The Highwayman (43 page)

C
oming soon from St. Martin's Paperbacks

 

 

 

Reconnaissance
. Argent answered his own question. That's what he was doing at the gin-soaked dance hall at midnight. The Sapphire Room was little more than a veritable m
é
lange of shadowed nooks and private rooms sprouting from the main dance hall with no shortage of cushioned furniture on which to drape oneself or another.

The cacophony of the revelers packed beneath the crystal chandeliers all but drowned out the chamber musicians. Everything sparkled. From the gowns of the waltzing
demimonde
, fashionable in their jewel tones, to the ladies' intricate coiffures, to the champagne, all glimmered and winked like fallen stars beneath the new electric lights of the Sapphire Room.

Argent had to suppress a wince as a woman's high, fake cackle breached his eardrum. He never understood why people pretended amusement or hilarity. It was as though they believed if they laughed loudly enough, they would create happiness where there was none. Their worthless lives wouldn't seem so meaningless if they could drown out the sound of their own cognitive dissonance with enough champagne and laughter.

Fools
.

Times like this Christopher appreciated his uncommon height, as he could stand a head above the crowd, and scan the herd for his prey. It wouldn't be difficult to find
her
here. Millie LeCour's hair was an uncommon shade of ebony. Her eyes, though nearly black themselves, shone with such life, they reminded him of volcanic glass.

Those eyes. He'd watched the abundant life drain out of them as Othello had strangled her with his large, dark hands. Above them, alone in his box, Argent had held his own breath as the light that captured all of London dimmed and extinguished to rousing, thunderous applause.

He'd leaned toward her then, gripping the railing of the box. Willing her to wake, truly wondering if he hadn't just watched someone carry out his own charge to murder her in front of an audience of hundreds.

Argent had seen the real thing so many times he'd lost count, and she captured the dull lifelessness so precisely,
he
didn't breathe again until the curtain lifted for a final bow. And there she was, her smile brighter and more prismatic than Covent Garden's crystal chandelier.

He'd actually slumped back into his chair. Relieved.

She'd turned to him, pressed her hands together, and curtsied with such grace, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Alive. Not only alive.
Full
of life. Brimming with it. Pressing her rouged lips to her hand, she'd tossed a kiss to the crowd. And again, he could have sworn, she turned and tossed one to him.

She'd been happy. He'd observed enough of humanity very closely to recognize the emotion. The true glow of transcendence. And as she'd waved at the boxes,
his
box, beaming that elated smile at him, he'd felt the most peculiar impulse to return it.

He'd.
Felt
.

Shaking his head, he took up a silent guard against the far wall, hoping the odd sensation would dissipate. That she could affect him so was an impossibility. What was she? A liar. A blackmailer. A charismatic narcissist dancing with a death sentence. A mark with private rooms above Bow Street. It was all he needed to know. He should kill her at home.

So … why was he here?

Oh yes.
Reconnaissance
.

A murmur of pleasure and surprise swept through the crowd, followed by a swell of applause directed toward the entrance.

The first thought that occurred to Argent was that Millie LeCour couldn't be more porcelain-white if she were, in fact, a corpse. His second, that the crimson-and-white-striped dress accented her pallor so absolutely, she brought to mind the Countess Bathory, a woman famous for bathing in the blood of virgin peasants to maintain her skin's youthful perfection.

Her smile was brilliant in every sense of the word, and Argent found himself with his hand pressed to the chest of his jacket. It happened again. That curious little jolt in the cavern of his ribs. It was the same when she'd smiled at him from the stage. A startle of sensation. A current of awareness that singed along the nerves.

It seemed, if she was the Countess Bathory, tonight he was Vlad Tepes, dead but for strange, lethal animation and his insatiable hunger for blood. Not for physical sustenance, like the vampire, but just as necessary for survival.

Beaming, Millie LeCour let go of her foppish escort to execute a curtsy at the top of the stairs before descending down to her adoring public, rouged lips pursed to receive and return a plethora of air kisses.

Of all the jewels on display at the Sapphire Room, she gleamed the brightest. Christopher had marked the tired clich
é
that men would often tell their female companions. They would say that she lit up a room. In the past, it confounded him that such a sentiment would occur to either party as a compliment.

But now …

What was once a tepid room, filled with the press and stench of people flirting with debauchery, now seemed to glow with whatever luminescence was contained beneath her nearly translucent skin.

Objectively, it was a shame to rid the world of such beauty. Such talent. Though her smile was an illusion, and her graciousness amounted to artifice, her loss would further tip the scales toward the desolation of humanity by means of mediocrity.

It wouldn't stop him, though. She wouldn't live to see the dawn. He could do it here. Draw her into a corner and snap her pretty neck, drape her limp body across a chaise, and disappear before anyone raised the alarm.

Though surrounded by people, she found him at once. Her head snapped up like she'd heard his thoughts articulated above the drone of the crowd.

But Argent was certain she knew nothing of his intentions, because her eyes became warm midnight pools of pleasure the moment she noted him.

Excusing herself from her adoring public, she pressed through the throng as the orchestra began to play once more. She didn't stop until she stood in front of him unaware, or uncaring, that all eyes were on them both.

“I've found you,” she announced with a coy smile.

Argent had no idea what she meant. Maybe she knew why he was here. Maybe someone had warned her of the contract drawn against her life. Perhaps she was as unafraid and unfeeling as himself. A human free from the chains of pathos.

It still didn't change anything.

“It is I, Miss LeCour, who have found you.”

And it is I who will end your lif
e
.

*   *   *

Millie couldn't believe her luck. Here
he
was, the night's audience of one. She'd never had the pleasure of actually meeting one of them before. Could it be that he somehow had felt that strange, electric connection that she had from the stage?

That would be terribly romantic, wouldn't it?

“I thought this was a private gathering, Mr.…” She looked at him expectantly, offering her hand for an introduction.

“Mr. Argent,” he answered, leaning over her hand, but not kissing it. “Christopher Argent.”

Millie was unable to hold in a sound of mirth.

“My name amuses you?”

Everything about him amused her.

“Not at all.” She rushed to cover any offense. “It's only that you don't look like you'd be named Christopher.”

“Oh? And what name would you deem appropriate for me?”

Millie regarded him with gathering interest, somehow unable to answer his question. He didn't look like he'd have a proper English name at all. He was nothing like the slim, elegant, fashionable men-about-town she usually met at these parties. Indeed, with his thick locks of hair the most uncommon shade of auburn, startling blue eyes, and raw, broad bones, he seemed as though he belonged on a Celtic battlefield wielding a claymore against Saxon intruders. Though his handsome features were relaxed into a mild expression, something dangerous shimmered in the air about him. Something … she couldn't quite put her finger on. It wasn't violence or anger. Nor was it anything unbalanced or wrong. Could it be that when he smiled, it didn't reach those fiercely blue eyes?

She searched those eyes. They were like ice, and not because of the color. A glacial chill emanated from behind them. Charm and geniality warmed the slight curve of his hard mouth, but looking into those eyes was like staring across an endless arctic tundra. Bleak and empty.

Suddenly she was anxious, and more than a little intrigued. “I fear I'm drawing a blank at the moment,” she admitted, surprised how breathless she sounded as she pulled her hand away from his.

He seemed to loom over her, a threat with a nonthreatening air.

“How did you say you came to be here?” she asked.

His expression changed from mild to sheepish, which sat uncomfortably on a face as brutal as his. “I was invited by a friend of a friend, actually. I forget her name. Quite tall, fair hair. Younger than she looks, but then older than she claims.” He winked at her, his eyes crinkling with endearing grooves. Not yet a smile, but the promise of one.

“Oh, do you mean Gertrude?” she asked.

“That's the one,” he nodded, then scanned the crowd as though halfheartedly looking for the lady in question. “We have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Richard Swiveller, do you know him?”

Millie shook her head. “I'm afraid I don't.”

He shrugged a gigantic shoulder and the movement rippled under his expensive evening suit. “No matter. These private parties are hardly intimate, are they?”

Millie took a moment to scan her surroundings, taking in the hundred or so dancers and revelers in various stages of drunkenness and excess. “I suppose that depends on your interpretation of the word,” she remarked wryly.

There was that sound of amusement again. It hailed from deep, deep in his cavernous chest. A sound more suited to the shadows of the jungle than an English ballroom.

“Would you care for a waltz, Miss LeCour?” He stepped closer, invading her space, towering over her like a wall of heat and muscle.

Millie hesitated. This time not because she was afraid, but because she very much doubted that a man of such height and width and—she looked down—large feet could waltz worth a damn.

One tread of his heavy soles upon her feet and she feared he'd break them.

“I'll step lightly,” he murmured, reading her mind.

She looked up, and up, into those unsettling eyes. There. Not a feeling, not an emotion, per se, but a glimmer. One of enjoyment … or regret, she couldn't be sure.

Lord, but he was fascinating.

“See that you do,” she teased. “One cannot act if one cannot walk.”

He took her gloved hand in his—enveloped it, to be accurate—and led her to the floor. She paused to wait for an opening among the swirling couples, and gasped as he pulled her forward, seizing a place and twirling her into it with powerful arms.

It became instantly obvious that her fears regarding his dancing skills were completely unfounded. Indeed, he was the most graceful, skilled man on the floor … or perhaps on any dance floor in London. He held her close, scandalously close, his hand on her back securing her to him like an iron clamp. The warmth of that hand seeped through the layers of her clothing and corset, an undeniable brand. Yet the hand that held hers was gentle, but just as warm.

The arms beneath his suit coat were even harder than she'd guessed. The swells of muscles where her hands rested flexed and rolled with his movements, and Millie found herself entranced by them. So much so that she stumbled and lost her footing around a turn.

He pulled her even closer, allowing her to seamlessly recover while supported by the strength of his astonishingly solid body. Regaining the rhythm of the waltz, she threw him an appreciative glance.

“It seems, Miss LeCour, that it is
I
who should have been worried about injury to my feet.”

She laughed, dipping her forehead against his shoulder. Her heart sped along with the tempo of the waltz, sending warm flurries of nerves flooding through her. Perhaps her scruples about him had been as mistaken as her worries over his dancing capabilities.

“Tell me, Mr. Argent, what is it you do?”

“I'm a longtime partner in a business enterprise,” he answered.

“Anyone I've heard of?” she pressed.

“Undoubtedly. My partners handle the day-to-day running of the business, meetings, mergers, acquisitions, and so forth. I'm over contracts, damages, and … personnel.”

“My,” she flirted, “you sound like an important man to know. Tell me more.” She used this ploy often. Men loved to talk about themselves. But this time, she found that she truly was curious about him. About how he spent his days. His nights.

And with whom.

“It's all rather dull and workaday compared to what you do.” Millie felt, rather than saw his head tilt down, inching closer toward her. The din and atmosphere of the Sapphire Room suddenly melted away. Everything seemed darker, somehow. Closer. Their feet waltzed over shadows and their bodies synced in a flawless rhythm that felt, to her, sensuous. Sinful, even.

His scent enveloped her, a warm, masculine musk of cedar trunks, shaving soap, and something darker. Wilder. Something that smelled like danger and sex. The kind that marked you afterward. The kind she'd heard in the wailing of ecstatic obscenities and pounding of headboards against thin walls in the days before she could afford her own apartment.

Tilting her head back, she'd meant to smile an invitation into his eyes, but her gaze never got that far. They snagged on his lips. Soft against several hard, almost cruel, brackets of rough skin.

Those lips would mark her. The russet stubble of his shaven face would redden her tender skin and tickle any flesh she exposed to him.