Page 75 of The Hunter
Jakub returned to glancing between them as the intensity grew, his incomprehension obvious as he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Was he a monster, Mama?”
Millie’s eyes shone with something Christopher couldn’t even begin to name. Something cautious and yet… soft. “No,kochanie,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “No, he wasn’t.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
“Justwherethe blazes haveyoubeen sleeping?” Loretta Teague-Washington flipped a long, peroxide-blond ringlet away from her face before planting her hands on her ample hips.
Guilty color tickled Millie’s neck as it crawled toward her hairline from the collar of the peach day dress she’d only just changed into.
“In bed,” she evaded, stepping to the side as Mr. Émile-Baptiste Teague-Washington hefted Loretta’s many bags and cases, disappearing down the hall that led to Millie’s dressing room.
“Whose bed?” the woman demanded. “His?” She gestured to Argent, who hovered over her like a storm cloud, heavy and threatening.
Millie pressed her hands to her burning cheeks, grateful Jakub was in the kitchen with Mrs. Brimtree having a snack.
Ignoring her mortification, Loretta stepped closer to inspect Millie’s skin. “I have to admit, you’ve never looked so dewy before. Never glowed with such… vigor. What have you been doing to your skin? Who have you been seeing behind my back? Are you stepping out on me, woman?”
Millie shook her head, having forgotten how Loretta’s smoky voice could fill a room nigh to bursting. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Nonsense.” The buxom woman flapped a hand at her as she bustled over to one of her cases, flinging open the latch, and then turning back as though forgetting why she’d done so. Her perfect style and smooth, porcelain skin made it impossible to guess her age. She was either a mature thirty or an age-defying fifty. “Your eyebrows get all pinched when you lie to me. You’re either using something different or you’re getting that radiance from sharing a bed with this brawny Viking, here.” She winked up at Christopher, who remained unhelpfully stoic.
As adept an actress as she prided herself on being, Millie couldn’t hide her guilty look in time. Loretta’s smile slid over her cheeks with a sly languor. “You hussy.” She laughed.
“How did you—I mean—who else knows?” Millie pressed a hand to her heated cheeks. News in London traveled with the speed of a steam engine, but she hadn’t thought anyone had known she’d slept at Argent’s Belgravia mansion the night before.
“I wasn’t even certain you had a lover, until you just confirmed it.” Loretta gave Argent an appreciative once-over, her eyes touching on his broad shoulders straining the stitching of his expensive gray waistcoat. “And who could blame you?”
Mr. Teague-Washington gently nudged Millie with his elbow as he passed, which elicited a sharp breath from the assassin behind her.
“’Bout time you had a man to call your own, chère,” the coffee-skinned Cajun boomed in his luscious baritone, flashing her white teeth and charming dimples. “My lady and I hear of your troubles, and we say ‘ain’t right she got no man to protect her.’ But now we see she do.” Mr. Teague-Washington’s lips appeared extra dark on his Irish-American wife’s cheek as he wrapped a long, lanky arm around her plump shoulders and tucked her into his side. It was that disparity of skin color that had caused the couple to flee their home in America. That country might call itself the United States, but some divisions still ran so deep, it would likely take them centuries to progress past the rifts. Europe tended to be more accepting of interracial marriages, especially among the demimonde, and at the very least it was legal.
Loretta squeezed her husband fondly before advancing on Millie. “I only knew you hadn’t been sleeping in your own bed, or you would have been using the lavender and white lily tincture I gave you for the eye compress and you wouldn’t look so damn puffy.” Gripping Millie’s chin in her strong fingers, she lifted her face to the light and narrowed Irish moss-green eyes in observant disapproval. “Unless you’ve been crying.”
Millie grimaced, worried that the strain of recent events was beginning to show. “It’s been a trying couple of days.” Glancing into the mirror at her right, she gave herself a quick appraisal. Her hair did seem rather dull, perhaps missing its usual luster and bounce. The skin around her eyes and brow was pinched with tension and a little swollen from last night’s bout of tears. She did note the glow Loretta had spoken of. She could see the iridescence in her skin, the unholy knowledge in her eyes, as though the secrets of the darkness had been revealed to her.
And not all of them had been dreadful. They’d been wicked, though. So very wicked.
Behind her, Christopher’s reflection regarded her with that ever-present alertness. He stood too close, loomed too tall and wide.
Looked too fine.
When she’d first met him, she’d thought his eyes dead and cold and utterly indecipherable. But now, when he looked at her as he was doing, she read volumes in their depths. Beautiful things. Terrible things. Words and desires she dare not indentify, because they would set her entire world aflame.
Lord, but this man was dangerous.
Loretta made a noise of appreciation and fanned herself. “Mon Dieu,but you two must set those bedclothes on fire.”
“Loretta!” Millie exclaimed.
“Well, hey now, if we were all planning on being polite, you’d have introduced me to your Viking ages ago.” Loretta winked again, showing that she meant no malice.
“Oh dear!” Millie turned to the Viking in question. “Mr. and Mrs. Teague-Washington, meet my—um—meet Christopher Argent.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Argent.” Loretta gave Christopher a handshake every bit as firm as her husband’s. “You’ve caught the woman every man would give an eye for.”
“So I have,” Christopher remarked without a crack in his enigmatic façade.
“I can see why; you’ve strength enough to handle her.”
