Cole debated for a split second whether it would cause more damage to keep his hand over Imogen’s mouth, or remove it. Ultimately, he decided on the latter, though he didn’t relinquish his hold on her waist.
“Mr. Argent,” Imogen greeted brightly, as though admitting a welcome guest into her parlor. “Whatever are you doing here?”
Argent’s little ebony-haired wife rushed in behind him, glaring daggers the color of volcanic glass, followed by a concerned Lady Northwalk.
“Apparently, we’re protecting your virtue,” the actress snapped.
“My virtue is beyond your protection,” Imogen said with a wistful sigh. “He has it already.”
Argent turned on him, his arctic eyes flashing with lethal wrath.
“We didn’t get that far.” Trenwyth held his hand up, though guilty heat crept from beneath his high collar. “We only … kissed.” It sounded like a lie, even to him.
“We’ve certainly done much more than that upon an evening,” Imogen confessed with a rueful giggle.
He should have kept his hand on her mouth, he thought with no little regret.
“Shame on you, Your Grace.” Lady Northwalk circumvented the two fuming Argents and approached. “You’re supposed to be protecting her.”
“I was,” Cole tightened his grip on Imogen as the angelic Farah reached for her. “I am. Look at her; she’s in no condition to be out—”
Argent stepped closer. “She’s in no condition to be debauched by a mercenary, self-indulgent fuck wit. Now hand her over, and prepare to take the beating you deserve.”
“Don’t bother. I’m in fine condition for debauchery,” Imogen protested with an increasing slur. “In fact, I feel rather sprightly.”
An absurd bubble of laughter broke from Cole’s throat, which he instantly regretted. Damned if she wasn’t as adorable as she was irresistible.
“Give the champagne a few hours,” Millie warned with a knowing sympathy furrowing her brow. “You’ll feel just the opposite.”
Cole had to admit, he did deserve a beating. Not that he’d allow Argent to provide him with one. The hypocritical bastard was one to talk about the line between protection and coercion. He’d told Cole about how he’d nigh on kidnapped the woman who would become his wife.
“Chief Inspector, when did you show up?” Imogen bent toward the fair-haired man framed by the splintered doorway, wearing bemused suspicion as well as he did his evening suit.
“Just in the nick of time, I think,” he said with his usual brand of measured control. “What’s going on here?”
“Not to worry, no one has died,” Imogen informed him earnestly.
“Yet,” Argent supplemented, jabbing his finger toward Trenwyth to wordlessly warn him that they’d be returning to this point in the discussion for-fucking-certain.
Cole met his glare with a challenging one of his own, the fire in his blood shifting from arousal to aggression. “I’m taking Lady Anstruther home,” he informed them.
“So you can finish what you started?” Millie spat. “Not bloody likely.”
“So I can put her to bed,” he explained through teeth that wouldn’t unclench, and then amended upon seeing Farah Blackwell’s expression of alarm. “Alone.”
Morley stepped forward, very careful to avoid any contact with Farah, even the brush of her skirts. “Actually, Your Grace, I would speak with you.”
“Can’t it wait?” Cole did little to keep the impatience from his voice.
“It’s about…” The chief inspector cast a surreptitious glance to the woman in his arms. “It’s regarding the matter we discussed previously, the one on St. James’s Street.”
Imogen lurched forward a little when Cole’s arms almost went slack as he searched the shrewd inspector’s carefully closed features.
Had Morley found Ginny?
Cole fought a thousand emotions surging and ebbing like the sea in a tempest. Did he dare to hope? Did he even want to know? Should he cling to a woman—a memory—as tightly as he did to the lady in his arms? One whom he’d developed equally strong feelings for. One whom he desired with identical fervor.
Both of whom he barely knew anything about.
Reluctantly, Cole released Imogen into Farah Blackwell’s waiting arms as Millie rushed forward to steady her other side.
“I’ll come to check on you in the morning,” he murmured into her hair as he kissed her forehead. They had much to discuss.
He had something to offer her, no matter what Morley revealed.
By now her eyes blinked with the languid sluggishness of the inebriated, though a dreamy smile touched her kiss-swollen lips. “G’night, Your Grace,” she murmured, her languorous tongue making his title sound more like Your Grashe.
With one last warning glance over his shoulder, Argent followed the women into the hall like a hulking sentinel. Cole knew she’d be safe in their company, and yet he wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight.
Glancing at Morley, he noted that the chief inspector’s sharp blue eyes softened as they followed Imogen’s meandering progress from the library, touched with a gentle emotion that had Cole bristling with possessive indignation.
“Is it true what they were accusing you of, Trenwyth?” The inspector dragged his eyes away from Imogen to stab Cole with a stare as obtrusive as a pushpin through a dead moth. “Did you take advantage of her?”
“No,” Cole denied for what seemed like the thousandth time. “We kissed and—carried on a little, but we’ve done that several times sober, truth be told, not that it’s any of your fucking concern.” Cole ran an unsteady hand through his hair, beginning to feel like the cad they accused him of being. “Why are you so bloody protective of her, anyway?” he asked skeptically. “What is she to you?”
Something in Morley’s expression flickered slightly, arresting Cole’s attention. “She reminds me of someone … someone I once loved very much. Someone who was ill-used by men like you.”
“What do you mean, men like me?”
“Noblemen. Soldiers. Predators. Anyone who could prey upon a pretty, innocent woman in desperate circumstances.”
“I’m not a predator, Morley.” Cole’s voice became lethally soft.
“Yes you are.”
“Not that kind. Not when it comes to her.”
Morley’s eyes narrowed, examining him like the same pin-wielding lepidopterist would the specimen beneath his glass.
“Lady Anstruther is precisely who I came here to discuss.”
Cole blinked, wishing he had a drink in his hand. “I thought you said you were here to discuss the Kittens of St. James’s Street.”
Using the light spilling in from the hall, Morley opened a desk drawer, then another, until he found matches with which to light a gas lamp. That accomplished, he leaned on the desk and folded his arms in a posture of relaxed readiness. “It took me some time to ascertain the link between the murders you and I previously discussed, but I’m relatively certain I’ve found it … or rather, that I’ve found her.”
Cole affected a similar posture, his brow furrowing with bemused aggravation. “You’re saying these murders are linked to Lady Anstruther?”