“You assumed? You did not see her leave?”
Her eyes shifted away from his. “I—I’d had a trying evening, you see, so I came here, to the garden to compose myself.”
“And how long did you tarry in the garden?”
“Not long, maybe a quarter hour or less, but I didn’t see the viscountess after that.” She slid a glance to the body and closed her eyes briefly. “The ball ended around half past two, and I went straight to bed. I believe this happened sometime between then and when Isobel and my mother returned home at five. Isobel gave Mother a sleeping powder, and came down here for some tea and to take in the air. That’s when she found … when we sent for Mr. Argent.”
Morley nodded, making a notation of the times in his notepad. “So to your knowledge, you were the absolute last person alone in the garden before your sister arrived home early this morning to find Lady Broadmore like this?” he clarified.
A heavy, protracted silence caused him to look up and find that all the color had drained from the countess’s face.
“Lady Anstruther,” he pressed. “This is very important. Who was the last person you identified in the garden?”
Lifting her chin over a difficult swallow, she looked to the stately pale mansion towering over her garden wall. “Collin Talmage,” she answered in a quivering voice. “The Duke of Trenwyth.”
* * *
It took a herculean amount of will on Cole’s part not to swipe the entire mess of intelligence paperwork into the fireplace and tell the Home Office to go hang themselves. Even one-handed, he was still more capable than half the agents in the field, and he’d been relegated to little better than a fucking secretary.
A secretary with a lofty title and a great deal of power and influence, but even so.
He was not cut out for shuffling papers and making weighty assessments. He’d been born a man of action, more comfortable with decisions made in the moment and acted upon decisively.
Besides, he couldn’t focus on something so pedestrian as paperwork. Not with a cockstand that seemed to appear every other minute. Incidentally, the precise rate that the memory of last night’s encounter with Lady Anstruther forced its way into his mind
Perhaps now was a good time to call upon Argent and schedule a sparring session. Restless aggression simmered beneath his skin, and his neighbor was the only man who didn’t take his rank or deformity into account. To the cold, logical bastard, Trenwyth’s impediment was all the more reason to train. To become stronger. Faster.
Harder.
On this, they both agreed.
In a world that preyed upon the weak, one must turn his encumbrance into power, or be consumed by it.
Consummation. Now there was a concept upon which he’d rather not dwell. Though, he had been. For three years past he’d been obsessed by the memory of a very specific consummation.
Except for last night. A new and unsettling beauty had diverted his thoughts, abducted his dreams. For so long he’d been the devotee of nostalgia. But now a lovely, outspoken idealist had absconded with his closely guarded reminiscence and replaced it with new and distressing interactions upon which to reflect.
Lady Anstruther. Imogen.
Cole took many liberties with her in his thoughts, the very least of which was her name.
Why was it that he couldn’t seem to conjure Ginny’s face, no matter how hard he attempted it? But the intrepid countess’s features inserted themselves into every moment since they’d parted, waking or otherwise.
He knew the answer, of course. Not only because she’d kissed him, but because she’d seen him. There in her garden, she’d used the moonlight to illuminate him, and she’d asked him if he was all right. Not like most posed the question, as though they’d queried a thousand people a thousand times. But as though she wanted the answer. Like it meant something to her.
Like he’d meant something to her.
And he’d wanted to tell her, hadn’t he? That he, in fact, resembled nothing close to all right. That he seethed one moment, and was completely numb the next. He wanted to confess that he hated the entire world. That he hated himself, most of all. That he remembered how to survive, but not at all how to live.
He’d wanted to give voice to his greatest fear, that he’d be this … this shadow of a man until he finally decided to end his own life. Because there were no fresh wonders left. Nothing to conquer. Nothing worth protecting. Nothing to fight for.
Nothing to live for.
That the night would only ever be too dark and full of remembered suffering. That the day would only ever be too bright and too loud. That all his moments would bleed into the next and time would steal his memories, just like it did that of Ginny’s face. And he’d forever yearn for what he’d never again attain. Because not only was he not worthy. He was not capable.
He’d wanted to say all of that. To confess his weaknesses to her. Because weakness didn’t seem to be something that concerned Lady Anstruther in the least. While she wasn’t as delicate as some, she was a small woman. He’d felt her fragility beneath his hand, her susceptibility to be easily broken. It had stirred in him something he’d thought lost to the world. Some strange and disquieting instinct he was loath to name. Something possessive. Protective.
In a base world where people were easy to read and even easier to predict, a woman like her was a rare find, indeed. She was truly an enigma. Someone who, after amassing a fortune, seemed intent upon giving it away and asking others to do the same.
But for what purpose? There was no such thing as an altruist, everyone knew that. So why couldn’t he figure her out? She was as rare and puzzling as the mighty Grecian Sphinx.
He’d told her all the reasons he didn’t want her to procede with this charitable scheme of hers.
All but one.
That being the risk to her own safety.
Because while he had no love for the woman, he was starting to think he had less contempt for her than he initially determined. She’d been kind. Until he’d pushed her past the level of her own tolerance. Which, if he was honest, had always been a particular talent of his.
Then she’d been shockingly impetuous. Incredibly carnal.
Cole didn’t think himself capable of shock anymore. He’d been a rake in his younger days, and even worse since his tragedies.
He’d sought to drown his emptiness in pleasure, and found that the more he tried to fill it, the more fathomless the void became.
Propelled by a sense of shame, Cole stalked to the sideboard and reached for the Scotch, something he’d been doing with alarming frequency these days.
Argent’s familiar voice reached him through the open window.
Her window. The portal to the Anstruther garden.
What the devil? Seized by curiosity, he looked down to see not only Argent’s wide back standing by the satyr fountain, but facing him, a man he also recognized on sight. Sir Carlton Morley, a knight and a marksman he’d briefly known maybe a decade ago. If memory served, he was now the chief inspector at Scotland Yard. Was he a supporter of Lady Anstruther’s schemes?
That didn’t seem likely; from what he remembered, the man was a stern and stoic traditionalist. A gentleman of militaristic focus and priestlike self-control who could shoot the eye of a needle at fifty paces. He always wondered why Morley should become a lawman, seeing as they didn’t carry firearms.