A brittle and bedeviled emotion coursed through him, and he had to gather his composure in order to meet her gentle gaze. She couldn’t possibly know, could she? The maelstrom of angst and rage he grappled with just to pry himself out of his restless bed. The despair that seemed heavier than any load that had previously tested the strength of his shoulders. The alarming and imaginary pain in his missing hand. The endless stretch of lonely days. He was a man who had everything. Money, power, influence, charm, and almost unparalleled physical prowess, despite his injury.
And still he was filled with emptiness. Alone in a crowded room. A soldier without a war. A spy without a mark.
Except here. Now. On this bench with this woman. The beast within him was still and perhaps for the first time since he’d returned from Constantinople he was … himself.
Finally, he felt the sunlight break through the gray.
Her searching look became a speaking one as her gaze seemed to delve into his, reaching through his opaque memories and smothered pain, into the depths of his very soul. She wove a spell that had him leaning toward her like a serpent mesmerized by an exotic charmer.
“Happiness, it’s a foreign tune to me now,” he admitted. “A melody I no longer remember how to play.”
“If you look for vagaries, enemies, and misery wherever you are, you’re certain to find them, aren’t you?” she murmured. “But what if you looked closer? Deeper? Might you not find something new?” Her lashes dipped and lifted to unfurl an ardent sentiment that bemused and entranced him. It was something like expectation, and something like anxiety.
“Or…” Her voice wavered hesitantly. “Perhaps recognize something you’d considered lost?”
He stared at her for a breathless moment, something stirring inside of his confounded memory. Something sweet and also crimson.
“Your lemonade, my lady, Your Grace.” The moment was broken, the door of his memory slammed with a sense of abrupt permanence as Cheever handed him the cold beverage. “I was even able to find a vendor with a block of ice. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of the indulgence.”
“Not at all, Cheever.” Imogen couldn’t have sounded more delighted as she took the glass, already glimmering with droplets of moisture, and held it aloft for a toast. “To small victories and brighter days.”
Amused, Cole touched the rim of his glass to hers. “To reclaiming what we’ve lost.”
Was he mistaken, or had she paled significantly at his words? He studied her over the rim of his glass as the sweet and tart refreshment mingled on his tongue. What did she know of loss? he wondered. It haunted his every step. He’d lost everyone he’d ever called family. He’d lost parts of himself he’d never again regain. Not only his hand, but his heart. Indeed, parts of his immortal soul. Chipped away by the things he’d done in the name of his queen and country, by the tortures inflicted by cruel enemies, and by the betrayal of those he trusted the most.
Perhaps it was why he could admit to himself that he wanted her. That he admired her and, God forgive him, was even beginning to like her.
But no matter how much goodness she demonstrated, he couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Though her smile was open, her eyes held a mystery. A secret to rival that of the Mona Lisa, he suspected.
Would that he knew what it was. Did it have something to do with Achilles? he wondered, turning to glare at the statue with renewed distaste. Not the myth, but the man who drew her to paint his effigy?
The one who tormented her memory.
Had he betrayed her? Or had she lost him in some other way? To death, to another, to whatever cruel vagary of fate sentiment had inflicted upon her.
Was he the reason she was no longer a virgin?
Sunlight fragmented as the glass in Imogen’s hand shattered, dousing her and him in glacial, sticky liquid a mere moment before a weight landed against his chest with a resounding thud.
Cole caught it before it could fall to his lap, and held up a rock about half the size of his palm. Someone had thrown it, but at which one of them?
“Sweet Christ,” he cursed. “Are you all right?”
She sat blinking at the jagged remnants of her beverage in her hand for a few stunned moments, then looked down at her soiled gown, now glittering with shards of glass. “I—I think so.”
Cheever, who’d leaped out of his chair, pointed down the footpath that led toward the west gate. “Look there,” he cried. “The blackguard is getting away!”
A fleeing man in a drab felt derby hat and beige plaid jacket weaved through an array of carriages and astonished onlookers.
Cole was on his feet, wishing they could surge as fast as his rage. “Get her home safe,” he commanded Cheever over his shoulder, already in pursuit. He’d not met many men with legs as long as his, and they ate up significant ground as he pounded after the assailant. He shoved aside useless gawkers, cursing them for doing nothing to help. What was wrong with the upper classes, not one of them lifting a finger to help protect one of their own?
He leaped over a row of hedges, and even jumped into the door of an open landau carriage that idled in his way, hurtling to the other side.
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.