He’d be so angry with her for lying to him. She was certain of that now.
Lord, what a mess she seemed to make of everything. She’d been a fool to think that she could run from her troubles. That money and a title would erase the misdeeds of her past.
That she wouldn’t make new and grave mistakes.
Who else had had access to her garden that night? Only all of London, she thought woefully. Even a few characters from her past. Jeremy Carson, the sweet barkeep who misquoted just about everyone. Dr. Longhurst, a dark horse afflicted with brilliance. A brilliance accompanied by a certain amount of awkwardness in society. A touch of cold indifference, as when he’d informed her of poor Molly’s death.
Was it possible he …
The unmistakable sound of flesh connecting with flesh in aggression broke her reverie, and she abruptly realized she’d drifted close to the stone and iron fence that separated her garden from that of Trenwyth Hall.
Her breath accelerated in time with her heart as she drifted close enough to rest her hand upon the ivy crawling the iron trellis, and impeding her view. Grunts and growls provided a lethal melody to the percussion of violent strikes that she felt down to her very bones.
What was going on? Had Inspector O’Mara chased an assailant onto the grounds of Trenwyth Hall? Had the duke, himself, found someone in his own garden?
Imogen attempted to part the thick ivy, but was thwarted by her lack of strength. Then she remembered what Cole had said when he’d appeared in the garden that morning. The ancient tree, not twelve paces away, hid a passage between their properties.
She didn’t know what time it was; late enough that dew had begun to collect on the moss beneath her feet as she hurried to duck beneath the ponderous branches of the Wych elm. Reaching the trunk, she instantly noted the part where the stone and mortar had crumbled away; leaving enough space for someone to shimmy through. Though how a man of Trenwyth’s size managed remained a mystery to the laws of man and nature.
She could feel the striations of the tree bark snag at her shawl as she shimmied through the fissure and held close to the stone wall. Crouching down, she peered from beneath the low-hanging branches and caught her breath as her mind struggled to process the magnitude of what she saw. The sheer masculine brutality of it.
Cole brawled, but not with a murderer.
Or perhaps she was wrong about that. In fact, she became certain she was, because two men who moved and struck like this were physically made for little else but systematic execution.
The moonlight reflected off the golden warmth of his naked torso, and burnished his bronze hair in a shroud of silver beams. He seemed to shimmer like a mirage, the illusion made more severe by the incomprehensible speed with which he moved against his opponent.
Christopher Argent, of all people.
The grounds of Trenwyth Hall were decidedly more grass than garden, and the two men fought each other clad in naught but loose trousers. Like Imogen, even their feet were bare.
Ducking a brutal blow, Cole tucked his lithe body and rolled out of Argent’s reach, unfolding to stand a great distance off. They circled each other like predators fighting over territory, eyes gleaming and feral, teeth bared, and muscles knotted. Each looking for a weakness in the other to exploit and finding none.
Judging by the sweat slicking their hair at the temples and creating a rather intriguing sheen on their scandalously bared flesh, they’d been at this play for quite some time. Each held what looked like blunted metal knives in their right hands.
A thin line of blood dripped from Trenwyth’s eyebrow, following the line of his temple, but he hardly seemed to note its existence.
Imogen knew she should not be watching this, but she couldn’t help but play the dishonorable voyeur to such an emollient moment. Violence was about to explode between them, and a shameful, primitive part of her wanted to watch the detonation.
For the artistic value, if nothing else.
These men, locked in a timeless engagement, were not built for this era of elegance and refinement. They were creatures of combat and carnage, their muscles crafted in layered ropes and swells advertising a strength born of hardship and labor.
And both men had scars. Such awful scars that Imogen had to clear a sheen of sorrow from her eyes with a few rapid blinks.
Argent’s back was to her, but the pale giant’s topography was a map of torture. A web of once-burned skin covered one entire shoulder like a plate of gruesome armor. A myriad of puckered wounds suggested several battles with a knife. And maybe a bullet or two.
Millie LeCour’s stoic husband was certainly more than he seemed.
Imogen couldn’t help but catalogue the differences between the two men. Argent’s decidedly wider shoulders buttressed a bulk not often seen on this island. Surely he came from Viking stock, his skin pink with exertion and lightly freckled. His hair darker than copper but lighter than wine. He moved with an ease not often seen on men of his size. As though the elements made room for his passage and prepared for the brutal force he brought with him.
Trenwyth, on the other hand, stood taller than any man had a right to be. His sinew was forced to stretch over thick bones and layered with veins. His abdomen seemed to have one more flexed ripple than his opponent’s, and Imogen’s gaze hungrily followed the line between them until it ran into a waistband.
He stalked and circled on bent knees, the predatory savagery on his face contradicted by a calculating gleam in his lupine eyes. Here was the wolf she recognized from that long-ago day in the Bare Kitten. Generally so stoic and self-contained, so certain of his uncontested reign.
And yet. He had to perfect his skill, didn’t he? To remain at the head, a leader and noble, he must keep his mind and body honed to a dagger’s point.
Watching them was a lot like Imogen would imagine watching a wolf fighting with a bear. Each of them crafted for killing, but in entirely different fashions.
As they circled, the moonlight illuminated different parts of Cole’s body. A shallow slash on his neck. A perfect round bullet wound in his shoulder. A labyrinth of raised and welted scars scattered in violent chaos across his entire trunk, both front and back.
She remembered some of his scars from before his incarceration, the visual narrative of a soldier’s life. But most of them, indeed, the most horrific, had been inflicted whilst he suffered in a foreign prison, subject to the basest cruelties imaginable.
Cole’s left arm corded, the metallic hand glinting in the moonlight as he lifted it, the buckles strapped tightly to his thick forearm.
How extraordinary, Imogen thought. That he should use his prosthesis as a weapon. That he should turn his hindrance into strength. She remembered the coiled blade hidden at the wrist, and wondered if he’d ever chanced to use it. She remained crouched beneath the ancient tree on unsteady legs. It was like watching a dance, the steps brutish and heavy, but requiring just as much mastery of motion. In this waltz, one misstep had eternal consequences.
Without any sound or warning, Argent lunged forward, aiming low with his knife in an attack so quick and deadly, Imogen was left wondering if he couldn’t shove the blunted weapon right through a man’s heart by way of brute force.
She needn’t have worried, Cole waited until the last possible moment before parrying, using Argent’s bulk against him and sidestepping the attack. Argent seemed to anticipate the move, and performed some sleight of hand, the knife appearing in his left and jabbing once again at Trenwyth, even though he was slightly off balance.