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.