Page 97 of The Hunter
“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 intomyhome 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.Hewould 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.
