Millie knew she’d had a touch too much to drink when she had to wonder to herself if the carriage she’d hired to take her the scant distance from Covent Garden to Drury Lane had, indeed, stopped. Because the world still rocked ever so slightly.
She wasn’t one to imbibe overmuch, but tonight was a special occasion.
Tonight she’d been abandoned.
Well, of course she’d had a splendid opening night at Covent Garden. There was that. But also, she’d had the most sensual, romantic moment of her entire life and then … nothing.
Bentley Drummle. What a stupid name. She was certain now that she’d heard it before, and not under the best of circumstances.
“Here you are, Miss LeCour.” The driver opened the door and cold November air blasted her with sobering force. “Watch your step, now.”
Millie took his offered hand and gathered her skirts before stepping down onto the street with a shiver. She overpaid the driver, Higgins was his name, a kind rather jowly man with a lovely top hat and bow tie. She thought at least he might be able to take the rest of the morning off and catch what few hours of sleep he could before the sun came up over the London rooftops.
She hiccupped and shuffled to her door.
Bentley Drummle. What a sod. She’d not give the man another thought. She was supposed to be celebrating her unbridled success and good fortune. Perhaps the man was sent by the powers that be to humble her on the night where her fame climbed to its greatest pinnacle yet. To remind her that in this world, she could still be treated like a common gutter slut.
God knew she’d acted like one with him.
Not only that, she’d been brought even lower by his rejection. Lord, but she was too romantic. Too willing. Too …
Lonely.
“Do you need help inside, Miss LeCour?” the driver asked with the careful voice reserved for drunks, invalids, and little children.
“No, thank you, Higgins.” With a turn of her key, she lurched inside and slammed the door on the evening.
Her apartments were not spacious, but for a suite in the middle of the city, they were downright palatial. As Millie stepped into the entry that served as a parlor, she let the warm glow of the welcoming fire melt her until she felt as though her bones were made of dough.
She loved this place. Draped in imported silks from the Orient, furnished with everything from Indian cushions to Louis the XIV antiques and bedecked with Turkish tassels, it paid homage to every example on the color wheel, and still maintained a balance between cozy and opulent.
“Millie, me love, you’re ’ome!” Millie found herself clutched to the plump bosom of Mrs. Beatrice Brimtree, her housekeeper. “An’ you’re as frozen as a snowman! Get in ’ere and take off your cloak. I drew ye a bath when they sent word that the celebration was beginning to thin.”
If either of them resembled a snowman, it was Mrs. Brimtree. Her round, pillowy breasts rested neatly on a figure that would never require a bustle to be fashionable. Every bit of the woman from her cheeks to her backside bounced as she walked, much to the delight of her ever-randy husband, George, who still called her “young lady” after twenty years of marriage.
“It’s after two in the morning, Bea, you shouldn’t have stayed up to wait for me.” Millie fought the woman over her cloak until she somehow became stuck in the folds and had to stand patiently like a child while Mrs. Brimtree uncoiled her.
“Nonsense, I couldn’t sleep until I ’eard all about your debut as the star of the London stage.” With a wrinkled nose, her housekeeper drew her toward her rooms at the back of the apartment, the carpet muffling their steps. “Lord, but you smell of gin and cigars and men who are up to no good.”
“As it so happens, I spent the after party much in the company of all three.” Millie giggled a bit, wishing the edge of bitterness hadn’t crept into the sound. Still, the night had been an incredible success, and through it all she’d been feeling as though her feet would never actually touch the ground.
The gin had helped reclaim her good mood, she suspected.
“I take it opening night was a success.”
“Oh, Bea, they called me back for three separate bows. Three!” Millie twirled in place while Mrs. Brimtree checked the temperature of the water in the deep copper tub and poured a bit of lavender oil into it. “You should see how many flowers are in my dressing room. It smells like a hothouse. It was so exhilarating that my heart still hasn’t slowed.”
And it had nothing to do with Bentley sodding Drummle and his unforgettable mouth.
“Is Jakub sleeping?” Millie asked, hoping to free her mind from the velvet chains of the memory.
“Sweet lad only made it to ’alf past one afore nodding off in your bed. ’E wanted to congratulate you ’imself and ’e drew you in your costume and everything.”
That familiar sense of warmth and pride lifted Millie’s lips into an irrepressible smile as she floated from her washroom to her adjoining bedchamber. Lifting the curtains back from the poster bed, she crawled in and nuzzled the downy cheek of the creature she loved most in this world. Her greatest joy and her most terrible secret.
“Mój Syn?” My son?
Jakub’s hair, the color of wet sand, tickled her nose when he lifted his head.
Millie pulled her ridiculously fluffy blankets over him, almost causing his thin body to disappear in the mountain of down-stuffed comfort. “I’m home, kochanie.” She used the nickname she’d called him since he was a child. The word for darling in their native Poland.
“I waited up for you,” he mumbled.
“I can see that.” Smiling, Millie pushed a lock of hair from his forehead in hopes of seeing his soft doe eyes, but they remained closed. Her sweet boy was locked in that magical place at the surface of sleep where he’d sink back into the depths as soon as she released him to do so.
“You smell.” He wrinkled his nose.
Her smile became a tender laugh as she kissed the forehead she’d just uncovered and rolled off the cavernous bed. “I’m going to bathe and then I’ll come carry you to bed.”
“I’ll be awake,” he insisted.
By the time Millie had gathered a silk wrapper from her wardrobe he’d already fallen into a slack-jawed slumber.
As she watched him, exhaustion began to chase alcohol and excitement from her veins and replace it with weariness. Better finish that bath while she was still able.
Mrs. Brimtree laid out a towel, her imported Parisian soaps, and the scented almond oil that she liked to use to detangle her hair and rub on her skin to keep it soft.
“Go up to George, Beatrice, you know he doesn’t like to sleep without you. I’m too spent to be much company tonight. I’ll tell you all about it over breakfast and I promise I’ll be much more interesting then.”
“All right, dearie.” Beatrice bustled around a moment longer, lighting another lantern and smoothing her wrapper and nightgown where they draped over a screen. “You’re right about my George, of course. ’E’s such a love. Drinks too much and curses too often, but I adore him for all of that.”
“Well, give him this for me.” Millie kissed the lady on her flushed cheek and began to untie her stays, which laced up the front, thus negating the need for help during costume changes.
Mrs. Brimtree hovered, her brow furrowing as Millie peeled her garments from her body. “Miss Millie, can I speak freely?”
“Of course.” Millie pulled pins from her heavy hair, her scalp switching from aching to itchy. Sweat caused by the stage lights and the close quarters of the after party had chilled and dried on her skin, and she looked forward to being clean with a lustful relish.
“It’s just that, you never bring a man ’ome.”
Millie froze with both hands locked in her hair, the statement astonishing her into stillness. If Mrs. Brimtree knew how close she’d come to bringing one home tonight. If she knew the manner in which she’d conducted herself. The woman would bundle her back up and ship her off to church.
“I have Jakub,” she said gently. “It wouldn’t be seemly.” Mr. and Mrs. George and Beatrice Brimtree had been her butler and housekeeper for almost two years now, as she’d been able to afford them, but in such a short time, they’d become like family. Though they were a couple deeply in love, they’d never before dared to remark on Millie’s solitude. What was it about tonight that she must be constantly reminded of her loneliness?
“It’s just that, women like you, wot have a mind of their own, and money besides, they tend to wait for the perfect gent to come along.”
Millie blinked, lowering her hands. “Do they?” she asked, feigning nonchalance as a familiar pang of loneliness stabbed her in the gut, where excitement and arousal had been only hours before.
“I worry all the time, that you spend yer nights acting out stories about ’eroes spouting sonnets, killing themselves in the name of love, or fighting off tyrants and monsters and saving the damsel. That man. That perfect ’ero, ’e’s not out there, but there are plenty of good’uns worth your time.”
Like who? Bentley Drummle? Lord, she was really terrible at keeping him out of her thoughts. The brigand. The ne’er-do-well. She should have gone with her first impression of him.
Beatrice didn’t look her in the eyes as she spoke, and Millie thought her hesitance and concern was endearing. “You sometimes have to make allowances for them. For example, maybe ’e’s ’ansom, but smokes like a chimney. Or maybe ’e’s kind, but milk gives ’im the brimstone winds. Or say ’e’s rich, but ’as a few bad teeth.”
“Are you saying you think I’m a snob?”
The fact that Mrs. Brimtree didn’t deny it hurt worse than Millie thought it would have.
“Sometimes, accepting a man just as ’e is, flaws and everything, chases the loneliness away, and over time those edges dull. If ’e feels like you love ’im for all that, ’e’s more likely to be loving you still when your youth, fame, and beauty ’ave gone the way of things.”
“I’m not lonely,” Millie lied. “I have Jakub.”
“Inn’t right that the boy ’as no father. And in no time, ’e’ll grow up and ’ave a family of ’is own. And then where will you be?”
Millie turned away from Mrs. Brimtree, the conversation making her feel more exposed than taking off her clothing. “Trust me, it’s better this way.” Jakub needed more protection than most boys, all because of his mother’s terrible secret.
“But—”
“Good night, Beatrice,” Millie said firmly. “Please don’t forget to give my love to George.”
A quiet moment ticked by, then Millie moved to the tub.
“Yes, mum.”
Millie waited for the door to click before she stepped over the rim of the copper tub and sank into its depths with a breathy sigh. Bowing to her public on that stage, she’d thought nothing could cast a pall on this brilliant night. The most wonderful and affirming of her life thus far.
She’d been wrong.
Beatrice only called her “mum” when she was displeased about something. The woman thought she was giving kind advice, but she didn’t know how dangerous the world was out there for her and Jakub. That allowing just any man into her life would shatter the safety and comfort that she’d created for them.
Jakub deserved to be safe and grow up without fear. He deserved the best she could give him. Better than her parents and brothers had done for her. Better than the rakes and noblemen who chased her skirts, but not her heart.
And better than Bentley Drummle.
Damn it. How was it that he wormed his way into her thoughts every ten seconds? It was the paradox of his face. Had to be. Warm skin, fair and yet darker than his red hair and eyes warranted. Like he’d lived in sunnier climes. There were other contradictions she’d experienced firsthand A hot tongue. Cold eyes. Rough hands. Gentle fingers. Hard mouth. Soft lips.
Millie cursed, splashed the water, and cursed again, this time in Polish.
Forget about men. She had a career to build. A son to raise. And for now, for him, she’d just have to content herself with her onstage heroes, because she knew that Mrs. Brimtree was right about one thing.
They did not exist out here in the real world.
* * *
Christopher Argent’s hands ached with cold. He’d scaled a wrought-iron gate and climbed the stone stanchion to the lower ledge of Millie LeCour’s apartments. His fitted waistcoat had hindered his reach, so he’d abandoned it, leaving it hanging from one of the many tall iron points of the gate. The wind snaked through the narrow corridor of Drury Lane and stung his flesh through his shirtsleeves like the lash of a whip. In fact, the similarities of the pain were uncanny. Except, he supposed, a whip was a more localized pain, and the chill of the wind could be felt over his entire flesh. Regardless, the residual burn was remarkably comparable in both cases.
The empty street had an apocalyptic quietude that appealed to him. A cold like this, one that left crystalline swirls of frost over the whole of the city, drove even the stoutest of night stalkers and criminals indoors.
Argent was used to the cold. Was born to it and honed from it. He only had to worry about it when it affected his physical performance.
Like now, when he could sense the joints in his hands stiffening with each passing moment. Galvanized, he judged the length of distance to the second story with a few hurried calculations, and crouched to leap.
The coarse brick of the ledge bit into his fingertips, but he ground his teeth together and used all the honed strength in his arms and back to pull his chin above the ledge. Once his upper body was secure, he checked to see that no one was looking out of the window toward the street.
The soft glow of a lantern pierced the night, but from his precarious vantage, he could tell he wasn’t in danger of being detected as a Japanese screen protected the window from view even though the drapes were open.
With a grunt, he swung his leg up and found purchase enough to lift the rest of his bulk and stood, turning so his back was against the narrow red brick wall between two arched windows.
He’d conquered walls with thinner ledges, but not many.
Tucking his hands beneath his arms to warm them, he strained his neck to peer into the window. The Japanese screen about four paces inside consisted of three panels skewed into diagonal sides so they could stand upright. A panel depicting an Asian landscape blocked his view.
Argent could only see the gleam of a copper tub through a slivered crack in the bent screen. Steam rose above its rim, so he waited a few minutes to make sure no one was submerged.
The time he spent waiting unsettled him. If nothing else, he was a patient man. His profession was about timing. The time it took to enter someone’s home. The time it took for a mark to strike out, pass out, or bleed out. How long it would take him to make his escape. Or, most importantly, how long it took his clients to make their payments. So taking the time to decipher whether Millicent LeCour’s head would appear above the bathwater took on a distinctly anticipatory edge.
Argent blinked. And just what did he anticipate? He couldn’t say. In fact, he couldn’t remember anticipating much of anything before. And so his brain wouldn’t dare answer the question.
But his body did.
His lips throbbed with the exquisite memory of her mouth pressed against them. His skin felt warm, the heat radiating out from his quickening blood. His cravat became tight, his clothing binding. Especially his trousers. His lungs seemed to need more room than his ribs were willing to give, and suddenly it was impossible not to fog the window with his overheated breath.
There it was again. Desire. A thing as foreign to him as were warmth and kindness.
He wanted Millie LeCour with an intensity he’d never before felt.
But … why? He’d fucked plenty of women in his lifetime. Willing, trained, and uncomplicated.
Disposable.
Why her? Why now?
What was it about the actress that entranced and aroused him? What about her was different from everyone else?
His unerring eye for detail was a greatly relied upon attribute. Once his notice touched something, it was calculated, analyzed, prioritized, and then shelved in its correct location. Things, people, places, events, they were all part of the landscape and each held an equal measure of curiosity and emotional ambiguity. He thought the same of a lovely clock as he did about a lovely woman. They were both curious and complicated with cogs and bits that took a man’s intense scrutiny and precision to understand. Both of them served a useful function in the world.
And both were easily broken.
But for some perplexing reason, Millie LeCour refused to be shelved or classified. Her details were so … they were too … bemusing? Uncommon? Curious?
After his first attempt at her life had been thwarted, primarily by that thoroughly unexpected kiss, Argent had stalked her all night, suffused with fascination. How had she manipulated him with something as simple as a kiss? Why had he paused when a quick snap of her lovely neck would have uncomplicated things immensely? How had she recovered so quickly from their encounter when he, the man hired to snuff out her life, still itched with the memory of her downy skin beneath his hands?
A slew of noble rakes and roguish upstarts had vied for a word with her all night, for a touch, a dance, or a smile. And she’d given of them freely. Flitting from one admirer to the next like a coy butterfly, ever avoiding the net.
She was an expert at this subterfuge, he realized. At making every person in her scope feel as though they were singular to her, all the while treating them with abject equality. She never lingered for too long. Never said too much. Never touched more than was appropriate.
Except for him. Among her entire bevy of admirers, some handsome, others titled, and rich, she’d allowed him to lure her into the darkness. Allowed his hands to sample her soft flesh and softer lips. Why him? What draw had he over her that those others didn’t?
While she radiated warmth, each move was as calculated as his own. She was as unattainable as a beloved goddess. Remote as a tropical island.
And he was as dark and cold as the denizens of hell. Had to be. So whatever this mothlike fascination he had with her light and warmth, it was past time he snuff it out and return to the darkness that was his domain.
Millie LeCour had to die.
Tonight.
His cold musings had taken too long. Argent surmised that if anyone was in the tub, and they stayed below water that long, they’d be dead. So either way he could make his move.
Unsheathing a long, thin dagger from his boot, he shimmied it between the crack in the windows and ran it up the middle softly until he felt it brush against the latch. Angling it forward, he felt it give and pulled the window out. Turning his body sideways, he slid into the room and stepped down onto the flat of his foot, lowering his bulk onto the washroom carpet. Simultaneously, he pulled the window mostly closed and resheathed his knife. One of the many secrets to a successful assassination was economy of movement.
Now that he was inside, humid, aromatic warmth suffused his lungs and spread a bewildering heat along his frigid limbs. His shirt, made of the finest, softest linen, abraded his tingling nerves.
It would have been disturbing, if he was capable of being disturbed.
Everything about this contract had been a little skewed from the very beginning, and the need to have it done with was becoming more and more imperative.
Two doors mirrored each other in the southwest corner of the room. One on the west wall stood open, while its companion on the south wall was latched shut. Through dim lamps flickering on the other side of the open door, Argent could see a hallway stretching toward a parlor. Three doors stood closed in the hallway, two on the south wall, and one on the north. Argent guessed that the southern doors belonged to bedrooms, and the northern door to the stairs leading to the top floor.
Her staff lived up there. A married couple. Middle-aged, overweight, and slow moving. They wouldn’t be a problem.
A floorboard creaked in a distant room, having as much effect on the silence as a cannon blast. Argent ducked behind the silk screen, his ears straining for more noise.
A soft hum. A whisper. But nothing close.
Argent stood, again using the flats of his feet to walk lightly across the room and ensconce himself behind the hallway door.
This room was a small annex to a master suite. Many women would use it for a salon, or for entertaining visitors. Millie LeCour had decorated hers with dress mannequins, costumes, gowns, wigs, memorabilia, the large copper tub, obviously, and a vanity with a confounding amount of bottles and baubles strewn across every possible surface.
Argent was glad that only the lone oil lamp flickered in the room—which he’d dimmed further on his way to his current hiding spot—or the glitter and brilliance of it all would surely have blinded him.
After a few eternal minutes, a hall door opened and closed and the shuffle of feminine footsteps angled in his direction.
His timing must be flawless. One strike. One quick, decisive turn of the neck upon a gentle exhale.
And she’d be gone.
His chest constricted, but he ruthlessly ignored it, taking a few centering breaths.
He was like water, ready for death to flow from his hands.
Her scent drifted into the room before she did. Vanilla and lavender, like the heady, fragrant oils from the bath. A flash of an ebony braid against a pale nightgown crossed the thin thread of light coming from the crack created by the door hinges. Five more steps and she’d turn the corner of the door and be within his reach. Three more heartbeats. Two. One.
He lunged for her, reaching for her throat. One twist. One snap. He’d done it dozens of times. Hundreds.
But … his hands. They weren’t obeying. Instead of twisting they were grasping. Instead of dropping they were pulling. Instead of killing, they were—holding?
What?
She struggled against him, a shocked cry tearing from her as he gripped her tightly to him from behind. Perplexed as he was, he subdued her easily, locking her arms to her sides with one arm and banding his other beneath her throat. He tried not to notice how lush and soft she felt. How clean and sweet-smelling she was, or how her round backside pressed intimately against his thigh.
He could feel her ribs inflate with a deep breath, readying for a scream.
“Make a noise and I slaughter whoever else comes through that door,” he threatened in a low voice. “I don’t leave witnesses.”
Her lungs deflated in a quiet whimper.
Argent did his best to analyze the situation, but something in his mind was refusing to work. He struggled to search his subconscious for a solution to the problem he’d just created for himself. This lovely, soft creature was trembling in his arms, toying with his senses and muddling his thoughts.
What in the bloody hell did he do now?
She still hadn’t seen him, he could tighten the arm about her neck and she’d be out in a matter of seconds. The job would be finished with only this minor hiccup.
You could take her first, right here on the plush carpets. The soulless evil that had been with him for fifteen years whispered the vile thought in his ear. Be the last to taste her.
Argent squeezed his eyes shut against the idea. Never. He’d taken lives, but he’d never in his entire existence considered taking what a woman hadn’t offered him freely.
Or charged him for.
He clenched his teeth in helpless frustration as his cock swelled against her back.
What was happening to him? What was she doing to him?
The woman whimpered again, a powerful tremor of fear coursing down her body as her breath sped to short bursts of terror.
Argent didn’t want her to be afraid. Didn’t want to be doing this to her. He wanted those whimpers to stop. His arm tightened on her throat slightly. No matter what she’d done, a woman didn’t deserve to be terrorized. Not by an unfeeling killer like him. So why couldn’t he just squeeze? Why wasn’t she dead yet?
Because earlier her dark eyes had shimmered with life. Her smile had held the kind of joy that life tended to smother out of most adults. Because … though he was a godless man, something whispered to him from the ether that he didn’t have the right to take such light from the world.
Because she’d kissed him, and in this moment he had to admit that he’d never again be the same. She’d awakened something he’d thought he’d live without.
A hallway door opened. “Mama?” a small voice called into the darkness.
They both froze.
The hallway floor creaked twice with little steps. One more time and the boy would be moments from discovering them.
Fuck.
“Please,” she breathed, softer even than a desperate whisper. “Do what you want with me, but—please—don’t hurt my son.”
