Page 55 of The Hunter
“How would you know?” She paused, searching for Mr. Throckmorton in the crowd and noting all the whispers directed at her from behind lace fans and snifters of expensive liquor. “Not all the hired carriages have blankets, and I can’t just take my leave without—”
Argent bent down to press his lips close to her ear. “If I have to listen to those fucking people for one more moment, I’ll spill their entrails on the floor in front of everyone. The choice is yours.”
Millie could feel her eyes peel wide, and knew those who stared at her assumed her lover had just whispered something salacious and lustful in her ear.
How wrong they were.
It wasn’t the violence in his threat that shocked her the most. It was the ardent manner in which they were delivered. Heat flickered in those words, the first heat she’d heard in that ever-arctic voice of his. And Millie had the feeling that if any warmth trickled to the surface, an inferno billowed beneath it.
“Very well, let’s go.” She clutched Jakub tighter and followed him out to where a row of lavish carriages lined Bow Street.
Millie pressed a glove to her heated cheek; the chilly air felt good and the darkness enveloped her with a strange sort of release, though the thought of poor Philomena St. Vincent weighed heavily on her conscience.
“I think Lord Benchley hurt Lady Philomena, Mama,” Jakub worried aloud.
“I think so too, darling. What a villainous beast. I’m of a mind to tell someone.”
The other theatergoers parted for them on the narrow walk as Argent led them in the direction opposite to Flower Street where a police wagon lurked and something dark was being scrubbed from the paved stones.
“Telling anyone wouldn’t do you any good,” he informed them dryly. “St. Vincent is within his rights as a husband to treat her how he likes.”
“And I’m within my rights as a woman to kick him in the—” She looked down at her son, whose eyes drooped with weariness. “The shins,” she finished, deciding he’d heard enough vulgarity for one night.
Argent turned and considered her from beneath a heavy brow. “If you like, I could—”
“Don’t—finish that sentence.” She held her hand up. She’d never even struck someone in her life, she wasn’t about to go around flippantly ordering their murders.
No matter how badly they deserved it.
He shrugged and paused next to a luxurious conveyance with a resplendent matching set of dark stallions.
“Surely we’re not… absconding with someone’s carriage,” she whispered.
His look could have dried all the lakes in Cumbria. “This carriage is mine, and I’ve already had someone stow Jakub’s art supplies inside.Andyour cloak.”
Though the carriage had no footman, the driver leaped down and opened their door.
“Thank you, Mr. Argent,” Jakub called as he scrambled inside. “Mama, it’s soft in here!”
Millie faltered, peering into the blue silk and velvet interior with an impending sense of finality. She felt like the proverbial sacrificial virgin. This was the point of no return. The threshold from this side of her harrowing day, to the other side. To his domain. Or lair. Argent seemed like the kind of man who would have a lair. Like a troll, or one of the monsters from the penny dreadfuls.
Or the devil.
A glance back at him pressed her to take the driver’s hand and allow him to lift her inside.
She’d been a fool to even consider she’d had a choice.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Now she was alone with a monster.
Or might as well be, for in the quarter hour it took to be free of the carriage traffic on Bow Street, Jakub had slumped into Millie’s lap, and the only sound that permeated the thick silence between them was his soft, intermittent snoring.
“We could have walked, you know,” she stated. “I reside on the next street over, and we’d be there by now.”
“We’re not going to your apartments. I’m taking you somewhere more secure.”
She’d known that, somehow, but she’d wanted to hear him say it. “But the Brimtrees, they’ll worry.”
