The Hunter (Victorian Rebels Book 2)
The Hunter: Chapter 24

It was certainly surreal to enjoy delicious tea in such an elegant parlor when one’s lover was off killing your child’s father somewhere.

Millie found it impossible to focus on the lovely Lady Northwalk’s conversation, though she did try to smile into the woman’s disarming gray eyes and notice how well they matched the silver of her finely crafted chair.

People died every day, didn’t they? Someone was murdered in the city all the time. Innocent people, young people, the elderly, the helpless, they were all occasional victims. And people like her knew about it, felt sorry for it, and went about their own lives. Not because they were heartless, but because they didn’t know what else to do.

So why was she obsessing about the death of a man who’d ordered her own murder? Who posed a threat to her son? To his own son. It made no sense, and yet she couldn’t escape this impending dread. This feeling that something very wrong was about to occur. She knew a crime was even now being committed, that someone who woke this morning and dressed and maybe enjoyed jam with his toast wouldn’t wake tomorrow to do so again.

Was this vengeance, murder, or justice? Were they certain it was Lord Thurston who’d lured Agnes to her death? Of course it was, who else could it be? Who else would have profited from Jakub’s mother’s disappearance? His father. The man who stood to lose everything, including his barren wife’s entire fortune, were anyone to replace out. He had to be disposed of, didn’t he? It was the only way she could ensure Jakub’s safety. She’d sell her soul to the devil for that boy.

And maybe, by sitting in this lovely room the color of Christopher’s eyes, she was signing the contract in blood.

So be it, she thought, listening to the peals of laughter filtering from down the hall where Jakub entertained the Blackwells’ delighted toddler with their nanny, a bawdy woman named Gemma.

This whole thing had begun in blood. The moment Chief Inspector Morley had returned her glove, stained with Agnes’s blood, and recited the horror of her dearest friend’s death, Millie must have known the bloodshed was not over. For years she’d been waiting, wondering if the man who’d left Agnes’s womb on the cobbles of London would return for her.

Or for her son.

She’d taken steps to make certain he wouldn’t, done what she’d had to do. Every step culminating in this arrangement with Christopher Argent. That cold, tortured, beautiful, lethal …

… Blind, irritating, stupid man.

He’d been silent to the point of infuriating when he’d scooped her and Jakub into his carriage after their late breakfast and deposited them at the Blackwells’ Mayfair mansion with terse instructions not to leave Dorian Blackwell’s sight. Of course, the Earl and Countess Northwalk had been delightfully accommodating, but the intensity of the morning, and the life-altering events of the previous night, had left Millie feeling drained and irritable. Helpless, and maybe a little bit rejected. This was all so new to her, this ledge upon which she balanced. One wrong move, one bad decision, and her heart could be broken or lost … and so could her life.

“Miss LeCour … Millie, are you all right?” Farah held the teapot poised in the air, her delicate features a picture of patience and concern.

“I’m sorry.” Millie summoned a brilliant smile. “What were you saying?”

“I was asking if I could refresh your tea.”

“Please.” Holding out her cup, she added a dash of genuine apology to her voice. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I suppose I’m still having a hard time believing my luck. I never imagined I’d be a guest of the illustrious Lord and Lady Northwalk.”

Farah, dressed in lavender and lace, her hair and eyes as stunningly light as Millie’s were dark, sent her a perceptive glace from beneath pale lashes. “Don’t you mean the infamous Lord and Lady Northwalk?”

“I prefer notorious.” A shadow stirred from the giant leather chair that had been pulled next to the fire, whereby Dorian Blackwell, the notorious Blackheart of Ben More, effectively hid his features behind a book.

Millie wondered if he held the book that close to spare her his startling visage, or because he could only read out of his one good eye. Millie had heard he lost the use of his other one in the Underworld War, and that it had lost all pigment, but the earl was now wearing an eye patch, and she had a hard time telling if she was disappointed or relieved. Even with the patch, Blackwell’s features were frightening enough. His one good eye seemed to ritualistically and ruthlessly assess and calculate. She felt as though only after a few moments in his company, he knew all her secrets, understood her weaknesses, and could dismantle her body and mind if he had the notion. He was large and dark as the devil and just as handsome, or would be if not for the permanently sardonic expression.

That all changed when he looked at his astonishingly angelic wife. Millie had liked Lady Northwalk immediately, and after watching her interact with her adoring, almost obsessive husband, all suspicion about Farah’s involvement with Christopher dissipated like the smoke of a snuffed candle.

“Yes, my love, you’ve succeeded in making yourself notorious, haven’t you?” she teased. Farah set the teapot down and offered Millie the sugar. “It’s so amusing that you should express your sweet sentiment, because I was only just examining my good fortune at hosting the one and only Millie LeCour, London’s darling of the stage.” She took a dainty sip. “Won’t all of society be green with envy when I tell them I had your exclusive company to tea?”

Millie beamed at her, then let her smile die in slow increments. “I only wish … that we’d become acquainted under different … better circumstances.”

“As do I.” Farah’s small, compassionate smile was artlessly genuine. She’d have made a terrible actress, and that endeared her to Millie quite a bit. “But I hope you feel safe and comfortable here, until Argent comes to tell us you and your lovely son are out of danger and takes you back with him.”

Millie stared down into her tea, her other gloved hand squeezing into a fist, mirroring the action of her heart. “I don’t think he’ll take me back with him. Once he … once everything is all said and done I think our … arrangement will be over. Our contract settled.”

The heart that felt strangled by a squeezing fist now dropped like a lead weight.

Gently, Farah set her teacup down and regarded her with the same excessive curiosity she had when she’d seen Millie and Jakub for the first time. “How long have you had an … arrangement with Argent?” Her arrested expression belied the casualness of her tone.

“Farah,” Dorian rumbled.

“Oh, I don’t mean to pry,” Farah rushed. “It’s only that I’ve known Argent for a few years now and I must admit this is unprecedented. He must be very fond of you and your son.”

Lord Northwalk turned his page with a forceful gesture and cleared his throat.

“I don’t mind the question,” Millie murmured. “I’ve only known Chr—Mr. Argent several days.” Though it did seem like a lifetime. Or perhaps the last time she felt as though she knew herself was a lifetime ago.

“He is handsome, isn’t he?” Farah asked conspiratorially. “And, despite being a bit phlegmatic, he really is charming at times.”

“As charming as a typhus epidemic,” Millie quipped into her teacup.

Blackwell’s book seemed to give a strangled snort.

“Oh dear.” Farah’s golden brows, a touch more golden than her pale hair, drew together. “Are you cross with him?”

“Of course she’s cross with him,” said the book. “He’s an idiot.”

“Are you reading, or having this conversation with us?” Farah asked her husband.

“I’m reading.”

“Then I’ll thank you not to slander your friend in front of his … his…” Farah stalled, and Millie wished she could help the woman. She didn’t know what she was to Argent, either. Didn’t know if there was a word for it, exactly. And all the ones that sprang to mind were distasteful at best and descended into criminal.

“Argent doesn’t have friends,” Dorian muttered. “He has people he’d replace it a little more distasteful to kill.”

“He’s saved your life more than once,” Lady Northwalk pointed out. And, Millie remembered, Dorian had been there that terrible night to help remove the tar from Christopher’s arm.

“Only because I returned the favor and/or I paid him a great deal of money.”

“Oh tosh.” Farah turned back to Millie. “Ignore him, he’s an incurable grump today. Those two would die for each other and neither of them have the emotional capacity to admit it.”

The man behind the book fell silent and Millie found that more telling than a confession. Though she had the impression that if Dorian Blackwell were to truly wake up grumpy, they’d replace a few more bodies floating in the Thames than usual.

“Christopher is an idiot,” Millie agreed with a little more vehemence than she’d intended.

Farah scooted to the edge of her chair, managing to make even that movement seem dainty and graceful. “Millie, dear, has he been cruel to you?”

“If you don’t count the three assassination attempts, then no.”

“Three?” The book snapped shut. Millie found herself the sole focus of Dorian Blackwell’s dark, unsettling attention. He studied her for a long moment, disassembling her and examining her for spare parts. Firelight glinted off hair as black as her own, the rest of him bathed in the waning light of the fading afternoon still spilling in from the open drapes.

Millie met his stare with an unflinching one of her own. She was an actress, and if she knew a thing about her craft, it was to hide the nerves she battled. It was not wise to show weakness to a man like the Blackheart of Ben More.

“Did you know, Miss LeCour, that Christopher Argent has never attempted an assassination in his life?” He delivered his words with the carelessness of a nobleman, but they landed with a mountain of meaning. “Once he marks a victim, their every breath is borrowed from a miracle. He’s gone into a building full of the deadliest men, and been the only one to emerge. Christopher Argent does not attempt assassination. He’s mastered it.” Unfolding his tall, powerful frame from his chair, he prowled to the dainty jewel-blue couch across from her, identical to the one upon which she sat, and claimed it. “And yet, here you are.”

Millie squirmed beneath his stare. Up close, Dorian Blackwell was more than unsettling, he was a force of nature. A force to be reckoned with.

“I think Argent is a secret romantic,” Farah said, looking inordinately pleased with herself.

Millie and Dorian both turned to stare at Farah as though she’d lost her mind.

“Or have you forgotten, dear husband.” Lady Northwalk smiled at Dorian as though she’d made a joke. “That Argent once held my own contract in his hands, and instead of collecting on it, he turned it over to you.”

Blackwell’s eye narrowed. “That wasn’t romanticism, that was self-preservation. He knew that if he didn’t prevent your death I’d have waged a battle that would have made Waterloo look like a mere squabble between spoiled children.”

Farah reached for Dorian, putting an ungloved hand over his. He looked down at it for a moment and what Millie saw in that look caused her to blink back emotion. There was more deferential veneration in Dorian Blackwell’s world for the slim woman’s pale hand than a zealot had for his god. How would it be, to be loved like that?

“He could have killed me and been rid of me and you’d have been none the wiser,” Farah pointed out.

“I would have known,” Dorian insisted.

“My point is, I believe Argent wanted us to replace each other.” She tightened her hold on Blackwell. “And the point my husband is trying to make is that if he left you alive, if he took it upon himself to protect you, then you must be very special to him, indeed.”

Millie could never have admitted this to polite society, but there was something that told her these two would understand the nature of their arrangement. “I paid him for his protection,” she admitted. “He wanted me, and I … gave myself to him.”

Dorian shook his head. “He’s wanted things in the past. Women, included. And he’s paid for them or gone without. You. You are something else. And he is an idiot.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Farah queried.

“Because, from the way you and Argent were acting when he brought you here, I surmised that she likely offered him her heart, and he quickly and thoroughly broke it.”

Millie studied the floor, again impressed by how perfectly it would have matched Christopher’s eyes. “Not broken, Lord Northwalk, but bruised,” she confessed.

“Do you know about the circumstances of his birth?” Farah asked.

“Yes.”

Dorian’s brows lifted. “Are you aware of how his mother died?”

“I am.”

“And you obviously know about his … vocation.” Lady Northwalk tapped a tiny divot in her chin with the finger of her free hand.

“I’ve seen his scars,” Millie told them. “I realize what he’s done and what he’s capable of doing. He thinks he is damned, but … I still believe he’s worth redeeming. I’m willing to try, but he … he…” Millie swiped at a stray tear of hurt and frustration and wondered miserably if it wasn’t for the best. She could only give him her heart if he’d hold out his hand to take it. She wasn’t the kind of woman to toss it to someone who didn’t want it.

“Like I said…” Dorian kissed his wife’s hand and flipped open his book. “An idiot.”

Farah nodded, but leaned across to Millie and touched her knee. “Men like Argent … like…” She motioned to her distracted husband with darting eyes. “They need—”

“Miss Farah, Miss LeCour?” The nanny, a skinny pale woman with frizzy, ash-colored hair, rushed into the parlor, bony hands wringing her white apron. “’Ave you seen yer boy?”

Millie shot to her feet, followed by the earl and countess, a burning coal of dread ripping through her chest as though she’d taken it from the fire and swallowed it whole. “I thought he was with you,” she croaked.

“’E was, miss, ’e was, but I was changing Faye’s nappy and ’e begged off to the loo.” The woman, Gemma was her name, went impossibly paler, her big dirty brown eyes completely ringed with white. “I thought ’e’s gone too long, so I went about lookin’ for ’im, when ’e didn’t answer, I thought ’e came lookin’ for you.”

Icy fingers of dread squeezed all the air from Millie’s lungs. She turned to Blackwell. “Could anyone have gotten in? Could he have been taken?”

Blackwell strode to the door. “Does he have a penchant for hiding?”

Millie shook her head, the room spinning with the movement. “Not at all.”

“I’ll check the second floor, but the likelihood of anyone breaking into my home is slim to none. I have a man on each story and multiple guards.”

The door chimed down the entry hall of the house and Millie launched herself past Blackwell, her hope flaring. It was just a mistake; he’d been playing in the yard. She’d be so stern with him, so angry, but she’d kiss his precious face first.

Yanking the door open, she found a rough-looking man in a nice suit standing wringing his hat much in the same way as Gemma had. “’Ello,” he said in an accent that belonged nowhere close to the fine streets of Mayfair. He addressed his greeting above her head, so Millie knew Blackwell stood directly behind her.

“I don’t know if this is important or not, but Chappy seen a boy head down the street and head into the park. ’E thought the boy was carrying a knife ’alf his size, and up to no good. Did ’e come from this house?”

Millie seized the man. “Did he have on a blue jacket?”

“I fink so.”

Dorian said a few things Millie had never heard before and pulled her back into the house, thrusting her toward Farah. “I’m going to the park to look for him. I’ll take Harker here and Murdoch. You stay and lock the door. I’m leaving Mathias and Worden with you.”

“Sod off,” Millie hissed. “That’s my son and I’m going with you. Thurston is likely already taken care of, and with him gone I’m out of danger. But if Jakub is in Hyde Park by himself, anything could happen.” What on earth could Jakub have been thinking? He was such an obedient boy. It was so unlike him to go anywhere without telling her first.

Dorian shook his head. “Argent said—”

“We just agreed Argent is an idiot.” Millie threw his words back at him. “And so are you if you think you’ll stop me.”

Dorian glanced back at his wife, who was bouncing a fussy toddler on her hip and nodding to him. “Fine, but stay close.”

* * *

To assassinate someone during the day took more finesse than under cover of night. Christopher Argent stood in his casual suit coat next to Lord Thruston’s hedgerow at St. James’s and stifled a yawn. To maintain optimal conditioning, he generally kept strict sleep and training schedules. Last night had changed everything.

In every possible way.

Patience was a virtue to most, and a necessity to him. Today, patience was something he would have murdered for.

Literally.

Something was wrong. He wasn’t himself. In fact, he could feel his sense of self slipping through his fingers like a mooring rope in a tempest. His shoulders gathered into a tense bunch, threatening to engulf his neck. His stomach twisted and roiled, refusing sustenance. His hands were twitchy, his lungs tight, and his legs restless. He wanted to sprint far enough to outrun the desire and desperation banked in his loins. He wanted to climb into a dark hole and hide from the memories that stalked him through the streets of London like a pack of starving beasts. A part of him wanted to wallow like a dog in the bed they’d shared, engulfing himself in her scent. The other half kept scrubbing his clammy palms on his trousers, as though he could rid them of the recollection of the texture of her creamy skin.

But they wouldn’t forget. He would never be rid of her. Millie LeCour would forever be a part of him whether he saw her again or not. She owned some sort of distinction that he couldn’t identify. She was his first, she was his only, and his every. However, those sentiments remained incomplete, didn’t they? He needed to fill in the missing bits, but he didn’t dare. Couldn’t possibly.

He’d been her first, her only lover. And he was going to walk away.

Because he was afraid. Afraid of her. Afraid of himself. Afraid to hope, to want, and …

To feel.

He was a fucking coward. He knew it, and now she knew it as well. He could see it in her eyes when he’d left her.

That’s why it was better not to look.

Spotting the slim, elegant form of Lady Thurston stepping from the manor gate, he noted which pocket she slipped the key into before Argent gave the woman his back and leaned casually against a stone post on the corner of the property. He used the time it took for her to brush behind him to check the windows of Thurston Place to make certain no one was looking. He counted her steps without glancing over his shoulder, taking into account her size, stride, and adjusting for any momentary pauses. With his honed senses, he could make out the moment she passed behind him, and he turned to trail her for less than a half minute, the time it took to get the precise angle within the foot traffic of St. James’s to pick her key from her pocket without her knowledge. That accomplished, he took three more steps, and then smoothly changed direction, back toward the mansion.

According to the man Argent had watching Lord Thurston since the night Argent had fought in the pit, he had learned that the earl was a creature of habit, which made his job easier. At half past five Thurston retired to his library to enjoy a cigar and a port or Scotch to relax until the evening meal. Now, at three quarters past the hour, he’d been given enough time to pour his drink and begin to enjoy his cigar.

The cigar he would never finish.

Glibly, as though he belonged there, Argent unlocked the gate and strode inside, immediately ducking into the long, late-afternoon shadow cast by the western wall and its hedgerow. Staying to the shade, he circled the gardens, using them for cover until he aligned with a clear path to the back trellis covered with thick ivy. The latticework threaded through to cover a large pipe and gutter that served to hold the wood structure in place. If he distributed his weight as evenly as he could, it should hold … If not, he knew how to minimize the damage of a fall and would have to enter on the main or lower floors, which was not optimal due to the amount of staff having their tea and meal below stairs before they had to bustle to feed the household.

The top floors would be deserted of staff, thus providing him with ample time and privacy in which to conduct his business.

A sprint and one-legged leap off the brick wall brought the trellis into reach, and Argent hung from one arm for a breathless moment. On a strong swing, his other arm caught the trellis and he climbed with a hand-over-hand ascent that became exponentially easier once his feet could do some of the work. At this angle, even so far up, he was effectively invisible from the street, but anyone who dared peek out the second- or third-story windows would catch him immediately.

With one last grunt of effort, he used his upper body strength to swing from the trellis to the third-floor balcony, the door of which, to his delight, stood ajar, gauzy fabric billowing in the gentle breeze.

Argent had hoped to use his garrote, to watch Jakub’s villainous father struggle against the cord as it cut into the skin of his throat, slowly filling his airway with blood and then horribly undoing the curl of wire within the man’s neck, pulling tight and snapping the spinal column in the process.

Argent filled his lungs with calming breath as his hands began to tremble. What was this? Rage? Anticipation? Perhaps an infuriating combination of the two? This was too dangerous, he shouldn’t want it this much.

“Your death will be slow and painful. I was paid extra for slow and painful.”

Argent froze. That melodic, conversational voice could only belong to one man. A man he knew he’d have to tangle with again, but not so soon.

Not today.

Drawing his long knife out of its sheath, Argent tucked it against his arm and slithered into the library.

The splash of entrails spilling onto the floor assaulted his senses. The sound, like the buckets of steaming water the shop owners splashed over the dirty cobbles every morning on the Strand, only a little muffled by the fine carpet. The sight, like the unraveling of a gruesome rope, or something a Scotsman wouldn’t mind eating. Then there was the smell.

Argent was no stranger to blood, and had no scruples about opening a vein, but the human body was home to all kinds of gore and offal, and he generally liked to keep those bits encased in their respective cavities.

Charles Dorshaw, though, had no such compunctions. He gleefully turned his victims inside out. Often whilst still alive, as David, Lord Thurston, currently was.

Blue eyes identical to Jakub’s magnified bespectacled ones peeled open as wide as their sockets allowed as Lord Thurston’s scream was muffled by his gag. He struggled uselessly against the bonds tying his naked body to his chair. When he spied Argent, he slumped back, his eyelids fluttering. They both knew he was already a dead man.

“The ironic thing is…” Dorshaw continued his one-sided conversation with his victim, as relaxed and unperturbed as a man at his club. “I prefer slow and painful, so it’s unnecessary to pay me extra as you would most—purveyors of my services.” Wiping the blood on the carpets, Dorshaw brought the clean blade’s flat, reflective surface to his face and brushed a lock of dark hair behind his ear with a bloody finger. Like a lady primping in a mirror. “But when a client wants their victim to suffer as badly as mine does, when they offer such a vulgar amount of money, it’s just bad business sense to turn it down, wouldn’t you agree, Argent?”

Argent said nothing, but closed the doors behind him, securing the exit. Dorshaw likely had caught his reflection in the blade. If Dorshaw took care of Fenwick, Argent’s own intended victim, he could rid the world of Dorshaw and call it a day’s work well done.

“You’re going to have to stop interrupting my kills like this, Argent, I’m beginning to think it’s personal.” Rising from his crouched position on the floor, Dorshaw faced him, tossing his knife back and forth from one elegant hand to the next.

“Did you escape or were you released?” Argent asked coldly.

Dorshaw scoffed, dropping a hand and leaning on Fenwick’s shoulder as if it were the back of a chair. “We both know I’ve never met a prison cell that could hold me for long. Whereas you, however, never seem to escape yours…”

“How the devil would you know—”

“Do you want to know what I replace curious about you turning up here?” Dorshaw queried, tapping the tip of his knife against his pursed lips.

“All I want to know is how long you’ll take to die.”

Dorshaw chuckled, his dark eyes dancing with the almost sensual thrill he felt at spilling blood combined with the heady mix of having an edge on the competition. “Oh come now, Argent, you’re known for your efficiency, not your cruelty. That’s my domain. Don’t leave me in suspense. I was given this contract against Lord Thurston exclusively. So that leaves me to wonder what you’re doing here and what your business is with Lord Thurston. We don’t have to be at odds, you know. I could make him tell you anything you wanted before he dies. We’ll call it … a professional courtesy.”

Argent paused, considering the consequences of stalling. “I want to know what he’s doing with the missing boys, if they’re still alive … and why he contracted against the lives of all those women.”

“Women like Millicent LeCour?” Dorshaw’s eyes flared, and Argent fought the urge to pluck them out. “Should we ask him? He’s bleeding faster than I’d expected, he doesn’t have much time.” With a cruel yank, Fenwick’s gag fell to his throat, and Dorshaw held the knife beneath the man’s jugular. “Tell my friend Argent just why those women are dying, and how they’re connected to you.” Bending his lean, graceful frame down toward his victim, Dorshaw stage-whispered in Fenwick’s ear, his lips almost touching the man’s honey-colored hair tipped with his own blood. “Tell him just who is responsible for all that killing, and who, upon occasion, has actually wielded the knife.”

“You?” Argent accused, pointing his own knife at Dorshaw.

Thurston’s pallor had begun to match the marble in his fireplace. Ivory-white rimmed with blue. Dry, bloodless lips parted, and panting breaths formed his last words. “Those boys … they’re … mine.” Tears streamed down his once robust face, the wrinkles becoming more prominent as the veins beneath the skin emptied. “Jakub … my son.”

“You don’t deserve to say his name, you disgusting swine.” Argent snarled at the dying man. “Now where are the rest? Are they alive?”

“I … don’t … know…” The man’s breath dissolved into painful, sobbing coughs.

“Oh dear.” Dorshaw tsked. “I feel as though we’ve run out of time.” He petted the earl’s hair like one would an ailing dog, then his eyes brightened as though he had an idea. “I suppose I could tell you, as I know where they are, and if they are dead or alive, as I collected on half the contracts, myself.”

“Where?” Argent demanded. Thinking of Millie, of Jakub, of all the boys lost and never found, or locked away and not released until it was too late. “Where are they?”

“I said I could tell you, but I don’t think I will. You were unforgivably rude last time we met, and that doesn’t foster feelings of good will, does it?”

Argent brandished his own weapon. “You’re going to tell me.”

Dorshaw giggled, a high, gleeful sound, waving his own knife. “Mine’s bigger and longer, which means I don’t have to.”

“I’ll make you.” Stepping forward, he tracked Dorshaw as the wiry man ducked behind Fenwick’s chair.

“It’s not your way, torturing information out of people.”

“It is now.” Advancing, Argent tested the knife in his hand, feeling the familiar ridges, knowing how it conformed to his grip. He was going to have his pound of flesh before he put this sick bastard down.

This time, he wouldn’t be interrupted.

“Not one more step or I’ll shoot you both!” Chief Inspector Carlton Morley bellowed from the library doorway.

Goddammit. Argent froze, knowing his back was the broadest target for Morley’s pistol, and Dorshaw was partially shielded by Thurston’s fine chair and also, if the angle was correct, Argent’s body.

He’d never had much in the way of run-ins with Inspector Morley, but he did know that the Scotland Yard leader hated Blackwell.

This could end badly for him. The only advantage he had was his proximity to the French doors and thereby the closest means of escape. However, it was deucedly difficult to outrun a bullet.

“You’re here for Dorshaw,” Argent said calmly. “I have nothing to do with this.”

“I did, indeed, follow Dorshaw’s trail here,” Morley stated, his deep voice just as calm and smooth as Argent’s, touched with the air of one who wasn’t used to having his authority questioned. “But there’s a disemboweled nobleman in front of you, and you’re holding a knife.”

“He’s killed half of those women. He cuts on them. Leaves only clothing and some entrails to replace. Sound familiar?” Argent dared to look over his shoulder to pinpoint Morley’s exact location. “He knows what happened to those boys.”

“Did you kill the other half of them, Christopher Argent?”

Christ. Argent gritted his teeth.

“That’s right, I know who you are and who you work for, so you’ll stay where you stand until my men show, or I’ll paint that rare book collection with your brain matter. I’m that good of a shot, so don’t even think—”

Morley didn’t see the knife Dorshaw threw until it was almost upon him. The inspector was able to turn his torso just in time to absorb the blade into the right shoulder, instead of the heart.

The gun went off. Glass shattered. Morley went down.

Argent whipped his own knife at Dorshaw, who ducked in time to miss a blade through the eye. Another blade was in Argent’s hand before the first weapon embedded in the far wall with an ominous sound.

Grinning, Dorshaw also produced a weapon from his boot, remaining where he’d crouched behind Lord Thurston’s chair. Sometime between the man’s last words and now, the earl had died, and taken his secrets with him.

Fuck.

“Give it up, Dorshaw, I’m blocking your only means of escape,” Argent taunted. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make it painless.”

“Let me go before the copper’s minions arrive, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me everything now and I’ll consider—”

Fenwick’s chair toppled, revealing Dorshaw’s sinewy body mid-leap, his knife arcing toward Argent.

Crouching, Argent caught Dorshaw by the hips and used the man’s own momentum to throw him over his shoulder and into the wall. Hopefully head-first.

It was too much to hope. The man caught himself, rolling out of the fall, absorbing minimal damage and unfolding to stand with his back to the window. His lip was bleeding, and broken glass had done a number on his skin, but all wounds seemed superficial.

They circled each other, low and ready, testing the reach of their blade, looking for a place to strike.

“What’s happening to you?” Dorshaw’s handsome face grimaced with disgust. “Protecting a mark, all for a piece of quim?”

“Shut up.” Christopher sliced, but the blow was parried.

“Why not just fuck her first, then kill her and collect the money?” Dorshaw smirked. “It’s simple enough, even for someone like you.”

“I don’t enjoy that,” Christopher hissed. He lunged again, but caught the edge of Dorshaw’s jacket before his blade glanced off Dorshaw’s knife. “I’m not like you.”

“I know you’re not.” Dorshaw’s smile revealed sharp, uneven teeth. “I’d kill her first, and then fuck her.”

Losing the battle for his control, Christopher saw the opening, just the slightest gap in Dorshaw’s guard, whether a trap or a mistake, he was going to fucking take it, and there would be two men’s entrails staining the Fenwick library carpets.

The click of a revolver action pulled him up short. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

Morley had gained his feet, his right arm curled uselessly around the large knife almost embedded to the hilt in his shoulder. Though his stern features were devoid of color, his left hand, the hand holding the gun, was absolutely steady.

Argent sent him a silent tirade. This was supposed to have been easy. A quick climb, the snap of a neck, and then Millie and Jakub would be out of danger. Men like him, ones that shifted through shadows, they had no purpose for loud and messy guns, not on a job like this. Argent made a silent promise that his pistol would be his new permanent accessory. If rogue coppers were carrying them now, it might be a necessity from here on out.

“Shoot him,” Argent commanded.

Dorshaw dropped his knife and put his hands up, backing toward the broken window in the guise of making himself more visible to Morley.

“You heard what I said, shoot him. Now.”

“I’m unarmed,” Dorshaw cried, throwing a bit of fear into his voice for flair. “And you only have this man’s unholy word that I’m guilty of anything that transpired here today.”

“You … threw a knife at me,” Morley slurred, a bit incredulous. Argent wondered if it was blood loss or shock making the inspector unsteady; either way, it didn’t bode well.

“I was aiming for him,” Dorshaw lied, gesturing to Argent. “Upon my word.” He took several steps back, inching closer to the window, hands still in the air.

“Shoot, goddammit,” Argent snarled. “He’s going to escape.”

“No I won’t. I’m not leaving this city.” Dorshaw smirked, glee twinkling in his wild eyes. “I think I know where I’m going next. To catch up with an old friend, the Blackheart of Ben More … I hear he has a houseguest who’s going to just die when she sees me.”

Twisting his torso, Dorshaw leaped for the window.

Argent dove after him.

Morley’s first shot went wild. He cocked the hammer and tried again, this time hitting the window molding just as Dorshaw slipped beneath it. His third bullet landed so close to Argent’s face as he moved to follow, that he couldn’t be sure whether it was the bullet or splinters from the windowpane that grazed his cheek.

“I won’t miss this time,” Morley warned.

“He’s getting away, you bloody fuck wit!” Argent eyed the pistol. Two bullets left. Five paces away. If he charged, what were the odds of Morley missing? He considered the inspector’s condition, losing blood, his hard lips pinched with the indescribable pain of the blade embedded in his shoulder. His pale hair now slick with cold sweat that trickled down his neck. Maybe, Argent thought, maybe he had a chance.

“Didn’t you hear him?” Argent demanded. “He’s going after Millie. I have to stop him. Lower your weapon.”

Morley snorted and swayed. “He said she’s with bloody Blackwell.” Morley’s eyes shuttered, then snapped open. “He’ll keep her safe … though you were a fool to leave her alone with him.” His expression twisted into something bitter, and he thrust the weapon forward.

Argent didn’t replace it at all unmanly to flinch.

“He’s probably squirreled her away to his fucking castle in Scotland … and married her,” Morley slurred bitterly.

Jesus Christ, Argent didn’t have time for a history lesson. Millie, his Millie, was in danger. Despite his many contacts, Blackwell may not have any idea that Dorshaw had escaped, that he was descending on his home. And, though there was no place more secure save Buckingham Palace, itself, Argent couldn’t breathe. And didn’t think he’d breathe again until Millie was in his arms and Dorshaw was in the ground. Not specifically in that order.

“Hold still!” Morley barked.

Argent hadn’t moved a muscle. He was wasting precious time. He had to go. Now.

“I said stop where you are!” The chief inspector made an animal noise of pain, doubling over his injured arm but valiantly keeping his pistol trained. Obviously, his vision swam from shock or blood loss.

“Let. Me. Go,” Argent warned quietly, remaining absolutely motionless.

“Never,” the man croaked, before falling to the ground in a dead faint, a pool of blood collecting around his shoulder.

Argent would never be able to tell why he did what he did next, but in a split decision, he pulled the rope next to Thurston’s desk on the way out, which would bring the staff from the basement. It was the best chance Morley had at survival.

And as Argent slid back into the shadows, jumped the fence, and ran for the Blackwell estate with desperation filling his lungs upon every breath, he knew he was Millie’s best chance.

An icy dread stole through his entire body; a sense of impending catastrophe gathering in the very air that whistled past his ears told him that he might already be too late.