“Furthermore, I’m insulted by the arrogant assumption that I’d even consider your hand,” she continued. “I, too, yearned for the man who stole my heart three years ago. I’ve searched for him inside of you a thousand times. I gave you every chance to be that man, and sometimes, I thought I glimpsed him in your eyes. In your smile. Or in a kind gesture…” Her voice broke, and she had to struggle for composure before she said, “I would have revealed myself to him.” Imogen didn’t know which made her angrier, the man in front of her or the tears escaping down her cheeks despite her valiant fight against them. “But now I know that, just like Ginny, he exists no longer.”
Cole opened his mouth, but an ominous metallic sound broke their silence.
“Make a move and you die.” The impossibly deep voice identified the moment’s intruder as imposing, African, and authoritarian even before Inspector Rathbone materialized, a pistol expertly trained on the duke. “Step back,” he ordered.
Deadly as a plague, dexterous as a lion, and dusky as a shadow, that was Roman Rathbone. He’d obviously dressed in a hurry, as his shirt draped open, revealing a broad chest of gleaming teak.
His dishabille made Imogen marginally less mortified over her own state of undress, though words eluded her as she realized how close he’d come to catching them doing what they’d done against that trunk only minutes beforehand.
“Your Grace?” Rathbone’s swarthy features contorted with indecision as he inched his pistol toward the ground, but not completely. His eyes, a striking gray, quickly assessed the casually dressed duke, the crying countess, the nude portrait, and the trunk in disarray. It was enough for him to keep the gun pointed at the other dangerous man in the room.
Imogen wondered if it was possible to die of humiliation.
“You are to be commended, Inspector.” Cole sneered, though he had the presence of mind to turn slowly to face the armed man. “Were I the murderer, I’d only have killed her and everyone else before you deigned to stir yourself from your comfortable suite.”
“It was O’Mara’s turn to take watch,” the inspector explained, bemusement turning into concern.
“Then where is he?” Cole bit from between clenched teeth.
The blithe Irishman in question was still in the process of tucking his shirt into his trousers as he all but skidded around the doorway, his brutish features a bit flushed and his expression sheepish.
“Trenwyth?” he sang with delighted recognition. “I was … tucking one of the maids in when I thought I heard a crash—” The tableau finally had a chance to register in almost comical degrees of expression. “What in the name of the saints is going on here? Did he hurt you, Lady Anstruther?”
Imogen didn’t recognize the bitterness in her caustic sound as her own. Of course she was hurting, and he was the cause, but not in the way O’Mara suspected. She’d let him inside her. Hoped he’d taken her body to lay claim to her, not to shame or castigate her.
She and hope had not often been friends. Especially not when it came to him.
“Pull that trigger and make sure you don’t miss. Because if you do it’ll be the end of you,” Cole warned Rathbone, not one to be held or threatened by any means, even by a lawman.
Gathering the vestiges of her strength and the last of her tattered dignity, Imogen stepped forward. “There’s no need for violence, Inspectors. He didn’t … this isn’t what it looks like.”
Rathbone finally lowered his weapon, his gaze bouncing back and forth with shrewd curiosity. “You want us to … leave you two alone?”
Imogen didn’t dare look at Cole. Couldn’t bring herself to meet whatever terrible censure she’d see in his eyes. “Perhaps you can escort His Grace out,” she whispered, suddenly exhausted.
“Don’t bother.” Cole’s imperious tone froze whatever warmth she had left for him. “I’m already gone.”
And in a few furious strides, he was, leaving her alone with two very uncomfortable men.
“Begging your pardon, Countess, but … is there someone you’d like me to be fetching for you? Your sister, perhaps, or your ma?” O’Mara asked.
“No, thank you, Inspector. I just … need to go to bed. This will all be sorted in the morning.”
The two men respectfully averted their eyes as she wrapped her nightgown around her, and marched between them with her chin as high as she’d seen the queen hold hers not long ago. The tears fell faster in the darkness of the stairway as she trudged in the wake of a memory she once treasured. Cole’s soporific words spoken in gentle intimacy a lifetime ago.
“You are a rare find, Ginny.”
“How’s that?”
“A genuine person in a world full of deceit … Is Ginny your real name?”
“No,”
“You’ll have to tell me what it is.”
* * *
She had done, after he’d fallen asleep, but that mattered little now. It mattered not at all, in fact. A chill that had nothing to do with her state of undress skittered through her, and for the first time since he’d returned, Imogen felt a true sense of loss and loneliness. Her sumptuous home felt too big and too empty, and her usually swollen heart felt too small and too … empty. Emotions battled questions that cried for answers she couldn’t summon. It hurt to breathe.
Perhaps he’d been right, and this was inevitable. Out of all the horrific possibilities she’d imagined might arise in the aftermath of the revelation of her deception, there was one consequence she hadn’t at all prepared for.
The death of hope.
Since the night they’d met, made love, and separated, she’d carried this strange and feeble hope with her in regard to the Duke of Trenwyth. It sustained her while he’d been missing, and had been whispered in her every prayer for his safety. It had flared when he’d landed in St. Margaret’s, miraculously given into her care. Her, who cared more than anyone at the time would have guessed.
She’d carried a tiny ember of it with her, she realized in these several months since his return. Tending it gently, giving it fuel with willing breath. Perhaps he’d overcome his antagonism toward her. Maybe, if she was patient enough, if she was kind enough, if she was bright and witty and beautiful enough … he’d forget Ginny. He’d forget his imperious arrogance. He’d forget his fury. His pain. His loss and loneliness.
And fall in love with her … with Imogen.
Because she’d been in love with him all along. She understood that now. Love had allowed her to be gentle when he was stern. To forgive his cruelty. To understand his pain.
But she’d been a fool to nurse that hope. If a man, especially a man of his birth, wanted a woman, it was for what she could be to him. What she could provide for him while he chased his purposes and passions. A home. An heir. Solace, sex, and sustenance. These were the singular duties of a woman.
But what if a woman had purpose and passions? What if she wanted to reach beyond her dictated place behind her lord and step forward on her own path? History was littered with heroes who had a destiny, who vanquished their foes through means fair or foul.
The man she loved had been determined to be her foe. That was her tragedy. He’d longed for Ginny, but he’d constantly rejected Imogen.
In his arrogance, he’d been certain that offering a place at his side as duchess could only be the culmination of her every desire. That recanting the chance at his hand in marriage was the worst punishment.
It wasn’t. Imogen’s heart was broken, but she’d meant every word she’d said to him.
She had a purpose. She had passion. She was going to live her life fighting against the vice and villainy that plagued the women and children of her city. That had once taken everything from her. Not in the courts or Parliament as Dorian and Farah did. Not with the law, like Morley.
She’d give the only thing she had. Money, kindness, and care. She’d create the havens that she could and gift those that were searching something they’d lost. Something she’d lost.
Hope.
If she believed in anything, it was that everyone deserved a second chance.
And she’d hoped for one with Cole … but it was not to be. They’d both become too vastly different. He’d let the injustice he’d suffered turn him into someone hard and angry. She’d been shown benevolent mercy, and had let it take root within her. She’d protected her newfound life with secrets.
And, in doing so, destroyed any chance she had with the man she’d wanted.
It seemed fate would have her choose between her two passions.
She’d made the choice, because in the end she wanted a man who would let her have both. His love, and his support of her chosen path.
Devastation threatened to buckle her knees from beneath her, but she managed to stagger through the open door of her bedroom and leaned heavily upon it after closing it behind her.
Gulping a few desperate breaths of air, she let her nightgown slip to the ground, and padded, naked, to the basin, where she poured water from the pitcher. Numbly, she wet a cloth, found the soap, and washed. First her tear-streaked face, then cooling the skin of her neck and chest heated by mortification. Then she tended to herself intimately, contemplating the possible consequences of what she washed from her thighs. Of what he’d left inside her.
She hadn’t the energy to worry about that now, though longing soothed the stab of anxiety clenched in her belly. Discarding the cloth, she turned to face her empty bed, still in disarray from her restless sleep. Her room was so cozy, especially in moonlight and shadow. A delightful shade of pale green, always strewn with fresh flowers in exotic vases perched on delicate white furniture. She’d never dreamed she’d have a place half so lovely or grand. And now …
The sobs escaped her then. Burst from her in great, panting gasps.
Now she might sleep here alone forever. All because she fell for a stubborn, haughty, unyielding, irresistible, principled, damaged man.
Bugger it all.
Crying and cursing her own stubbornness, along with men in general, she stomped to her wardrobe and wrenched it open, fishing inside for a new nightgown. Finding one, she closed the doors and began to wrestle with the tiny buttons, the darkness and her tears impeding her progress. Finally, she lifted it over her head.
“Don’t.” The voice didn’t belong to Cole. Nor to one of the two men she’d just left downstairs.
The command was gentle, though the intruder smothered her sound of surprise with a strong palm, crushing the fabric to her lips and nose. “I much prefer you naked.”
Imogen’s fear turned her mouth to ash as she struggled and felt herself being smothered, recognizing the pungent, etherlike odor against her nose and mouth as chloroform. A powerful anesthesia.
She stilled and held her breath, her head already swimming, unconsciousness both threatening her and beckoning to her.
That voice. It was heartbreakingly familiar. One she’d thought was a friend. One who’d vowed never to do harm.
“Dry your tears, my love,” he whispered as he dragged her back against his front, much as Cole had mere minutes before. “I’m here. And you’re finally mine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cole broke things, destroyed them, hoping to release the pressure caused by the presence of both extremes. Fire and ice. His skin burned, so much so he wanted to peel it from his body. Fury creating an inferno that threatened to incinerate him.
But for the ice. A bleak and terrifying chill frosted his insides like the panes of a window in January. His chest felt at once brittle and numb, as though one tap could shatter him into sharp and gossamer shards.
He left a path of devastation in his wake as he stormed and thundered through Trenwyth Hall. The corpses of his mother’s priceless vases. A splintered antique table Robert had acquired in Sumatra. An upended glass-cased shadow box of rare coins it took his father a lifetime to collect.
Rubbish. All of it. Everything. The trinkets of people who’d left them behind. Who’d left him behind. Who could take nothing with them to the hereafter. The legacy of an empty family built on little else but tradition and held together by insubstantial things. Money. Expectation. A title.
A name.
What’s in a name? a star-crossed lover had once inquired. What, indeed?
He reached his study and locked the door, aware that a few of the staff tiptoed up from below stairs to investigate the commotion.
Would a rose by any other name be as sweet? Would a woman by another name remain the same woman?
Apparently not.
American natives had taught him that a name held much power, a belief held by many, including the Catholic Church. If one could exorcise a demon, one must first learn its name.
Leaning against the window, staring out at a garden both foreign and achingly familiar, Cole knew it would take more than even an exorcism to free him of her.
Not of Ginny. Of Imogen.
Damn her. He made a fist and raised it, but only rested it gently against the cold pane.
She’d somehow crawled inside of that empty cavern in his chest so many had abandoned. She’d filled it with bright colors. Claimed it with her easily won smiles and infuriatingly stubborn altruism. She’d become a part of him without him even realizing it.
A kind, caring, clever, beautiful woman. A consummate liar.
He worked his jaw over powerful emotion and encroaching indecision. All this time. She’d been right below this window.
A window from which he’d considered her below his notice as well. She’d been right about that.
She’d been right about a lot of things.
Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against the window, letting the cool glass temper the heat of his skin. In the darkness behind his lids, he finally conjured Ginny’s face. Imogen’s face.
She’d been gaunt and pale, all sharp, prominent bones and large, melancholy eyes. He’d thought her an ethereal wraith, a dark-haired, delicate beauty. Was that because he’d not cared to recognize desperation and poverty when confronted with it? He’d not considered that her heavy makeup hadn’t been meant to entice, but to conceal. Conceal skin with an exotic hint of color and a touch of freckles.
During every moment he’d spent in that hellish prison, he’d inspected and dissected different parts of their experience together. Of her. The soft hitch of surprise on her breath when he’d pleasured her. The spread of her lashes against her pale cheek when her shyness overcame her. The gleam of her dark hair. The warmth of her body as he sank inside of her. Her delicate shivers of bliss. Her sweet whispers and words.
In that dissection, he’d lost the whole of her. Of course there had been drink, and dimness, and deceit to help muddle things. But had he truly looked at Ginny, he might have actually seen her. Furthermore, had he really taken a moment to look at Imogen, at Lady Anstruther, as anything but a collection of labels he’d already given her, he might have found what he was searching for ages ago.
He was so angry at her. But no more than he was angry with himself.
He’d thought his hubris would protect him, that he could look down upon the world from this lofty tower and shut out that which threatened his survival and sanity.
But he’d forgotten one very important thing. That whichever room he locked himself into, whichever wall he built around himself, reinforcing it with contempt and cruelty, he’d never been able to escape his worst enemy.
Himself.
His own past, his nightmares, his memories. His prejudices, his upbringing, his title.
Opening his eyes, he gazed down at the garden, her garden, and ached.
Imogen was no longer the same woman. She was healthy, vigorous, unashamed. She was the mistress of her own destiny. A destiny that might not include him, because he’d never presented himself to her as an enticement. Only an opponent.
He’d pompously thought the whore he’d fallen for would take him in whatever capacity he offered. That she’d be happy to accept this broken, bitter, barbarous man he’d allowed himse
lf to become.
It had never occurred to him she’d want more. Or that he had no right to her secrets. That he had no claim on her heart.
The cold inside began to lick at his skin now that his ire and ardor had cooled. Now that the warmth he’d found inside of her body faded and the heat of her passion had become frigid rejection.
She’d gently and kindly thrown him out of her home. Out of her life.
Turning to his chair, he reached for his jacket, and paused. Remembering he’d left it on the bench before climbing the trellis to the balcony. He glanced out the window at the empty bench. Then followed the trellis over to the balcony where the door to the master’s rooms stood ajar.
In all his years as a spy, he’d learned a rule to entering a house undetected which he’d never broken.
You always leave things as you found them.
He’d shut and locked the balcony door behind him.
What if, in his self-righteous distraction, he’d led a killer right into Imogen’s home? What if he was too late?
What if she became a casualty of his pride?
Trenwyth bolted out of his study, almost bowling over his butler. “Send for Inspector Morley,” he ordered. “Someone’s broken into the Anstruther house.”
Unholy dread chased him through his own gardens to the fissure in the wall beneath the tree. The stone and bark abraded his flesh as he forced his way through a space he’d used care to maneuver in the past. He didn’t even feel it. Desperation drove him forward.
An arrow of fear pierced his heart, the force of it almost knocking him off his feet as he watched his nightmare become a reality.
The countess suites of the Anstruther manse were not as grand as that of the master’s, and did not boast a balcony because of the high, rounded parapetlike structure with a grand window seat. The lady of the house might enjoy the panoramic view from indoors, away from the elements, situated higher than any other room save the attic.
It was from this window that Jeremy Carson was trying to lower Imogen’s limp body, secured by nothing but a makeshift hammock of bedclothes tied in what Cole prayed to God were secure knots.
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