Page 54 of The Hunter
“I’ve always preferred dark hair and pale skin.” St. Vincent kicked dirt on his wife’s proverbial coffin. “The contrast is rather… exotic, wouldn’t you agree, Thurston?” The brothers-in-law both examined Millie in a way that caused her to fervently wish she were fat, and golden-haired.
“You are too kind to me, Miss LeCour,” the viscountess informed the crimson carpets.
Millie wanted to escape this cruel, miserable family as quickly as possible, and began to think of excuses to do so.
“You really are,” Lady Thurston agreed. “Much too kind to her.” Her shrewd, dark eyes drifted down to Jakub and sharpened to a razor’s point. “Andwhois this charming dear boy?”
“This is my son, Jakub.” Millie didn’t want to introduce Jakub to these awful people.
Her son clutched her skirts with one hand, but offered a shy bow as his manners dictated.
“A son?” Gordon St. Vincent let out a chuckle that ended on a bitter note. “Would that either of us knew what that was like, eh, Fenwick?” He elbowed his brother-in-law in a gesture of collusion, but the earl merely slid him a look of exasperation. “I’m getting too deucedly old to be the dashing young St. Vincent heir anymore. I’ve been married five years, and Fenwick twice that long. You’d think an heir would appear after a decade from one of us.”
A terrible stillness permeated the undertones of the gathering. Glasses clinked around them, and the chandelier glimmered off noble opulence. The assembly’s diamonds sparkled with the effervescence of their expensive champagne as they laughed and drank and by all accounts enjoyed themselves. Every one of them oblivious to the dangerous vibrations building in their corner that Millie couldn’t quite understand.
Just whowerethese horrid people, and what the devil was going on here?
“What lovely blue eyes your child has.” Lady Thurston bent to inspect Jakub and then straightened to tug at her apathetic husband’s sleeve. “It’s extraordinary that her son’s eyes should be so blue when Miss LeCour’s are so dark, don’t you think so, darling?”
“What?” The man covered a yawn with the back of one white glove. “Oh, certainly, my dear. What did you say his name was?” he asked disinterestedly.
Millie glanced up at Argent, signaling for him to save her, but he stared at Lord Thurston with uncharacteristic intensity. “Jakub, my lord, his name is Jakub.”
In an instant, Lord Thurston resembled a hounden pointe.
Millie wanted to be mistaken when she saw the wonderment with which he considered her son. She wanted to shove Jakub behind her skirts.
“Jakub, you say? You don’t come across that name often, do you, boy?” Fenwick gave Jakub an arrested stare.
“No, milord,” her son answered solemnly.
“It’s more commonplace in our native Poland.” Millie had to strain a bit more to moderate her voice. Something had opened a pit of dread deep within her. She had the sense she’d stepped into a den of vipers, and not for the first time, she was relieved to have their king at her side.
“Poland?” Thurston could have been struck in the face for all the astonishment he conveyed. “How old are you, boy?”
“I have nine years, sir.”
The look Lord Thurston gave Millie could have incinerated every building in Covent Garden. She read confusion, anger, and disbelief in his wrathful glare.
“You’re being ridiculous, David, really.” Katherine Fenwick took her husband by the arm. “Can’t you see you’re distressing the child with your silly questions?”
“I think he’s shy,” Lady Benchley ventured. “Perhaps we’re embarrassing him with all our notice?” She offered Jakub a kind smile.
“Yes,” Lord Benchley hissed, his hand snaking out and seizing his wife by the elbow with bruising force. She paled and bit her lip, her large eyes filling with pain and moisture. “Why unsettle the child with our consideration when it is Miss LeCour who should be the focus of our undivided attentions?”
Argent stepped forward, cutting off Millie’s caustic reply. “Miss LeCour’s attentions are already promised tomethis evening.” Though his tone was pleasant, his glare could have frozen the flames in the candles, and left no question as to the salaciousness of his insinuations.
For all they knew he was a lover, staking a claim. Most actresses had consorts in the open, why should she be any different?
And still her cheeks burned, because this was no act. She’d promised him that tonight she was his.
He turned to her, the arrangement of his features communicating nothing, but something about the way he pressed toward her and Jakub with his size conveyed to Millie that he’d had enough. “The carriage is waiting. Excuse us.” He guided her toward the door without so much as a by-your-leave.
Millie had to admit, she appreciated the expressions of outrage and indignation he’d left in their wake, though she didnotappreciate being herded like so much sheep.
“My cloak,” she protested.
“There’s a blanket in the carriage,” he said through gritted teeth.
