck. Here he was, the night’s audience of one. She’d never had the pleasure of actually meeting one of them before. And to be in the presence of this particular man was an unexpected pleasure. Could it be that somehow he’d felt that strange, electric connection that she had experienced from the stage?
That would be terribly romantic, wouldn’t it?
“I thought this was a private gathering, Mr.…” She looked at him expectantly, offering her hand for an introduction.
“Mr. Drummle,” he answered, leaning over her hand, but not kissing it. “Bentley Drummle.”
Millie was unable to hold in a sound of mirth.
“My name amuses you?”
Everything about him amused her.
“Not at all.” She rushed to cover any offense. “It’s only that you don’t look like a Bentley.”
“Oh? And what name would you deem appropriate for me?”
Millie regarded him with gathering interest, somehow unable to answer his question. He didn’t look like he’d have a proper English name at all. He was nothing like the slim, elegant, fashionable men-about-town she was usually introduced to at these parties. Indeed, with his thick locks of hair the most uncommon shade of auburn, startling blue eyes, and raw, broad bones, he seemed as though he belonged on a Celtic battlefield wielding a claymore against Saxon intruders. Though his handsome features were relaxed into a mild expression, something dangerous shimmered in the air about him. Something … she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It wasn’t violence or anger. Nor was it anything unbalanced or wrong. Could it be that when he smiled, it didn’t reach those fiercely blue eyes?
She searched those eyes now, her smile fading just a little. They were like ice, and not only because of the color. A glacial chill emanated from behind them. Charm and geniality warmed the slight curve of his hard mouth, but looking into those eyes was like staring across an endless arctic tundra. Bleak and empty.
Suddenly she was anxious, and, truth be told, more than a little intrigued. “I fear I’m drawing a blank at the moment,” she admitted, surprised how breathless she sounded as she pulled her hand away from his.
He seemed to loom over her, a menace affecting a purposefully nonthreatening air. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, perhaps? Though he was fair-skinned and light-eyed, he evoked a current of darkness. As though he carried the shadows with him in case he needed their protection.
However, Millie was fair certain that there was precious little that didn’t need protection from him. A chill raised her skin, even though warmth suffused other parts of her. Parts she studiously tried to ignore.
“How did you say you came to be here?” she asked.
His expression changed from mild to sheepish, which sat uncomfortably on a face as brutal as his. “I was invited by a friend of a friend, actually. I forget her name. Quite tall, fair hair. Younger than she looks, but then older than she claims.” He winked at her, his eyes crinkling with endearing groves. Not yet a smile, but the promise of one.
“Oh, do you mean Gertrude?” she asked.
“That’s the one.” He nodded, then scanned the crowd as though halfheartedly looking for the lady in question. “We have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Richard Swiveller, do you know him?”
Millie shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
He shrugged a gigantic shoulder and the movement rippled over his expensive evening jacket. “No matter. These private parties are hardly intimate, are they?”
Millie took a moment to scan her surroundings, taking in the hundred or so dancers and revelers in various stages of drunkenness and excess. “I suppose that depends on your interpretation of the word,” she remarked wryly.
There was that sound of amusement again. It hailed from deep, deep in his cavernous chest. A sound more suited to the shadows of the jungle than an English ballroom.
“Would you care for a waltz, Miss LeCour?” He stepped closer, invading her space, towering over her like a wall of heat and muscle.
Millie hesitated. Not because she was afraid, but because she very much doubted that a man of such height and width and—she looked down—large feet, could waltz worth a damn.
One tread of his heavy soles upon her feet and she feared he’d break them.
“I’ll step lightly,” he murmured, reading her mind.
She looked up, and up, into those unsettling eyes. There. Not a feeling, not an emotion, per se, but a glimmer. One of enjoyment … or regret, she couldn’t be sure.
Lord, but he was fascinating.
“See that you do,” she teased. “One cannot act if one cannot walk, and so, Mr. Drummle, I am at your mercy.”
“So you are.” He took her gloved hand in his—enveloped it, to be accurate—and led her to the floor. She paused to wait for an opening amongst the swirling couples, and gasped as he pulled her forward, seizing a place and twirling her into it with powerful arms.
It became instantly obvious that her fears regarding his dancing skills were completely unfounded. Indeed, he was the most graceful, skilled man on the floor … or perhaps on any dance floor in London. He held her close, scandalously close, his hand on her back securing her to him like an iron clamp. The warmth of that hand seeped through the layers of her clothing and corset, an undeniable brand. Yet, the hand that held hers was gentle, but just as warm.
The arms beneath his suit coat were even harder than she’d guessed. The swells of muscles where her hands rested flexed and rolled with his movements, and Millie found herself entranced by them. So much so, that she stumbled and lost her footing around a turn.
He pulled her even closer, allowing her to seamlessly recover while supported by the strength of his astonishingly solid body. Regaining the rhythm of the waltz, she threw him an appreciative glance.
“It seems, Miss LeCour, that it is I who should have been worried about injury to my feet.”
She laughed, dipping her forehead against his shoulder. Her heart sped along with the tempo of the waltz, sending warm flurries of nerves flooding through her. Perhaps her scruples about him had been as mistaken as her worries over his dancing capabilities.
“Tell me, Mr. Drummle, what is it you do?”
“I’m a longtime partner in a business enterprise,” he answered.
“Anyone I’ve heard of?” she pressed.
“Undoubtedly. My partners handle the day-to-day running of the business, meetings, mergers, acquisitions, and so forth. I’m over contracts, damages, and … personnel.”
“My,” she flirted. “You sound like an important man to know. Tell me more.” She used this ploy often. Men loved to talk about themselves. But this time, she found that she truly was curious about him. About how he spent his days. His nights.
And with whom.
“It’s all rather dull and workaday compared to what you do.” Millie felt, rather than saw his head tilt down, inching closer toward her. The din and atmosphere of the Sapphire Room suddenly melted away. Everything seemed darker, somehow. Closer. Their feet waltzed over shadows and their bodies synced in a flawless rhythm that felt, to her, sensuous. Sinful, even.
His scent enveloped her, a warm, masculine musk of cedar trunks, shaving soap, and something darker. Wilder. Something that smelled like danger and sex. The kind of sex that marked you afterward. The kind she’d heard in the wailing of ecstatic obscenities and pounding of headboards against thin walls in the days before she could afford her own apartments.
Tilting her head back, she’d meant to smile an invitation into his eyes, but her gaze never got that far. They snagged his lips. Soft against the hard, almost cruel brackets of a perpetually masculine visage.
Those lips would indeed mark her. The russet stubble would redden her skin and tickle any flesh she exposed to him.
“I believe,” she whispered, breathless again for the second time in his presence. “I believe that you want to kiss me, Mr. Drummle.”
His answer wasn’t the witty flirtation she’d expected. Just as suddenly as she’d found herself whisked onto the dance floor, he twirled her away from it. The crowd melted before them, artists and actors mixing with lower nobility or wealthy merchants. Those with money, power, influence, but not burdened by the more strident social morals of the upper class.
Eyes followed them as they left. Millie was used to it. Because of her celebrity, people watched her wherever she went, but this time, she had a cloying suspicion she wasn’t the center of attention for once.
The farther into the Sapphire Room they ventured, the darker and seedier it became. In a gloomy nook of the hallway, two bedazzled women were locked in a passionate embrace, one lovely head buried in the other’s neck. There was desperation in their passion. One born of unfulfilled desires denied too long.
Millie found an echo of that desire surging within her own body, as she followed Mr. Drummle’s wide back into a narrow nook beneath the grand stairway. Here, the entry chandelier was dimmed to create a wicked atmosphere, but it provided enough light to cast their corner in complete shadow.
That shadow became theirs as they claimed the darkness.
Gasping, Millie found herself pressed against the wall, imprisoned between it and Bentley Drummle’s unyielding torso.
A willing prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless.
Lord, she never did this. Certainly, she’d stolen a few kisses, or gifted them as favors. She’d shamelessly flirted, openly admired, and even allowed the pursuit of men on occasion. But never like this. Publicly, with a man she barely knew whom she didn’t need to charm for money or gain.
Just pleasure.
He stood like that for a moment, or it could have been an eternity. Their breath mingling in the darkness. Wine and port and desire.
She couldn’t see his face clearly, backlit as it was by the chandelier that cast a halo around his vibrant hair. Millie knew for a certainty that neither of them were angels, and with a man as mysterious and sensual as this one, she could pave her way to hell in only an evening.
Best get started, then.
She strained toward him, lifting her mouth in invitation, but he didn’t allow her to move. He just stood against her, his chest pressing her breasts higher as those big hands rested on her waist. She read hesitation in the movement, a hesitation she didn’t understand.
Millie knew he could see her a little. She didn’t have to fake the come-hither look this time, and finally, those hands began to move.
This man never seemed to do what she expected him to. Even now, his hands weren’t exploratory, but purposeful. They spanned the indent of her waist. Then her ribs, increasingly confined by her ever-quickening breath. His own inhale hitched when he reached her breasts, but he didn’t stop there. Didn’t cup or test them, didn’t reach beneath her low bodice to find the straining, aching nipples. His hands merely kept moving upward, across her bare chest and shoulders, the calluses on his palms abrading her tender flesh and unleashing chill bumps everywhere.
And still he didn’t kiss her. Merely stood with a whisper between their lips, his hands inching toward her throat.
Millie released a whimper of need, unashamed of the frenzy beginning to build within her. Who could have known? That desire would be this delicious? That anticipation could lock you in its hands—its large, callused hands—and strip away your pride until you wanted to beg.
“It won’t hurt, I promise,” he whispered as his fingers gently reached the nape of her neck, and then her jaw, and paused there.
It already hurt. She ached, ached in places generally best left ignored. Millie’s breath had now been reduced to little more than needy pants. “If you don’t kiss me, I’ll die,” she confessed.
He froze.
Vibrating with frustrated arousal she surged against him, lifting to her toes and grinding her lips against his.
The kiss was as hungry as it was sudden. While his eyes may have been cold, his mouth was hot and tasted of wine and male. She kissed him with abandon, enjoying the way his entire body jolted and went instantly rigid.
From the rough fingers at her throat to the hard sex in his trousers.
At the press of his arousal against her, Millie’s sensitive breasts likewise swelled beneath her corset, becoming full and heavy. Her clothes felt confining, her skin itched to be bared to him. Demanded it.
At last, his tongue invaded her mouth and she moaned her approval. His thumbs, at first resting against her clavicles, caressed the dip of her throat, the curve of her chin, the line of her jaw, all while tasting her with the insatiable gluttony of a hedonist.
Millie had a sense that he was as lost to her as she to him. More so even, and the sensual, feminine power that surged within her fed her desire. She wanted him nigh gone for her. Drunk on her. Atop her, beneath her, and within her.
Perhaps they were meant to meet tonight. Maybe he was the man she’d been waiting for, the mythical hero that would sweep her off her feet and capture her heart.
His fingers tightened again against her throat, just a little, and she gasped. Then moaned as a thrill of fear titillated down her nerves and settled as a pool of moisture between her thighs.
“Again,” she demanded, her arms winding around his neck, her body rubbing against his like a cat demanding to be stroked.
His curse was lost in the cavern of her mouth, and she knew in that moment that they both needed to see whatever this was between them to fruition.
A commotion warned them before the door from the hall burst open. Two female bodies spilled into the entryway floor in a heap of skirts and spitting, swearing, scratching violence. One of them they’d seen kissing another in the hall.
The aggressor was a stranger.
Millie and Mr. Drummle leaped apart, suddenly surrounded by a riotous group of men crowding behind them, shouting pleased and lusty approval and encouragement to the fighting women. Millie watched them for a moment. Stunned that ladies could be so vicious to one another.
But, she supposed, jealousy was a powerful emotion.
“Well,” she called over the din, looking back over her shoulder to her would-be lover. “Would you like to—”
Her words died away, as there was no one to offer them to.
He’d disappeared.
