by LENOX, KIM
She followed, but only so far as to stand beneath the threshold of the door. “I know it’s late, and I don’t wish to intrude. But I had to thank you.”
Standing at his shaving table, he glanced over his shoulder. “For bringing your girl, Lizzy, to Black House.”
“Yes.”
Firelight illuminated his chamber. Massive black furniture, elegantly done in pale Asian silks, dominated the room. She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at the bed. Instead she sought out his reflection in the gilt-edged mirror.
His eyes flashed darkly. “If you knew me better, you wouldn’t thank me.”
Her smile faded. “Don’t ruin the wonderful thing you did with words.”
He dragged a loose linen shirt—very un-English in style—onto his shoulders, but didn’t bother to fasten the buttons. “I want you to do something for me now.”
Elena steeled herself. Certainly he would remind her she must find a husband as soon as possible. He rummaged in a drawer, eventually producing a comb and a glinting pair of silver scissors with long, pointed blades.
“Would you cut my hair? I could wait for Leeson to do the honors, but since you’re already here . . .”
Elena exhaled in relief that the expected words had not come from his lips. Until his request sank in.
“Cut your hair?” she frowned, horrified. “Why would you ask me to do that?”
“Because I wish it.”
“But you’re hair is—”
Remarkable.
Divine.
“What?” he demanded impatiently.
“I just don’t want you to cut it.”
“It will grow back. It always does.” They stared at each other until he spoke again. “I take your lack of response as a refusal.”
His eyes were hard, yes, and his manners lacking, but something simmered beneath his surface, something intense and bordering along desperate, that convinced her she must stay.
“You’re wrong,” she answered softly.
The briefest flash of surprise showed in his eyes.
“Come inside, then.” The ferocity of his expression eased, but only by a fraction. “I won’t bite.”
Wrong again, Elena countered silently. She was already soundly bitten.
He disappeared into the shadows of his dressing closet and brought out a stool. Sitting, he hooked one bare heel against a rung, then offered her the scissors and comb.
“I suppose cutting your hair is the least I can do in exchange for your sparing Lizzy a life on the streets.” She took possession of the tools. “Let’s hope I don’t make you look like a fool. I’m not sure if I’ve ever cut anyone’s hair before.”
“It’s just hair.” He straightened his shoulders and waited. “Go on, Delilah. Cut.”
The memory struck her like a blow, and the room spun. She swayed and felt his hands at her waist—felt him pull her close.
Chapter Ten
“I used to cut my father’s hair,” Elena whispered. She kept her eyes clasped shut, afraid the beautiful, long-awaited memory would vanish as quickly as it had come. “On a chair beside the window, where the morning light was its brightest.”
In her mind’s eye she saw her father, and he smiled at her with the intense power of love in his gaze. She smiled too. Tears gathered against her lashes.
“Are you all right?” Archer asked, his hands moving to her back. His hands were large, and capable, and she liked the way they held her.
“I’m afraid to open my eyes.”
“Then don’t. Not yet, if you don’t want to,” he said softly, his lips against her cheek.
Elena returned to awareness—and realized she all but embraced him. She’d dropped her arms about his shoulders, and her breasts were firmly pressed against his solid, mostly bare chest. The heat of his skin burned through the fabric of her dressing gown.
Her eyes flew open. “I’m so sorry.”
She drew her arms in, carefully turning the scissors so as not to—
Blood stained his sleeve, just above his elbow.
“Oh, my God. I’ve cut you.”
Dropping the scissors and comb to a nearby tray, she grasped his shoulder. His muscles rippled beneath the linen as he again caught her at the waist, bringing her back to look into his eyes.
“No, you haven’t.”
“There is blood,” she insisted, mortified. “I must examine you. You might need stitches.”
“For God’s sake.” He tore his shirt open and dragged it down over his shoulder to reveal his upper arm. He grasped her hand and forced it against the unmarred skin.
“Oh.” She snatched her hand away, feeling scalded. Wonderfully, deliciously scalded.
Lord Black’s lips went hard. In silence, he yanked the shirt to his shoulders. His fingers went to the buttons.
Until Elena pressed a halting hand over his.
Archer’s gaze veered up to find sensual hunger burning in Elena’s dual-colored eyes.
Desire flared within him as well, sparked moments before by the press of her lush body against his. Hell, if he was honest, he’d wanted her from the moment he’d opened the door.
What had he been thinking, inviting her into his room? Obviously he had judged himself to be so consumed by Jack’s letter that he would not be tempted.
Instead, like the ancient warrior he was, on the eve of a great battle, he felt the overwhelming urge to make love. And no one but Elena, with her expressive eyes and soft, beautiful mouth, would do.
“Good news!” she blurted suddenly and brightly.
“Good . . . news?” he growled, feeling as if he’d been forced to seize the reins of twenty out-of-control horses.
“If this new memory serves me well, I am a very proficient barber.” She reclaimed the scissors and comb. “Are you certain you won’t change your mind?”
Darling girl, she thought this was about cutting his hair. She didn’t realize how close she stood to the edge of a dangerous precipice. Didn’t realize he wanted to grasp her by the shoulders, press her to the carpet and tear her respectable, sprigged-muslin dressing gown off her body and indulge in every imaginable sensual pleasure. If she did realize, she feigned her innocence well.
“Proceed.”
“How short?” she asked blithely.
He waved a finger near his ear. “Here.”
She frowned and pressed her fingertip lower, against the skin of his neck, setting him afire all over again. “Why not here?”
“Here,” he specified tersely, at a level even with his jaw.
She snipped. The first strands fell to the floor in a heavy whisper. He sat rigid, steeling himself against every touch. Eventually, after a torturous eternity, she made the last cut. Her breast brushed his shoulder. He hissed.
She froze. “Did I cut you again?”
“Not with the scissors.”
Tellingly, she did not ask what he meant.
Better to say what he had to say and send her back to her room. “Miss Whitney.”
“Yes?”
“As I said before, I must ask something of you.”
“And to think I believed once I cut your hair, my debt would be settled.” Solemnly, she clasped the scissors between her hands. “What is it that you want?”
“I would request that you delay your return to the hospital. In fact, I have already sent a note to that Dr. Harcourt—”
Her expression transformed from tense expectation to one of furious disbelief, as if with those few words he had betrayed her unforgivably.
“You can’t be serious. You would use Lizzy against me in a way such as this? After this afternoon I thought—I thought—oh, bother with what I thought.”
She slammed the scissors against the table and whirled toward the door.
“Elena!” he thundered.
“Leave me alone,” she gasped, thrusting a hand behind, as if that, alone, could ward him away.
Just as she gripped the doorknob he caught her and spun her around to face hi
m. He grasped her face, trying to make her look at him, but she backed away, pressing herself against the wall as if she wished to disappear into the wood. Tears glistened against her lower lashes, threatening to spill, but still, her eyes flashed in defiance.
“You’re going to take it all away from me, aren’t you? Just because you can.”
“No. I’m not, I swear it. Just a few days, Elena. Until this killer has been captured. You’ve read the newspapers. There are a number of suspects. It’s only a matter of time.”
Her lower lip trembled, until she bit it.
“I want you to be safe.” Archer stared at her mouth, entranced. He brushed his thumb along the flushed slope of her cheek. She exhaled and shuddered. Ever so slightly, she turned her face to accept his caress. A thousand warnings tolled through his mind but fell silent beneath the roar of his desire.
Everything happened too quickly for him to stop. One moment they stared at each other, and the next, he pressed his mouth against hers. They became a tangle of arms and clothing. She seized him closer, moaning softly into his mouth. He had never tasted anything so innocent, or so sensual. He held her, melded to her, so fiercely her back hissed up the paneled wall. The toes of her slippers jutted against his trousers. God, the press of her hands on his shoulders, and her uncorseted breasts against his chest—not to mention her sweetly open mouth—sent his mind into a spiral.
Just as suddenly, realization of what he had just done tore through him in an icy tide of shame.
Slowly, regretfully, he turned his face from hers, pressing his cheek against hers, and carefully lowered her to the floor. She sagged, alluringly dazed, against the wall, her lips pink and swollen, and her hair a pale, tousled mass.
“You’ve got to go,” he uttered low.
She met his gaze unwaveringly, and whispered, “What if I don’t want to?”
He wrenched open the door, grasped her by the elbow and pushed her through.
“Lord Black—”
He shut the door in her face.
Impulsively, Elena reached for the knob, only to hear the metallic turn of the lock.
“Go,” he commanded through the thick wood, his voice hoarse, and sounding so tortured her heart ached. “And lock your door against me.”
Elena did as he commanded. She escaped to her room, her cheeks burning and her heart overflowing with too many emotions to name. God forgive her, she wanted to stay, to discover the full measure of his desire, and hers, regardless of good sense or consequence. She yearned to know him, emotionally and physically, to discover the tragedy hidden within his dark eyes.
She stared at the doorknob—and at the key that lay beside a small lamp on the nearby table. She backed away from the door until the skirt of her dressing gown met the edge of the bed.
A short time later she heard the sound of his door open and close. She went to hers to listen, her heart beating like a drum, but the echo of his footsteps quickly faded.
Within moments, there arose the clatter of a carriage coming round from the mews.
“You’ve cut your hair,” Leeson observed with a scowl of realization. “You only do that when—”
“Look at this.”
The two immortals stood in his lordship’s study. Archer handed him the letter. Leeson opened the folded page and, by the light of the fire, scanned the contents.
“Bloody hell,” he exclaimed, looking up. “This has never happened before.”
Archer offered no response. What could he say?
“How did the letter get inside the house? Even if it came through with the morning post, I should have sensed something. God, it reeks like a dead horse.”
“He’s learned to cloak himself, at least in some ways.”
“Even so!”
“Perhaps he is something worse than Transcended.”
“Worse?” Leeson’s eye widened with alarm. “What do you mean worse? What is worse than a Transcended soul?”
“I don’t know,” Archer mused darkly. “Not yet. But I’m going to find out. I want you to be vigilant with Black House and protect its perimeter. Watch the servants. It may be he’s seduced someone into doing his work.”
“Damn, bloody soul.”
Archer pulled his coat over his shoulders. “Stay close to Miss Whitney at all times, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The killer may try to hurt her—” Archer clenched his eyes shut, for “hurt” didn’t begin to describe what the Ripper did to women. The image of the dead prostitutes kept surging into his mind, but with Elena’s face transposed upon them. “He might try to hurt her to get to me. Don’t let that happen.”
“I won’t.” Mustache twitching, Leeson flicked aside the angled lapels of his jacket to reveal twin daggers, artfully secured against his brocade vest. The daggers’ blades, forged of Amaranthine silver, gleamed with a surreal light. Soul slayers. “I might not be a Guard, but I can be a damn nasty secretary when need be.”
Archer nodded and headed toward the door. His instincts told him to stay with Elena, to go into shadow and guard her through the night. But his eternal purpose was not to protect a mortal woman—a young woman whose earthly existence would end in a blink of eternity—but to maintain the balance of the world’s mortal population, so as to protect the endangered realm of the Amaranthines.
Leeson called after him, “What of the Ripper’s claim that he has left the city?”
Archer paused. “Today, while in the East End, with my powers returned to their full strength, I found not the faintest trace of him. There were faded strands, days old, which I will investigate tonight. He may have gone underground, into the subterranean tunnels beneath the city. Or he may have gone to Paris, or even New York. Another city of London’s size and complexity. He would prefer them. Advise Charon to be ready, for we may depart at a moment’s notice.”
There were no working streetlamps on Thrawl Street, Spitalfields’s most notoriously dangerous avenue. Archer moved along the refuse-cluttered sidewalk.
“Matches for sale,” a little girl rasped as Archer moved past.
A solitary soul, she leaned against a brick wall in a too-large dress. A tray of matches hung from a strap around her neck. Thinking of Elena, Archer dropped a few coins amongst the small rectangular boxes, and continued on.
Normally there would still be people out and about, gossiping on stoops, fighting and bartering, but tonight those who could afford shelter had taken it. The rest had migrated on foot to the parks and public areas of West London, hoping to escape the next murderous slash of the Ripper’s blade.
Not Archer. Fury made him ruthless. With the delivery of the letter to Black House, he could not help but feel as if the Ripper had invaded his very sanctuary, left the doors swinging open in the wind and gleefully splashed the blood of his victims across the walls . . . and Elena.
Archer had destruction on his mind. He craved a reason to turn, to feel the raging burn beneath his skin.
Midway down the street, he halted outside a building—one in an endless row of rat-infested lodging houses owned by rich men who lived on finer streets, and who left the day-to-day unpleasantness of their business to ruthless house deputies. Most were five stories high with windows over the street. Weak penny-candle light glowed from within a few, but most were dark. Foul-smelling refuse clotted the alleyways and gutters.
He peered up, and removed his top hat. Just above, an indolent wind coaxed dingy canvas curtains out of an open window. In the next moment, he rapped his gloved knuckles on a ramshackle, street-level door that appeared to have been kicked in on numerous previous occasions.
Muttered curses sounded from within. A pallid young man with hollow eyes answered. He wore only an undershirt and sagging trousers.
“Yer too late. We’re full up.” The house deputy gave a wicked, empty laugh, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “My gain, nobody wants to get ripped on the streets tonight.”
Archer halted the door’s closure with his hand.<
br />
The man snarled, “Say! I just told you—”
He looked into Archer’s eyes. Instantly, all the challenge abandoned him, and he paled a shade lighter.
“I don’t need a room,” Archer said. “But I’d like to look at one. In particular, the one on the third floor, just above us.”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed erratically. “Sorry. No. That room’s rented.”
“Then I’d like to speak with the tenant.”
The deputy snapped anxiously, “I said rented, bloke, not occupied. ’E’s not ’ere, but he keeps the room regular.”
“What is his name?”
“Can’t see why I should tell you.” His gaze moved over Archer, assessing. “You ain’t Scotland Yard—yer coat’s too fine. Wot you doin’ in this part of the city at this time o’ night? You need a girl ’at bad? I can get y’ a girl if ’ats what you want.”
“His name.” Archer tossed a coin.
The man snatched the crown, midarc.
He breathed erratically and glanced over his shoulder, into the darkness of the room behind him. His eyes gleamed with conflicting sparks of fear and avarice. Avarice clearly won out.
In a hushed tone he said, “I don’t know ’is name, and I’ve only seen ’im once. ’E pays twice the normal rate through the pay-box in the wall, and ’e comes and goes as ’e pleases.”
“I’ll have a look inside.”
“F’get it.” His informant shook his head vehemently. “ ’E’s me best tenant. Pays on time, an’ don’t make no trouble.”
Archer could, of course, transform into shadow and simply ascend the wall, but sometimes mortals—especially frightened ones—provided the most excellent information. This mortal seemed terrified on two fronts.
Archer tossed a second coin. Again, the grimy hand snapped.
“This way, then. Hurry now.”
Archer ducked beneath the threshold and, after securing the door, followed the house deputy into the black oblivion of a narrow, creaking staircase. An old man slept on a pallet at the first-floor landing, a rat perched at his feet. They stepped over him to continue up the next flight of stairs.
