The Duke

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Cole knew he’d need his horse if he ever had a chance of catching the bastard, but it didn’t stop him from giving chase. Devil take the man, he’d have to have quite the arm to have thrown a stone from such a great distance. He disappeared into the crowds of Oxford Street before Cole could close the gap, escaping into the press of humanity.

  Cole stood at the gate, searching this way and that, but Oxford Street and the Mayfair Borough were simply crafted to confound and enrage a pursuer with any number of alleys, side streets, hackneys, and buildings in which to disappear.

  The foul words that escaped him sent a few women into a fit of vapors. He ignored the clamor of the aftermath. Jogging against a slew of people anxious to leave the park after such a happening, he returned to the bench to find it empty. Even the art supplies had been swept away, and Cole applauded Cheever for taking his orders and clearing his mistress from the open.

  Imogen would be safe for the moment, with her carriage driver, a footman, and the butler all on alert.

  A wisp of violet caught his eye, and Cole stooped to retrieve a delicate silk glove from beneath the bench. Tucking it in his left breast pocket, he hurried to retrieve his horse from where it was being cooled down on Rotten Row. That accomplished, he mounted and trotted for the opposite gate of the mass exodus.

  This confirmed it. Someone was after Imogen. But who? And why? Unfortunately, a woman with a cause like hers could amass any number of enemies, from violent husbands, to even more unscrupulous street criminals; both denied the women to whom she offered refuge.

  Perhaps this was what he’d warned her about, the vile and base violence of her charges bleeding into the playgrounds of the upper classes. Turning in his saddle, he cast one last look at Achilles, the bronzed and naked hero seeming to mock him. To shield her secrets.

  Perhaps … Cole wondered. Perhaps Lady Anstruther had other enemies. Ones that followed her from a life of lower-class drudgery into the peerage. It struck him, then how very little he or anyone else seemed to know about her.

  Pulling his horse to a stop, he reached into his pocket and extracted her glove from where it rested against his heart. He marveled at the size of it, only fitting the width of four fingers where her wrist would go. Giving in to a rash and impulsive urge, he brought the glove to his nose, letting the silk brush against his lips. He hunted for her scent, lilacs and lavender, and filled his chest when he found it.

  Imogen. She held him quite transfixed. Be she a sphinx, a siren, or a snake charmer, he decided it was time he found out more about his bewitching neighbor.

  For her own good, if nothing else.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I really think he’s going to kill me this time.” Heather’s frantic wail barely registered against the vicious clamor at the door to the Anstruther mansion. “I couldn’t stay with him. I couldn’t do the things he wanted me to, not anymore.”

  Imogen held the buxom woman against her shoulder, wondering if it was the blood from the prostitute’s nose or the woman’s tears that soaked her bodice. It had only been a day since the incident at Hyde Park, and her nerves didn’t seem sufficiently fortified for another dangerous crisis.

  “How many men are out there?” Cheever demanded, holding himself against the door.

  “I don’t know!” Heather sobbed. “I counted maybe three or four when I was running, but O’Toole called for more of his men to join the chase. And it was getting dark.”

  Imogen held her former adversary from the Bare Kitten closer, marveling at the strange and frightening turns life sometimes made.

  “I know I was ghastly to ye, Ginny, and I don’t deserve yer protection, but please help me. I had nowhere else to turn.” The desperate woman clung to her, and Imogen forgave her immediately.

  “You will address the countess as my lady when in this household, madam,” Cheever admonished with a sniff.

  “I’m sorry, my lady.” Heather nodded, sufficiently chastised, and the fact that the old Celtic fire that used to blaze from her eyes had been extinguished caused Imogen no small amount of concern.

  “There’s no need for that, Cheever, I’m sure—”

  Another pounding knock was followed by a door-rattling crash, as though someone had hurled themselves against it.

  “And I’m sorry I brought this to yer doorstep.” Heather sniffed, only just seeming to notice the blood running from her swelling nose down her mouth and chin. She swiped at it with a soiled-gloved hand, but only managed to smear it. “But when I heard ye was taking in whores like me, I thought ye might forgive what’s past between us.”

  Another rattle shook the rafters of the giant sturdy house. “Return what’s mine!” screamed a harsh Irish voice from the other side. “That crafty trollop needs to face the consequences due a thieving whore!”

  “Begone, sir!” Imogen called back. “Or I’ll be forced to send for the police.”

  A bark of cruel male laughter from several men met her threat. “You’ll have to go through us to get to them, darlin’. And I don’t see that ending well for you.”

  “Not a copper for miles,” another scoffed.

  Imogen cringed as they called her bluff. Of all the days for something like this to happen. A riot of dockworkers had erupted in Southwark and threatened to spill over the bridge into Westminster. Morley and Argent had called Rathbone and O’Mara away. Violent deaths had already been reported, fires started, and all of Scotland Yard rushed to contain the chaos before the pavement of industry ran red with the blood of hundreds.

  They had left not only Imogen unprotected, but also the rest of the city. If ever there was an opportune moment to commit a crime, it was today.

  “His name’s Johnny O’Toole,” Heather said. “He’s been terrorizing Piccadilly, beating us girls when we don’t give him what he thinks he’s due. Bringing us rough men and taking the extra he charges for the deviant things they do to us. The bastard calls it protection.” She spat. “He found out that I put his new girl, Tess, on a train back to Brighton. She was twelve. She didn’t want this life. Not after what he did to her.”

  “Is that why he broke your nose?” Imogen asked.

  “Aye. And he meant to do worse had I not walloped him one with my shoe and fled.” She lifted her skirts to show Imogen a grimy foot with ripped stockings, and Cheever couldn’t contain his gasp of distress at the improper sight of her ankle.

  Imogen handed Heather off to Gwen, who’d recently joined her in her charitable ventures, as she’d tired of working for the odious Dr. Fowler at St. Margaret’s. This hadn’t been the first time Imogen’s work had called for the care of a nurse, and with two more buildings already purchased, she’d begun to hire more staff.

  “Take her upstairs to one of the back washrooms,” she said gently, then turned back to the door, summoning all the resolve and courage she possibly could.

  “Don’t go out there!” Heather surged forward, flattening herself against the seam of the two solid grand doors.

  “Open up, or we’ll break it down!” The warning burst against the entry right before another heavy blow tested the strength of the frame.

  “I’m getting the hunting rifle,” Cheever threatened

  “You think we don’t have a gun?” O’Toole volleyed back. “You’d better be a good shot, old man.”

  “They have more weapons than just that. Knives, clubs, knuckles. Don’t ye have footmen?” Heather cast her gaze around for someone else. “Someone who can help?”

  Imogen puffed out her cheeks on a beleaguered breath. “Usually … yes. But it’s Sunday. Most the staff has today as a half-day and, since it was quiet, I let them have it all off.” That had been before O’Mara and Rathbone had been called away. She dearly regretted the decision now. “The majority went to church with my mother and sister, I think, this afternoon. And then off to call on friends and family.”

  Impeccable timing, she reprimanded herself, as per usual.

  Bugger. What am I to do now? How could she keep ev
eryone safe?

  She peeled Heather from the door just as a shot rang out, then another, splintering through the wood and miraculously missing them.

  “Everyone, upstairs,” she ordered over the screams, once again shoving Heather toward Gwen. “Now.”

  The window next to the entry broke, glass erupting like sparks in the light of the gas lamps. Imogen screamed and covered her hair as some of the shards rained down on her.

  As the women retreated up the grand staircase, Imogen fled to the left, toward the solarium and the doors to the back garden. She might not be able to run for the police, but she now knew that she happened to have one of the empire’s most dangerous men as a neighbor. She realized this would greatly help his case against her, but she saw no choice but to seek his protection.

  “Cheever, go with them!” she cried as the old man puffed along next to her, his fine shoes sliding on the marble floors.

  “If you think I’m leaving you to these brigands, my lady, you’re mad.”

  There wasn’t a word in the world to describe her relief.

  Until she heard the screams.

  A second volley of gunshots had Imogen pressing herself against the hallway wall for whatever cover it could provide. She listened in frozen terror to wet and concussive sounds echoing from beyond the broken window.

  No one breached it to invade her home, as was surely their purpose in breaking it.

  She crept closer, glass crunching beneath her boots.

  A masculine scream, cut abruptly short, preceded the shocking appearance of a body flying past the window next to the entry. Imogen could have been mistaken, but it appeared that his neck hung completely limp from his shoulders. As though his spine no longer held it aloft.

  Another gunshot caused her to duck and instinctively cover her head. Then came the unmistakable sound of a weapon penetrating flesh. Again and again.

  Someone else was out there.

  Imogen knew who it was even before he bellowed her name and broke the door open in two powerful kicks.

  Cole stilled when his feral eyes found her, roaming every inch as though searching for a wound. The doorway framed him like a portal to purgatory, and he stood like an avenging archangel come to wreak a wrath no less than biblical.

  The swells of his powerful chest heaved against the white of his shirtsleeves now blotched and stained with blood. The blade on his prosthesis was extended past the motionless metal fingers, and blood dripped from it into a thick crimson puddle on the marble floor.

  The pistol he gripped in his right hand did a sweep of the entry. “Did any of them get in?” He snarled the question, as he strode past her, checking every shadow, searching every nook. “Did they touch you? Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Imogen breathed as she made her way to the door on wooden legs. Her wide stone porch had become like a battlefield, the blood of four corpses mingling in a syrupy fall down her steps. Two of them had their throats slit. Another bled from too many stab wounds to count. A neat round hole penetrated the forehead of a man perched like a scarecrow across the banister.

  She didn’t even bring herself to look at the dead body in her hedges.

  Arms weak with tremors in the aftermath of such an incident, she managed to slowly push both doors closed on the gruesome scene, and gathered her fortitude to face the lethal man behind her.

  Their eyes locked, his blazing with an amber fire, hers, no doubt, gathering a defiant storm. She knew what he was thinking, and she hadn’t a single defense against it. His jaw clenched and released and his lips thinned, edged with white.

  All Imogen could do as they squared off with each other like duelists was wish he didn’t look so blasted magnificent. Framed by the gentle opulence of her home, his aristocratic features sharpened into something savage. Something not altogether human.

  He was stained with the blood of her enemies. He’d just killed to protect her. Five men.

  This changed … everything.

  She didn’t know what to do. Who to send for. It was all so utterly appalling.

  A soft, rhythmic tap was a metronome in the charged silence, and Imogen looked down to see yet another puddle of blood pooling beneath him on the floor, this one from below a growing red stain high on the sleeve of his good arm.

  “You’re hurt,” she accused, going to him. This she could help with. This she could fix. She might not know what to do with the dead, but she could heal a wound.

  “Cheever, I have to get him to the washroom.”

  Cheever nodded, a great deal paler than usual. He seemed to summon extra reserves of determination right in front of her eyes, and tugged at the front of his vest as though deciding something. “I’ll see to the … disorder out front, my lady, whilst you see to the duke.”

  “Thank you, Cheever.” She sighed. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  He managed a curt nod. “I’ll call over to Welton, Mr. Argent’s butler. I have it on good authority that he’s no stranger to this sort of … particular mess.” With a rather bewildered air, he clipped away toward the west entry, avoiding the front door.

  Imogen hurried past the duke without acknowledging him; half afraid he’d seize her and do her some mischief now that he’d saved her. She’d made it halfway down the hall toward the back stairs before realizing he hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle.

  “Follow me,” she prompted.

  For a minute, it didn’t seem like he would. Then the metallic sound of the pistol returning to dormancy preceded the heavy falls of his boots coming closer.

  She turned away, willing her frantic heart to slow as she led him past the blue parlor where she’d met Jeremy, past the study, the library, and—

  Hurrying to a door left ajar, she seized the latch, pulled it closed, and hastily locked it. She, alone, had the key to this room, and had somehow left it ajar in her absentminded fog this morning.

  Guiltily, she glanced back at Cole, who seemed more occupied with trying not to drip blood on her rugs than noticing her movements. “This way.” She gestured down the staircase. “Gwen is nursing a wounded woman in the upstairs washroom. I have some extra medical supplies in a room off the kitchens.”

  Better that he not see Heather, lest he recognize her from the Bare Kitten.

  His silence was heavy as he followed her down, and her awareness of him prickled along the nape of her neck and all the way down her spine. They passed the kitchens, the butler’s pantry, the housekeeper’s office, the laundry, and the larder to a small room with a pair of large sinks. The room was dim and boasted only one grimy window above the basins, so Imogen lit the wick of a lamp and turned it high.

  Cole stood in the doorway as she bustled about. It felt as though he consumed all the air, all the space, until none was left for her.

  She gathered tincture of benzoin, a stitching needle and thread, bandages, and water, painfully aware of her unusually clumsy manner and trembling limbs. Forcing herself to take deep breaths, she willed her hands to cease their tremors. It wouldn’t do to stitch a wound with unsteady fingers.

  She pulled a rough bench in front of her, and gestured to it. “Do you need help removing your shirt?” she asked brusquely.

  He shook his head, reaching up to deftly undo his buttons with one hand.

  Imogen had to turn away as he exposed the heavy muscles of his chest, and made herself busy with preparations. He was so strong, built by brutal ancestors, a childhood and youth free of hunger, and the training to become a soldier and spy.

  It was hard to look at him now, hard to see the rendering of so much masculine beauty made more so by the predatory grace he wielded to terrifying perfection.

  He’d killed for her.

  Why did that make her breasts tight and heavy? Why did a thrill of unnerving heat bloom beneath the dread and repulsion?

  She felt rather than heard him approach, and tensed until the creak of the bench alerted her that he’d settled his considerable frame upon it.

  Night fell entirely
as she turned to him. Wind buffeted the city, causing the bones of the stately mansion to creak and groan. A clock chimed in the distance, marking the long moments she stood with her hands hovering above his flesh, suddenly unsure of what to do.

  It wasn’t that she’d forgotten that that broad, strong back looked like burnished bronze in the dim lantern light. It was only that she’d underestimated the effect the sight of it would have on her. The masculine terrain bunched and flexed as he settled, his back ramrod straight awaiting her ministrations.

  This wasn’t a man who gave his back to many; the show of trust actually humbled her enough to break her apprehensive fascination.

  The gash was higher up on his shoulder than she’d realized, and deep, as well.

  “I have to clean it,” she warned, readying the cloth to press against the flayed skin. “It might hurt a little.”

  “It always does,” he rumbled shortly.

  Right. He had evidence of more stitched and healed wounds than an entire battalion of adventurous children.

  He didn’t so much as flinch as she pressed the cloth against the open cut. Though when she lightly gripped his shoulder with her other hand to stabilize it, the muscle beneath her finger twitched and tensed.

  In the disturbingly quiet room, their elevated breaths made a strange symphony. Fury radiated from him in palpable waves, and Imogen knew she was the cause of it.

  “I know what just happened vindicates what you’ve been warning me against all along,” she relented. “But don’t say it,” she pleaded. “Please, not yet.”

  He said nothing, remaining unnaturally still as she gently and efficiently worked to stop the bleeding so she could stitch him closed. The duke would get his wish, she thought with a defeated sigh. She’d need to empty her house of its desperate occupants. It was no longer safe for those who sought refuge here. With all haste, she’d move them to one of the other residences she’d acquired, even though they might be overrun. Gwen and Heather, a bevy of maids, and a few mothers seeking refuge with their children in the East Wing would have to be relocated. It would create instability, but something had to be done until blood ceased staining her doorstep.