The Hunter (Victorian Rebels Book 2)

Of all the employees of the New London Metropolitan Police currently housed at Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector Carlton Morley was Dorian Blackwell’s least favorite. No, that was putting it lightly.

He despised the man.

It could have been, he supposed, because Morley had made it his personal mission to bring Dorian down and throw him back into the hellish prison in which he’d already spent so many, many years. It could have been because of all the coppers on the force, Morley was the hardest to outwit.

But mostly, Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More’s intense repugnance for the man stemmed from the fact that, to his knowledge, Morley was the only other man on the planet who’d kissed his wife. Of course, they hadn’t been married at the time. In fact, Farah had been a longtime clerk at Scotland Yard, and had yet to meet Dorian. But the very moment after she’d said good night on that fateful evening three years ago, Dorian had swept her away to Ben More Castle, his Highland keep, and promptly forced her to marry him.

Farah was his. Of that he had no doubt. From her white-blond ringlets to her ridiculously tiny feet. Her body, her heart, and her soul belonged to him. And his heart, black as it was, always had been and always would be at her mercy. His body was hers to command and only hers to touch. And his life was dedicated to filling her every need, serving her every whim, and being the source of her every smile.

So when Farah’s angelic gray eyes lit with a warm fondness as she handed a cup of tea to Morley in his parlor, Blackwell had to clutch at one of the silk pillows on the couch to refrain from picking up the china teapot, throwing the scalding water into Morley’s handsome face, and shattering the blasted thing over his head.

But this room, with its French paper and velvet-upholstered furniture, wasn’t the dank stone walls of Newgate. And in such a room, a man like the Blackheart of Ben More resorted to other means by which to show possession and disdain.

Besides, Farah would be cross if he ruined the soft blue carpets with the blood of her former employer.

“It’s been too long, Inspector Morley.” Farah settled in the ornate pale silver chair stationed between the two men like a referee in a fighting match. Except here, each man was dressed impeccably and faced each other from identical long couches.

Dorian sat back, arms splayed, his leg over one knee, eye patch covering his weak eye against the dimness of the fading light filtering in through the large windows. “I say not long enough,” he murmured, and took a sip of his own tea to avoid the sharp look from his wife.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” she asked sweetly.

Morley perched on the edge of the opposite couch and leaned forward to put his teacup on the table in front of them. “This visit is more business than pleasure, I’m afraid. I’ve come to talk to your husband about a few of his … associates.”

“Oh?” Her fair eyebrows lifted and she slid her soft silver gaze across to Dorian.

“Farah—” Morley began, but was cut off by a warning sound from deep in Dorian’s throat. “Lady Northwalk,” he corrected. “This business is of a delicate nature, perhaps you’d like to leave your husband and me to discuss it without distressing you.”

Farah’s sweet smile never faltered as she downed her own tea and folded elegant hands across her lap. “Not a chance, Carlton. You should know me better than that. I worked at Scotland Yard for a decade. I don’t believe there’s anything you can say that I haven’t heard before. What are you here to discuss? And how do you think we can help?”

Morley looked away from her when she said we, and Dorian couldn’t help but feel sorry for the lout. Losing a woman like her would break a man. Even a stuffed shirt like Morley.

“There’s a killer stalking the streets,” Morley said severely.

“This is London,” Dorian scoffed. “There’s always scores of killers stalking the streets.”

“And some of them are in your employ.” Morley shook his head, grappling with frustration. “Women, young women, are dying. All of them mothers. And their children are vanishing. Not one of them have turned up, not one. No body. No trace. It’s like they’ve vanished.”

Farah tapped the tiny divot in her chin. “And that’s how you know these particular murders are connected?”

“More importantly, you think I have something to do with these murdered women and vanishing children?” Dorian demanded.

Morley looked him square in the eye, not something that many men had the constitution to do, and answered, “I think that if something like this is happening on such a large scale in London, there is an even larger chance that you’re either profiting from it, allowing it, or at very least have an idea who’s responsible.”

Dorian was not a superstitious man, despite his Highland heritage, but how the unmistakable auburn head of Argent appeared on his terrace in that very moment, as though conjured by conversations of assassins, Blackwell would never know.

Their eyes met through the glass of the giant parlor window—as much as Argent’s eyes ever met anyone’s—and when Morley turned in his seat, Dorian made a gesture toward his study.

“What you’re insinuating is ridiculous,” Farah said gently. “My husband is involved in no such thing. He may not be a saint.” She looked at him askance. “But I would not have married a man who was capable of such evil.”

Dorian warmed to the faith in his wife’s soothing voice. She’d made him a good man by believing it was so. Well, not so much a good man … but a markedly better one. A work in progress, some might say.

“Perhaps not, Lady Northwalk,” Morley said, obviously trying to maintain his air of carefully practiced civility. “But like it or not, your husband built associations with some rather ruthless criminals, in his tenure at Newgate. I have it on good authority that many of those associations still exist.”

Dorian lifted a brow. He was no mere associate to the men he’d met in Newgate. He was their king. “In business like mine, one does not openly discuss their associates with any agent of Her Majesty’s and hope to keep his head attached to his neck.”

Especially when one of those associates was currently climbing up the back trellis, letting himself in the French doors of the second-floor balcony, and dropping through a secret passage into the study below. Dorian kept an ear open for the thunk of Argent’s arrival.

“Care to admit what business that is, Blackwell?” Morley asked sharply.

Dorian’s lip twitched. “I believe that’s Lord Northwalk to you, Sir Morley.” Dorian had been interrogated by this man in many less well appointed rooms, and under much less pleasant circumstances. Those times, it had been Dorian’s blood on the floor. Luckily for him, Farah’s marriage came with a title, and for the bastard son of a marquess like Dorian, it gave him great pleasure to remind Morley of that fact.

“Pick a business to discuss, Inspector. I am a vintner, landlord, business proprietor, investor, entrepreneur, and recently I’ve become a restaurateur.”

Thunk. Argent was in place, and for such a big man, the assassin could always land quietly. Dorian didn’t flinch, having complete faith in the man to know how not to make himself known.

“Don’t toy with me, Blackwell.” Morley stood. “We all bloody well know you’re king of the London underworld. You fought the war. You won.”

“What we both know, Inspector, is that the London underworld, by definition, can have no king.”

Turning to the very window that had only just framed Argent, Morley heaved a great sigh, rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes. “Lord and Lady Northwalk…” He faced them again, an earnest pain in his blue eyes. “You know I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t at my wit’s end. These women, if you saw them, the looks frozen into their dead eyes, the ones who have eyes left in their skulls. The terror, the confusion, the … pain. Five have been murdered so far, in such brutal ways, all with missing children. Particularly sons under the age of ten. These women are being assassinated. I know this. Maybe you don’t care, Lord Northwalk, but I thought your wife still might.” He turned to Farah. “Because she, I think, is still a decent lady. A mother.”

Farah, cheeks and hips still delectably plump from the birth and nursing of their own beloved daughter, Faye, turned to Dorian with concern. “Have you heard anything about this, darling?”

“All I need is a name.” Morley’s face became more hopeful with each passing moment. “An inmate number, a fucking direction. I fear that these boys are being taken somewhere and killed, or worse.”

Dorian assessed the chief inspector with his one good eye. The man reeked of desperation. Should he tell him the truth? Should he admit his own incompetence?

“Dorian?” Farah pressed.

Goddammit.

“Seven months ago an … associate of mine, Madame Regina, contacted me to say that one of her employees had been brutally murdered on the premises and no one had seen a thing. Her young son, Winston, had disappeared from under their noses.” Dorian sniffed, galled to admit that he had had just as much, if not less, success tracking the serial murderer down.

“You let them keep children at the whorehouse?” Morley hissed.

“We’ve set up rooms for child care, where they can be safe and protected, not just from the streets, but from what is going on at Madame Regina’s,” Farah cut in, picking up her tea. “Many of these women have chosen this profession, many have not, but at the very least we can care for their children.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you, Farah,” Morley stated, and Dorian sensed the man was in earnest.

“I’ve been looking into the death at Madame Regina’s ever since, and so far have not found the culprit, though I’ve drawn the same conclusion. Whether in Soho, the East End, Hyde Park, or the Strand, these other deaths and disappearances must be related.”

Morley almost seemed relieved. “I’m having a devil of a time convincing the commissioners or anyone above me of that.”

“That is because they’re fucking idiots,” Blackwell said.

“On that, at least, we agree.”

Dorian pondered a moment, preparing to make one more galling move before the inspector left. “Should I learn anything, it will be dealt with, in my own way, but I will make certain that you are informed, Inspector.” It was an olive branch. Or, more aptly, an olive leaf, but it was the most Morley could expect from him.

“Actually … I appreciate that.” Morley nodded “And, I’ll extend the same offer. Though if it’s dealt with my way, you’ll likely learn from the papers.”

“My way might just as well end up in the papers.” Dorian smirked. “But the pictures won’t.”

They’d be too gory.

“We have an understanding, then,” Morley stated. “All I want is this killer stopped … by any means possible.”

“Indeed.” Dorian stood, enjoying his superior height to the man, and bent to kiss his wife. “Now get out of my house.” With that, he strode to his study and shut the door.

He and Argent stared at each other in silence as they waited for the sounds of Farah kindly bustling Morley down the hallway to fade to another part of the house.

Dorian Blackwell had known Christopher Argent longer than almost anyone else. And yet, he knew him not at all. They’d grown up in hell together, except Argent had been an expert at survival there, because he’d been born to it rather than sentenced. They both had blood on their hands, though Dorian’s was generally more figurative, and Argent’s literal.

What he knew about Argent: the man was a killer. He was loyal, but had no emotional ties to Dorian. To anyone. He was cold, unfeeling, and broken. What caused Dorian occasional pause was the utter lack of hesitation or humanity in the face of brutality. The dead, empty eyes that never quite met his, but always seemed to be looking somewhere in between.

Waiting. Ready to be lashed at, to be struck down. Waiting for an excuse. Any reason to retaliate. To kill.

Dorian had cultivated a ruthlessness, his own wall of ice behind which to keep his heart. He did what he had to. He manipulated, intimidated, maimed, and killed men when the situation called for such brutality. He’d struck down everyone who’d dared oppose him until he controlled the parts he wanted and left the rest for the dregs. His whole life he’d had a mission, a reason, a vengeance, and a search for salvation that had ended better than he could ever have dreamed.

But Argent. Dorian still didn’t know what drove him. The man was built like a Viking, and seemed to have a similar code. Which wasn’t much of one by anybody’s standards.

Once the door closed behind Morley, Dorian narrowed his eyes and asked the question haunting him for a few months now. “Is it you?” he asked. “Are you the killer Morley is looking for?”

Argent’s pale eyes swung between the brass globe paperweight on the desk and the fireplace poker hooked on the very expensive wrought-iron stand for other such implements on the hearth.

No doubt, he was identifying anything in the room that could be used as a weapon. Newgate habits died hard deaths, and counting the means by which one could protect oneself to the death was a habit not exclusive to the assassin.

“I don’t kill children,” Argent stated matter-of-factly. “You know that.”

“I didn’t think so … but people change.” God knew Dorian, himself, had changed since he’d been married.

“Do they?” The question took Dorian completely by surprise. Before Argent turned to face the window, Dorian thought he caught something on his face he’d never before encountered.

An emotion. Specifically, vulnerability.

What the devil?

If Dorian knew anything about weakness, it was that once one caught sight of it, it had to be exploited. Such was the only way to find out what he wanted. “As much as I hate to admit it, Morley has a point. This kind of brutality against women and children hasn’t been seen since—”

“Since Dorshaw,” Argent supplied.

“Precisely. Uncontrolled violence such as this creates chaos and fear out there on the streets, both of which are bad for business.” Dorian studied the broad back of his associate. Of a man he’d call a friend, if men like them had friends. Which they didn’t … He knew what riddled the flesh beneath Argent’s clothing, and for Dorian, a man with his own scars, who only had the use of one good eye because the other had been made milky by a knife fight at nineteen, Argent’s wounds still evoked a wince. For a man to endure what the assassin had was unthinkable, and Dorian had often found himself wondering if the cold, unfeeling man, who’d been his most ferocious ally, might someday turn into his greatest liability.

“If this serial murderer is you…”

“I told you it isn’t.”

“You’re the only man alive with whom I cannot decipher truth from lie.”

Argent was silent. Still as a reflective pool on a windless day.

Dorian had tried to make ripples in this particular pool before, without success. But something told him that he was close. That the pool wasn’t as serene as usual.

“Argent, if I find out otherwise, I’ll have to put you down…” Like a dog who’d turned on his master.

Auburn hair glinted in the late-afternoon sunset as Argent turned his chin to his shoulder, but didn’t look back at Dorian. “You could try, Blackwell,” he challenged.

The moment darkened, suffused with masculine challenge. This had always been an unanswered question between them. Something they’d danced around since puberty. Who would survive a clash of the two? Once violence erupted, would it be Blackwell’s fire, or Argent’s ice that won the day?

Though they were surrounded by plush carpets and expensive furnishings, draped in tailored suits of the most expensive wool and cotton and silk, they both knew what lay beneath.

Animals, both of them. Predators. With the capability to rend flesh and rip at the throat with the precision born of experience and the lack of conscience that was required for survival in the wild. It was what kept them at the top of the food chain. What protected them from becoming prey. But if lines were drawn, and both of them bared their teeth at each other, striking for the jugular, the collateral damage would be astronomical. And the outcome uncertain. The difference between their lethality could starve a mouse.

The moment that had always shimmered in the air between them turned into a vibration. Dorian again sensed that weakness in Argent, a tension or a battle. A deliberation that split his focus. If he was ever vulnerable to attack, it would be now.

The question remained, was such an action warranted? Was Argent telling the truth?

“Dorian, my love.” Farah’s soft rap against the study door dispelled the moment with flawless timing. “I’m taking Faye in the pram about the park to watch the sunset. I thought I saw Lady Harrington, and would like to say hello. Are you interested in joining us?”

That was exactly what Dorian wanted to do. He’d like nothing more than to see the sun glint off his wife’s lovely pale hair as it dipped below London’s singular skyline. Tossing a perturbed look at Argent, he called through the door.

“I have some business to attend to here for a moment. Please take Murdoch with you and I’ll join you when I can, darling.” As honest as Dorian was with his wife, he didn’t necessarily want her to know Argent was here until he’d gotten to the bottom of this strange visit.

She paused. “Very well. Would you like me to send Gemma in with some tea?”

“Don’t bother yourself, dear. I won’t be long enough for tea.”

“But Dorian, did you offer your guest any tea?” Farah asked sweetly, a smile coloring her voice. “If I recall correctly, Mr. Argent is fond of oolong.”

Dorian grunted and pinched his forehead. It was damned difficult loving an intelligent, observant woman sometimes.

Argent shook his head.

“No, thank you. No one is in need of any tea at the moment. Enjoy your outing.” He turned from the door, then paused and called out. “Make sure you’re both warm enough. I’ll be along.”

“Good evening, Mr. Argent,” Farah called before her steps retreated down the hall, as she knew generally not to expect a response.

Dorian joined Argent at the window and they both looked out onto the corner on which Blackwell resided whilst in town. From one side of the house, white rows of opulent Mayfair homes lined the clean, cobbled street, buttressed by columns and lorded over by stalwart, titled society matrons. From the study, only Park Lane separated the Blackwell home from the perfectly manicured Hyde Park.

These days, more and more merchants and wealthy, self-made men like Blackwell acquired property here in the West End of London. Though a title certainly made the generations-long occupants more comfortable.

For an extended, silent moment, the men observed Farah and her middle-aged escort, Murdoch, another former guest of Her Majesty’s at Newgate, stroll through the neighborhood of well-dressed people in their furs and capes. It was a particular point of pride to Dorian that his wife was not only the loveliest, but also the most elegantly attired. His tiny daughter was wrapped in the softest furs to match her mother’s extravagant golden pelisse.

A strange anxiety rose within him. His entire life was taking in another beautiful evening, and he wanted to be with them. Now.

“What are you doing here, Argent?” he asked shortly, surreptitiously checking Argent’s transparent reflection in the glass. “Is this about the delay in fulfilling your contract?” A rather expensive one had crossed his desk today, this one calling for the blood of a rather famous actress. Dorian had only noted it because he’d heard days ago that Argent had taken that very job. A delay in Argent’s work was not only out of the realm of normalcy, it was unheard of.

“I killed a man today,” Argent murmured.

“Only one? I take it business is slow?” Dorian smirked.

Argent’s reflection frowned and undid the top button of his coat. Then the next. “I killed a man because I wanted to. Because he deserved it. Because … he made me angry.” Apparently changing his mind, he redid the second button.

Dorian watched Argent fidget with a growing sense of alarm. “If you’ve suddenly developed a conscience and are inclined to make a confession, you’ve come to the wrong man.”

Argent made an irate sound so completely out of character that Dorian’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline, as the assassin swung away from the window. Stalking to the sideboard, he poured a liberal splash of Ravencroft’s finest Scotch and downed it in one gigantic swallow. “I know who is killing those mothers.”

Dorian blinked, bemused by the abrupt change of subject. “And who is that?”

“Lord Thurston. At least, he is the one drawing these contracts against the lives of these women and giving them to men like me. Do you know him?”

Dorian searched through the images in his flawless memory, sifting through data like a clerk in a file room. “Lord Thurston, yes. I’ve never made his personal acquaintance, which is to his credit, I suppose. He married a St. Vincent, I believe. The St. Vincent family owns several ancient titles, including an earldom, but lives on overtaxed tenants, parceling family land, and the credit of unscrupulous men such as I.” Dorian pulled his seat out from behind his desk and claimed it. “What would Lord Thurston, by all accounts a respectable and wealthy peer of the realm, have to gain by ordering the murders of women, and likely children, from the West End to Cheapside?”

“I don’t know.” Argent tossed back another drink and set his glass down, stepping away from the Scotch with that legendary discipline of his. “I—killed his solicitor before I was able to extract that particular information from him.”

“Oh?” This was not the lethal man’s modus operandi. In fact, for Argent, this was incredibly erratic behavior. Argent might be deadly, but he was paradoxically imperturbable. He didn’t strike without reason. That reason usually being money.

“He hired me to get rid of Millicent LeCour.”

“The actress, yes, I heard.” Dorian’s sense of impending doom inflated. Something about the way Argent had said her name …

“I broke the contract, murdered the solicitor, and—” Slowly, Argent lowered himself into the chair opposite Blackwell’s desk, his impressive width dwarfing the leather monstrosity. He seemed about to speak, but the words wouldn’t pass through his tight lips.

“And?” Dorian pressed. If a man this notoriously fearless was nervous, then Dorian worried that an international incident loomed on the horizon.

“I claimed the woman.”

“The … you … what?” Dorian gaped. He couldn’t remember a time he’d been struck dumb in the last two decades. And he remembered everything.

“I think I want her to be mine … I’m taking her.”

The somber veracity on Argent’s face caused Dorian to wonder if he were perhaps hallucinating. “But … you gave her a choice, yes?”

“Did you give Farah a choice?”

“Of course—eventually—after a fashion. See here, we’re not discussing Farah and me, the situation was completely different from this. She’s mine. She’s always been mine. And you—well…”

“I kill people for a living.” Argent stared at the globe on the desk with unblinking eyes.

“And that is merely the first reason that this is a very bad idea for you both.”

“I want her,” Argent stated again. His voice colored, not with passion, per se, but with something that could be painted with the same brush as need, or even desire.

“Do you … love her?”

Argent’s glacial gaze flicked about the wall behind where Dorian sat, as though he could find the answer in the expensive volumes lined on the shelves there. “I can’t kill her.”

Dorian let out a mirthless bark of laughter. “I suppose that’s more than some can say.”

“I’ve tried, Blackwell.” Argent looked at the space between them. “My hands were around her neck and then … I kissed her.”

Blackwell gaped, struck dumb.

Argent wasn’t known for his exploits as a lover. In fact, Dorian had it on good authority that Argent’s sexual tastes ran to the more … detached variety. According to Madame Regina’s whores, the assassin refused to face them, demanded they keep quiet, and never kissed, caressed, or even looked them in the eye. He finished on them, not in them, paid promptly, and left without a word. Dorian knew the secrets and proclivities of many powerful, important, and dangerous men; after a drink, a fuck, and a cuddle, these secrets would drip from their mouths.

But Argent never spoke, though he had secrets to tell. He never used the same whore twice. He had no type of female he gravitated toward. An anomalous man, this assassin, and one of his many anomalies was his penchant for telling the truth when other men would protect their pride.

“That poor woman, she must be absolutely traumatized.” Dorian had to work hard to keep his alarm for the accosted lady out of his expression.

“She kissed me back.”

“Are you certain?”

“I’m fair certain. At least … one of the times.” Argent’s expression turned pensive.

“Good God.”

“She’s agreed to my terms.”

“Which are…?” Dorian had a feeling he shouldn’t have asked.

“To fuck me.”

“Christ,” he whispered, swiping a hand on his forehead.

“Just the once.”

“You have to be joking.”

“She has a son.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.” Dorian put up a hand. “Argent, I do appreciate the information you’ve supplied me about Lord Thurston, and I will, of course, look into it. The contract on Miss LeCour has been reissued, you know.”

Argent’s nostrils flared and his eyes flashed with a blue flame as he leaned over the desk. “I want you to let it be known that no one takes that contract.”

Dorian stood as well, placing both fists on the desk. For the first time their eyes clashed. “Do you presume to issue commands to me?”

“Only if you want your men to retain their heads.”

“Be careful, Argent, this is dangerous ground. Making a move like this is bad for business; not only yours, but mine, as well.”

Argent pushed off the desk with a guttural sound and hefted the bronze globe above his head. Smashing it down onto the smooth surface, he cleaved the wood in two.

It should have been physically impossible.

Dorian’s hand moved to the long knife sheathed beneath his suit coat.

“You may rule the underworld, Blackwell, but you were never my king,” Argent seethed. Red began to crawl from beneath his white collar and climb into his face, blood rushing beneath the skin with long-suppressed emotion. Dorian watched it with bemused fascination. And more than a bit of understanding.

“I’ve worked, suffered, fought, and killed beside you for many years,” Argent ranted on. “I kept your secrets and I came when you called me to your side. But you never owned me.” He knocked the large chair over with a fist, as though to punctuate his point. “So when I say to pull the fucking contract, you do it, because Millie LeCour is mine. She’s under my protection and may God have mercy on the man who gets in my way, because I don’t know the meaning of the word. So help me, I’ll flay the meat from his bones before I—”

“Christopher, I know.” Dorian interrupted his tirade, and the enraged man paused at the use of his given name. “I know,” he repeated, more gently this time. He recognized exactly what drove Argent in this moment. The primal, tight ache of it. The hot, needful possession. “I’ll pull the contract. No one will go near it without answering to one of us. And Thurston—”

“Thurston is also mine, to deal with as I will,” Argent gritted out.

Dorian nodded. “Fair enough.”

As he glanced at the ruptured desk, the overturned chair, and the discarded globe, Argent’s shoulders visibly slumped. “This isn’t—I don’t usually—”

Dorian waved it away with a knowing smile ghosting at his lips. “This is what a woman brings into the lives of men like us.”

“I’ll pay to replace it,” he muttered.

“Don’t bother.” Dorian stepped around the carnage. “I’m sure I owe you for one dead body or another.” Striding to the study door, he opened it and waited for Argent to step through, then followed the assassin to the entry and out into the chilly evening. He was looking forward to catching up with Farah. He loved to see the chill turn her cheeks red beneath the freckles she insisted she didn’t have anymore. He wanted to discuss this most intriguing turn of events.

Their breaths churned the air, all semblance of tension dissipated like the puffs of their exhales.

And they were allies again.

“What’s it like, Blackwell?” Argent squinted across the distance to the nearly empty Hyde Park, where a distant Farah glimmered like a silver fae creature in the rapidly fading sunlight.

Dorian stared in the same direction. Though she was too far to make out the angelic features of her face, he could tell that Farah was smiling. It reached out to him, as always. He puzzled over Argent’s question. It had been many years, and he’d read many books, and still the words to aptly describe his feelings for his wife didn’t appear to exist.

“It’s madness, at first, or maybe always. It’s … possession and fear, passion and joy. It’s indescribably sweet, and utterly terrifying. It’s different for everyone, I imagine.”

Argent made a noise, whether agreement or despondence, Dorian couldn’t be sure. “Watch yourself, Argent,” Blackwell advised. “This is a path you may not be ready to tread.”

Ever, he said silently to himself.

The sky licked the cobblestones with copper as Argent turned to slink back into the shadows. He muttered something that was carried away by the early evening breeze. Dorian thought it was something like, “Just for one night,” but he couldn’t be certain.

Argent might not be one to lie to others to spare their feelings, but if he believed he could let that actress go after only one night, Dorian truly wondered if the assassin lied to himself.

In any case, he thought as he pointed his boots in the direction of his wife. Did Millicent LeCour know just what she was involved with and if she had the wherewithal to deal with a man like Christopher Argent?

If not, God help her, because no man alive, himself included, had ever been able to.