Pain was something Christopher had learned to deal with at an early age. Where so-called normal folk sought comfort and warmth, he’d spent much of his youth just trying to make things a little less intolerable. Comfort made you weak. Hunger made you strong. No matter how horrific, nothing was unbearable, because as long as one was alive, then obviously, it could be borne. Every moment was naught but a moment. Every day was naught but a day. The sun would rise in the morning, night would fall, and the earth would turn around.
These were things that Christopher knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
People would die. Sometimes because of him, other times in spite of him. The species would propagate. The innocent would suffer. The powerful would build monuments. The world’s religions would spill each other’s blood, ironically in the name of a God of love. The rich would amass more money. The poor would crawl on top of each other to reach for a piece of bread. Women and boys would sell themselves in the streets.
The sun would rise in the morning, and he would feel pain. Night would fall, and his chest would be a cavern of empty loneliness. The earth would turn around, and his blood would threaten to cease flowing, for it hurt too much to pump it through his veins.
These were the things that Christopher Argent knew.
He’d gone to see Millie again at the theater today, watched her hungrily from the shadows during the early-afternoon dress rehearsal of the play she was debuting this very night. A dramatic comedy about a courtesan and a married lawyer. It seemed she and the director/playwright were very affectionate with each other.
Thomas Bancroft. It gave Christopher dark pleasure to imagine the top five ways in which he’d love to execute the man. Unbeknownst to the playwright, each fantasy became more bloody every time Millie laughed at one of his quips.
Seven times. She laughed seven times at the man. She touched him twice. He’d touched her five times whilst adjusting her stage position, putting his hand on her back when they looked over a script together, plucking an errant feather out of her bodice that had drifted there from her headdress. That time, he’d grazed the skin of Millie’s bare shoulder and Christopher could tell by the way Bancroft bit down on his lip that he’d done it on purpose.
Was this the kind of man Millie was generally attracted to? Dark curls, soulful brown eyes, lean and elegant with aristocratic features. An easy smile. A gentle touch.
It would be hard for Bancroft to touch her without a hand, Christopher mused, thinking of sawing it off the bastard’s thin wrist and tossing it in the Thames.
Christopher had made it almost a fortnight this time without having to see her. Well, half of a fortnight. Almost half. Five days. He’d made it five excruciating days without gazing upon the light inexplicably shimmering from her dark eyes. Without hearing the lilt of her mesmerizing contralto. Five days without taking a full breath into his lungs.
Before that the longest he’d gone was three, so … progress, he supposed.
Everything hurt. Everything hurt so much he’d begun to do what he’d watched countless others do in an attempt to alleviate pain. He’d sought comfort for what things he could control. He’d even taken to sleeping in a bed. It had been overwhelming at first, but once he’d had Welton procure some bed curtains that blocked out the spacious room, he drew them against the light and found that an enclosed bed was, indeed, better than the hard floor of his closet.
He hadn’t worked in a handful of weeks, not since his last night with her. He’d go to the theater instead, buy a ticket, sit in the shadows and drink in the sight of her, whisper her lines that he’d memorized. His hands would twitch when someone touched her. His jaw would clench when she was kissed.
Sometimes he’d wish he’d never met her, that he didn’t have the memory of her creamy skin singed into his fingertips. That she’d never reached into his soul and confirmed its existence. There’d been a reason he’d buried it in the first place. And now that she’d found it, it belonged to her.
And she’d offered to keep it. God, why would she do such a thing?
Now, as he stalked through the gray of the London evening, Christopher was careful not to blink. For whenever his eyes closed, he would see her naked in front of him, lily-white skin smeared with the blood he couldn’t wash off his hands. He would see her drowning in it. Tears of crimson pouring from her eyes as she begged him, pleaded with him to wash it away. The more he touched her, the more filth and gore covered her.
He dreamed about it at night. Held her dying heart in his hands while she looked on, horrified, knowing that her heart was just another one of his countless casualties.
For the first time in his life, he’d done the decent thing, hadn’t he? He’d pushed her away.
The truth of what he’d said to her in his training room hadn’t diminished. Just because he hadn’t killed her, didn’t mean he wouldn’t someday destroy her. What did he know about being a man? About being a husband or a father? She and her son were the first people he’d cared about in almost twenty years. The force of his newfound emotion for her would have damaged her eventually, he was certain of it. No one should carry the weight of his past. No one should have to share his empty life. Especially not Millie or Jakub. They were alive. And he couldn’t say that he ever truly had been. For surely he’d never had much of a life, and the one he’d lived was tainted with evil deeds.
So he’d let her go.
The reality of it stole his strength, and he leaned against a gate with his shoulder, willing his lungs to expand.
What a bloody lie. He’d not let her go in the least. He’d allowed her to let him go, because apparently, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from seeing her.
She’d hated him at first. He’d perched on the ledge outside her window on Drury Lane like a gargoyle and listened when young Jakub asked to see him, ached when she made up ridiculous reasons for them not to.
Her tears when she’d been alone had almost been his undoing. She’d cried. Over him. He’d never been a suicidal man, but listening to her soft sobs had nearly driven him to jump. That she or Jakub would have been the one to find his broken body was what had stopped him from acting on the impulse.
Saving her, protecting her wasn’t enough to redeem his soul. Deep down she had to know that, even if she didn’t accept it at the time.
That wasn’t to say he didn’t stop trying to guard her and her son. Couldn’t seem to help himself. He would fear for her if he didn’t see her for too long. He’d conceive dark and terrible things that might have happened to them both, unable to function until he found them, safe and sound, going about their day. Some instinct born of experience told him they were still in danger. That this wasn’t over. Though he knew he was being ridiculous, that he was creating an excuse for his obsessive behavior.
Lord, he wanted to be with her now. Wanted the impossible. Wanted to go back to the theater and wallow in the exquisite torture of her presence. But he knew that if he saw Thomas Bancroft put his disgusting fingers on her one more fucking time, he’d—
“Argent?”
Blinking away dark thoughts, he looked up, shocked to find himself in front of the Blackwell manse.
Dorian Blackwell descended his stairs with all the regal bearing of a royal. His head slightly turned to regard Argent out of his good eye, he approached the gate and pulled it open. “Has something happened?”
“No.” Left without much choice, Christopher followed Dorian up the drive, nodding to the four “footmen” along the path and in the yard.
“Then what, pray, is the reason for your loitering at my gate? You’d been standing there for minutes.”
Christopher shadowed Blackwell across his entry and down the hall toward his study, unable to produce an answer to Dorian’s question. His feet, rather than his intention, had brought him to Blackwell’s door. Yet, he now felt a sliver of ease in the dark presence of his oldest associate. Aside from the death of his beloved mother, Argent and Blackwell had shared the hardest and worst moments of their lives with each other. Perhaps habit had driven him to seek out the Blackheart of Ben More in a time of perceived crisis.
“Do you have something to drink?” Christopher asked.
Blackwell slid him a perceptive glance. “I thought you didn’t drink spirits.” He glided to the decanter and filled two crystal glasses without waiting for a reply.
“I didn’t.” Accepting the generous pour, Christopher tossed it back, taking three swallows to finish the burning fluid. It crawled down his throat and spread from his stomach to his limbs with a warm, pleasant liquidity.
Blackwell was there with the decanter, pouring him another before they each claimed the high-backed chairs by the fire. They sat in silence for a moment, each sipping their drinks, contemplating dark things in the flames. Argent wanted to say something. Wanted to unburden himself, to pour his pain and hatred and his love into the fire and be done with it. He wanted to be cold again, unfeeling. Because then he didn’t have to look at himself. Didn’t have this horrible yearning for a life that could never be. Wouldn’t have the words nagging at his thoughts, lighting tiny fires of their own within him.
Love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in this world.
Millie had believed in those words. Had offered him redemption, in her eyes at least.
Why couldn’t he bring himself to take it?
Because I’m a coward, he thought.
“You’re an idiot,” Dorian stated softly.
“It would be unwise to push me,” Christopher replied, just as softly.
“You’re also like a brother to me,” Dorian confessed in a startling, uncharacteristic moment of unguarded warmth. “So, I can push you if I like.”
Christopher couldn’t look at him. “Men like us don’t have brothers.”
“I do, actually. More than one, or so I’m told.” Dorian’s voice held a note of curious complexity. Not mirth, not acrimony, something in between.
“Do you know them?” Christopher couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Just one. A Scottish marquess. Keeps sending me this damned fine Scotch whisky of his. He’s been abroad fighting for the empire and all that, but we’ve been in somewhat infrequent contact since the death of our father.”
“I thought you had your father killed,” Christopher mused. He glanced at Dorian in time to see the rest of his drink disappear in one careless toss.
“So I did.” Blackwell smirked. “Quid pro quo, I suppose.”
Argent nodded, remembering that the late Marquess Ravencroft had paid to have his own bastard killed in Newgate Prison. Maybe not having a father wasn’t such a tragedy.
“At any rate, I consider my relationship with you more fraternal than with any of them. We’re bound by more blood, I think. Buckets of it. And, over the past decade you and I were the closest thing to family men like us can allow ourselves to have.” Dorian seemed to be having as much of a difficult time saying the words as Christopher was hearing them. “We fought and won a war together. We’re loyal to each other. We brawl and snarl at each other. And, in the end, we trust—we hope—all is forgiven.”
He was talking about losing Millie to Dorshaw that night, Christopher knew. About the fact that nothing had been the same since Christopher had attacked the Blackheart of Ben More in his own house.
And lived to tell about it. That, alone, was a testament to Dorian’s admiration for Christopher.
They were both staring hard at the flames again, but Christopher knew Dorian was right. And that he’d just articulated the very reason Christopher had found his gate.
“Brothers, then,” he clipped, moving uncomfortably in his chair. “But if you try to hug me, I’m leaving.”
Dorian chuckled. “Then allow me to give you some brotherly advice.”
“No.”
“I’ll do it anyway.”
Christopher growled. “For the love of—”
“Love,” Dorian said firmly, which produced the effect Christopher suspected the Blackheart of Ben More wanted.
Christopher’s silence.
“Love is exactly to what I’m referring when I tell you that you’re an idiot,” Dorian stated, finally turning in his chair to gaze at Christopher. “Men like you and me, we don’t love like other men do. With patience and poetry and gentle deference. Our sort of love is possessive—obsessive even—and passionate and consuming and … well, fucking terrifying sometimes.”
Christopher gripped his glass so hard he was afraid it would shatter. “Why are you telling me this?” He wanted to run, but was glued to his chair.
“The walls behind which we endured so much, we carry them with us and I don’t think they ever come down. So if we are to love, then that person has to scale those high, solid walls, and once they do, once they go through all of that work … they’re trapped inside with us.”
“Which is precisely why—”
Dorian held up a hand. “The very least we can do is remove a few bricks every so often. Let the daylight in. Make the walls shorter. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“All I see is that you’re beating a poor useless metaphor to death.” Christopher didn’t want to hear any more. And yet …
Undaunted, Dorian continued. “It takes a rare and resilient woman to withstand a life like ours. For most it’s just too much. We’re too … broken. Too brutal. They can’t swim upstream through these rivers of blood we’ve created.”
“Farah did,” Argent said bitterly.
“I still had to compromise. To make concessions.”
“Like what?” Argent asked. “You’re still the Blackheart of Ben More.”
Dorian cleared his throat. “Would you believe me if I told you … half my businesses are actually legitimate?”
“No.”
“It’s probably best you feel that way, I don’t particularly want it getting out.”
Argent gaped at Blackwell. He’d known the man was in love with his wife, that he’d searched for her for an eternity, even when she’d been presumed dead. But … to go legitimate? He was bloody king of the underworld. Second only to Argent, himself, for the amount of people he’d killed with his own hands. Now he had a daughter. A wife. A courtesy title, not unlike that of the queen’s own consort. A life outside of their criminal enterprise that expanded his possibilities.
And he seemed … happy. Contented. The sky wasn’t falling and the streets weren’t burning.
It was beyond conceivable … and yet …
“I don’t know what concessions to make. I can’t clean the blood I’ve already spilled off my hands. And, as I told her, I’m a hunter. I’m a killer. I’m afraid I need to be, that even if I try to stop, I won’t be able to.”
Dorian regarded him for a long time, that enigmatic eye of his processing his own thoughts. “I think it lives inside both of us. This darkness. This need to be a predator, or worse, play at being God.”
Christopher nodded, cursing Blackwell’s talent for identifying the crux of a problem.
“You could take Morley’s proposition, you know,” Dorian suggested.
“Work for the enemy?” Christopher snorted. “Not a chance.”
Turning his drink around and around in his hand, Dorian smiled a bit ruefully. “He’s not so much my enemy now.”
“Since when?”
“We’ve had mutual interests at times…” Dorian answered cryptically. “Prison reform, for one. Getting the same people off the streets, clearing scum from the gutters and the like. You’d be good at that. With your skills you’d probably be his biggest asset. Then, perhaps you and Miss LeCour…” He let the insinuation trail away, but the idea took root.
“Millie and I…” Christopher’s heart clenched. Hope was a dangerous thing. Once it was taken, regaining it was nigh to impossible.
“You might not have to change who you are so much as why you do what you do,” Dorian continued. “You don’t have to give up your skill set. Even if you don’t take this position with Morley, I’ll still need you. And as my world … changes … perhaps yours might do so as well.”
“Taking his offer, or yours, doesn’t erase what’s already been done, Blackwell.”
“No,” the Blackheart of Ben More agreed. “No, it doesn’t. But she fell for you, for the assassin, didn’t she?”
“How would you know?” Christopher asked bitterly.
“These walls are well built, but not so thick as to block out everything.” Dorian lifted an eyebrow, and a mock salute.
Christopher’s frown deepened and heat that had nothing to do with Ravencroft’s fine Scotch crept from underneath his collar.
“Also, she told us of her feelings for you.” Dorian stood, walking to the window to watch the last of the evening light fade into darkness. “When it comes to women, I know very little,” he admitted. “But I’ve noticed that intention means more than just about anything. If she knows that you’re trying … If she is secure in how you feel—”
“I don’t even know what I feel.” Christopher put his glass down hard. Harder than he’d meant to. “I barely know how to feel.”
“Yes, but you’re learning,” Dorian pointed out. “We both are, I suppose. Before Miss LeCour, before Farah, you and I would never have attempted this conversation. Perhaps that’s precisely why you need her.” Dorian’s breath fogged the glass with a long exhale. “Ladies tend to be emotional creatures. It’s one of the many things they’re better at than we are.”
Christopher leaned forward in his chair, studying the dancing fire as though it held the answers to the cosmos. A legitimate hunter? An agent of the crown … Was this possible? Would Millie even consent to see him again, let alone …
Wait, was he actually considering this madness?
“What if I can’t—”
“What if?” Dorian snarled, slamming his palm against the wall, startling Christopher to his feet. “Fuck what ifs. What if they’re our last chance at humanity, Argent? What if they’re a gift from the beyond for all of the injustice visited upon us? What if we spend eternity burning for what we’ve done, for who we’ve become, but we have the memory of these precious years spent with a goddess?” Black fire flashed in his eye. “I almost let Farah slip through my fingers and you were witness to the misery it caused me. Why repeat that mistake? What if you lose her for good because you’re too busy being a fucking idiot to seize your second chance?”
Christopher’s mouth dropped open, but a knock on the study door saved him from having to concoct a reply.
“Mr. Argent, there’s someone in the parlor I think you both need to talk to.” Farah’s sweet voice drifted through the door.
Argent’s heart leaped as he wrenched it open, startling Lady Northwalk. “Millie?” he asked.
She shook her head, silver eyes gleaming with concern. “I’m afraid not. It’s Lady Benchley, Philomena St. Vincent.”
“What the devil is she doing here?” Dorian wondered from behind Argent.
“She said she has some information about those dead women and their boys.”
“But the matter has been closed,” Blackwell stated.
“I thought so as well.” Farah shrugged. “Mr. Argent, do you know what’s going on?”
Christopher stormed past her and into the parlor he was beginning to hate. It had been ages since any good news was delivered in this place.
Hot tea steamed, untouched, on the table in front of where Lady Benchley perched, wringing a damp handkerchief in her hands. The reason for her ridiculous orange hat and veil became immediately apparent when she stood and lifted her head. Tears were not the only cause of the swelling of her eyes. Her nose had been broken fairly recently. Though the resulting mask of bruises had faded to an ugly shade of yellow, the inflammation hadn’t completely disappeared.
“Mr. Argent.” She stood and gasped as Christopher was followed by Dorian and Farah into the room. “I’m relieved to find you here, actually.” Dipping a flawless curtsy with not a small amount of difficulty, she gave a surreptitious sniff and held her handkerchief beneath her nose.
Christopher approached her slowly, and she shrank from him, wincing and holding a hand to her ribs.
“You two are acquainted?” Farah asked, gliding to Lady Benchley and taking her elbow to help her sink down onto the couch.
Lady Benchley lowered herself carefully, holding her breath until she was settled.
“We were introduced at the theater, Othello. You were Miss Millicent LeCour’s—companion. Both of you were so kind.” Lady Benchley offered a shaky smile.
“You’ve been injured, Lady Benchley, and you’re obviously distressed. Is there aught we can do to help you?” Farah cajoled, taking the woman’s hand in her own.
Next to the slim, angelic Lady Northwalk, Philomena St. Vincent appeared more plump and sallow than she had during their previous meetings. The apricot dress and hat didn’t help, and neither did the healing wounds. Though, as Christopher studied her, he again noted charming dimples next to her full mouth, and her arresting jade eyes, despite the swelling and redness.
“Call me Mena, please, and I’ve been seen to, I’m not here about that.” Her voice was sweet and young, though the shadows in her countenance were anything but.
Farah’s brow wrinkled. “Yes, but—”
“Please,” Mena pleaded. “I—I don’t have much time. My absence has likely already been noted as I’ve previously been this afternoon to Scotland Yard.” Her chin wobbled, but she visibly composed herself.
“Why is that?” Dorian asked evenly.
“And what does it have to do with Millicent LeCour?” Argent demanded.
Farah cast him a sharp look, but Mena didn’t even flinch. The viscountess was no shrinking violet, but a woman used to a harsh tone.
“As you all might know from the papers, my brother-in-law, Lord Thurston, was horrifically murdered,” Mena began.
No one said a word, nor did they look at each other. What Mena St. Vincent knew of the circumstances of Lord Thurston’s death was still undetermined.
“I am often the companion to Lady Katherine, his wife, as she is my husband’s sister. She’s not a kind woman, you see, but we have had a sort of bond with which we can commiserate.” Placing a trembling hand over her mouth, Mena swallowed and took a few gulps of air before continuing.
Christopher leaned forward, curling his hands into fists so as not to shake the point from the distraught woman.
“We’ve both been married for some years now and have been so far unable to produce an heir for our husbands. You see, I’ve never been able to … conceive. And Katherine, she’s lost every child she’s conceived either in the womb or moments after birth.” Mena blinked up at Farah. “I think it’s driven her quite mad.”
“Why do you say that?” Christopher prodded.
“After Lord Thurston passed, she left for one of their country estates in Essex. I didn’t hear a word from her for a month, which worried me because I didn’t think that the death of her husband would leave her very troubled. It was no secret that theirs was not a happy match. So, I followed her to Essex to check on her, and there, at Fenwick Hall, I uncovered her secret.”
Mena now had both of Farah’s hands clenched in her own. “Upon my arrival, I found her out of mourning garb raising five orphan boys. I was surprised at first, of course, but I initially thought that maybe her husband’s death had softened her, and that she was trying to do some good in this world. The longer I remained there, it became apparent that the boys were traumatized, that they were being held against their will.”
“Christ, Blackwell, do you know what this means?” Christopher turned to Dorian who was already shaking his head in amazement.
“Those boys Morley was looking for, Thurston took them and his wife knew about it.” Blackwell brought a thoughtful hand to his chin.
Mena nodded, her eyes filling again. “I’m afraid it’s much worse than you think.”
Christopher watched her alertly, puzzle pieces clicking into place. “What do you mean?”
“She was like I’d never seen her before. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, if she hadn’t confessed everything to me. As if she were proud. As if she’d done nothing wrong.” Tears had begun to roll down her cheeks and drip from her chin, but Mena couldn’t seem to let go of Farah’s hands long enough to reach for the handkerchief in her lap. “She made those poor boys compete with each other. She kept telling them she’d pick one of them to be the heir to the Thurston title and fortune, and that she’d get rid of the rest.”
A mute sense of horror filled the room. Even Christopher felt it.
“Until about five years ago, Lord Thurston was a notorious reprobate. These children, these boys, they were all his … illegitimate sons by his numerous mistresses.” Mena sent all of them a searching look. “Don’t you see, Lord and Lady Northwalk, Mr. Argent, she killed their mothers. Not with her own hands, but she hired it done and took those poor children into her depraved captivity.”
Christopher remembered back to the day he’d lifted the gate key from Lady Thurston’s pocket. Fenwick’s guts had already been spilled by the time he’d arrived. Had Katherine Fenwick already known what Dorshaw was doing to her husband when she strolled so blithely down the sunny streets of St. James’s?
“Did Lady Thurston order the murder of her husband, as well?” he asked bluntly.
Mena paused, her gaze dropping to her lap. “A cruel and unfaithful husband sometimes seems an impossible thing to bear, Mr. Argent,” she said quietly, indicating what he’d already suspected. That her wounds were inflicted by her own husband, Gordon St. Vincent. “If Lord Thurston was her only victim, I might not have come here—” Her voice broke. “But those children. They were so frightened. I pretended to be in agreement with her and came straight back to London a week past. I would have gone to the police sooner but I was—detained by my husband.” She touched the side of her healing nose gingerly.
“So you’ve told Chief Inspector Morley this, Lady Benchley?” Dorian asked carefully.
She nodded, more tears sliding from her chin into her lap. “The St. Vincents … they’re going to find out that it was I who told. There will be—consequences. But I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to those boys. Not if I could stop it.”
“You’re so very brave, Mena.” Farah rubbed her back consolingly. “That was so well done of you. And we will of course help you in any way we can.”
“Forgive me, Lady Benchley.” Blackwell leaned toward her. “But if Scotland Yard is handling this, it’s still unclear as to why you’ve brought the affair to us.”
“The chief inspector sent me here with explicit instructions to tell you everything I confessed to him. He sent men to Essex after the missing boys. Katherine told me that they yet remain unharmed.” Mena blinked up at Argent and Blackwell, the uncommon shade of her eyes intensified by her tears. “She told me this in person, because she’s returned this very morning to London.”
A stab of warning brought Christopher to his feet.
“She said she has one more boy to obtain. One she thought had escaped her. The one Thurston had chosen, himself, for his heir.” Mena continued on a trembling breath. “I’m afraid that means she has one more of Fenwick’s mistresses to kill.”
“Millie.” Argent almost launched himself over the table at her. Why had she wasted so much time telling the entire infernal story when the most important part was that Millie could be in danger?
“I wasn’t certain if it was Miss LeCour and her son or not. Though after Sir Morley told me to come here I began to suspect—”
“Where is Lady Thurston now?” he demanded.
Mena flinched. “S-she was at our home with my husband when I sneaked away. I hired a carriage to Scotland Yard and then here, but that was more than an hour past.”
“I have to get to the theater.” Though he flew out of the house, Christopher’s feet felt like lead weights. He couldn’t get there fast enough. Bellowing for a horse, he had to keep reminding himself that he couldn’t bloody well run all the way to Bow Street and get there in time.
Once reins appeared in his hand, he leaped astride and kicked the animal into a run.
He didn’t know which assassin Lady Thurston would have hired now that Dorshaw was dead, but he would drain every last drop of blood from the man’s body. Then he’d go to work on the bitch, herself.
“Hold on, Millie.” He breathed into the bitter night wind. “I’m coming for you.”
