Because every society, every civilization, seemed to want to reject one simple and evident truth. That man for all his forward progression was still, in his being, no better than a beast. Driven by primal instincts and powerful, universal hungers. Try as he might to blame his primitive carnality on various and sundry underworld demons throughout the ages, Cole believed that a man’s wicked will was solely his own.
However, as he’d nursed his rather nihilistic view, buttressing it with dark life experiences, he’d begun to realize he’d overlooked one very important thing in his estimation of mankind …
Women.
A creature of a different sort, one fabricated from innumerable paradoxes. Both potent and persecuted. Made of equal parts fear and fairness. Wit and wisdom.
Of strength and secrets.
Certainly they had instincts and deviances of their own, but they existed generally above the cruel and bestial egocentricity of their sexual counterparts. They were constructed of kindness, of altruism, of ethics and understandings not normally possessed by men. Especially men like himself.
Imogen, he predicted, had more secrets than most. Secrets meant to be discovered, ones that would have meaning for them both.
Cole took one last look around the garden, a place he now thought of as synonymous with Imogen. The place from which she’d first captured his attention, then his lips, and eventually, his heart.
It had taken a long time for him to learn to climb after his injury, but his spelunking expedition to the Americas had been invaluable. Discarding his jacket to the bench they’d shared only days ago, he gripped the trellis with his good hand, and began to ascend.
The hook on the palm of his prosthesis attached to the harness around his torso did little better than anchor him in place as he made upward progress with his three other limbs. But he managed with almost his previous stealth. Once the second-floor balcony was in reach, he leaped over, catching the entirety of his weight with one hand. He gritted his teeth as the stitches in his shoulder strained and threatened to rip. With a foul curse and a surge of strength, he maneuvered his hook to sink into the wood railing once he steadied himself. Finding purchase with his feet, he vaulted the railing and landed in a soft crouch in the shadows of the balcony.
The first-floor locks were many and secure. The second-story doors and windows, however, were often protected with nothing better than a hook-latch.
Depressing the lever inside his prosthesis, Cole thrilled to the metallic slide of the thin blade. Carefully, he fitted it in between the balcony doors, and lifted until it released the latch with a satisfying click.
That accomplished, he retracted the blade and opened the door, entering her house as a shadow might, without notice.
He’d done this before, an infinite number of times, but never with his pulse thundering. Never with his mind so occupied.
Or his heart so vested.
How could Ginny and Imogen be connected by one young, inexperienced game-maker? Certainly, there was more than one Jeremy in the world, but the coincidence was simply too strong to ignore. A prostitute and a woman who dedicated her life to saving them … it wasn’t much of a leap to assume that they might have known each other.
Or shared acquaintances at the very least.
If Imogen’s father had been a longtime client of the Bare Kitten, if he’d owed the establishment a great deal of money, it followed that the remaining family might have some dealings with the former—or current—proprietor, and that she would be ashamed to admit said dealings to society.
Especially to an admittedly antagonistic duke.
If it was found out that the countess Anstruther was associated with a Piccadilly pimp, it would be more than a scandal. It would be her undoing.
The balcony door opened to the master suite, a room he’d expected to be hers. But as Cole crept across the plush carpets to the bedside, he was astonished to find a plump, gray-haired woman prone in slack-jawed slumber.
Her mother, he realized, as an ache bloomed in his chest. Imogen had relinquished the largest and most comfortable rooms to the woman, most likely taking residence in the countess’s suites, as she would have when Earl Anstruther was still alive.
It seemed like something she would do, he thought with a reluctant half-smile, sacrifice luxury for those she loved.
Making his way into the hall, he hesitated, glancing toward what he knew to be the countess’s suites merely steps away.
He would find Imogen there; her sleep aided by many glasses of champagne. Soft, pliant, and warm. Lord, how his fingers itched to open the door to her room and let the darkness decide what happened next.
But what he wouldn’t find in her bed was her secrets.
They resided in a different room, of that he was certain.
The day he’d fought the gangsters on her porch, she’d led him down a long hall toward the back stairs. Upon finding a door slightly ajar, she’d quickly pulled it shut, casting him a guilty look.
He’d known in that moment that the room contained something she hadn’t wanted him to see. At the time, he’d politely pretended not to notice.
At the time, he’d not known her past was so connected to his own.
He turned to the stairs, making his way from the second floor to the ground level. Then on flat, noiseless feet he crossed the grand entry and hall to the familiar door. It didn’t surprise him when he found it locked, and he effortlessly picked it, easing the door open on quiet, well-oiled hinges.
Being in the middle of the house, the room boasted no windows, and the hall outside was lit by little more than moonbeams and the wan glow of a lamp left burning for those who would make a nocturnal meander to the kitchens.
Cole got an impression of strange, mismatched angles inside the room, much like the skyline of a city from above. He fetched the lantern from the end of the hall and returned, holding the light aloft.
Paintings?
He drifted into the large, dark-paneled room, drawn forward by equal parts awe and apprehension. Here was her sanctum, the place where she kept the renderings of her mind and memory.
Her easel and tools were supported by the far wall with a chaotic sort of organization. The sketch of Achilles was propped next to them, beginning to take real form with the application of a few rough coats of heavy color.
Dusty coverlets adorned a few of the taller canvases, though just as many were left exposed. Various landscapes transported him to the countryside, and then to a back street of the East End. Others were obvious renderings of places she’d only ever seen in other paintings. Morocco or Marrakesh, the Indies, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, the Alps. All painted with a wistful, yearning hand. It was as though she accepted her ignorance, and created with her brushes her own idea of a destination. Each of those landscapes had a sense of incompletion, of expectancy, as if they waited for her to travel there, to fill in the reality over the fantastical so they could be considered finished.
She was more talented than he’d realized, Cole thought. What if he took her to these places? Destinations he’d likely already traversed, but instead of his aim being entrapment and espionage, it would be nothing more than enjoyment.
Perhaps, while he watched her transpose what beauty her gentle eyes found, he’d locate that thing for which he’d been eternally searching.
Peace. Purpose. Meaning.
Love?
Though he knew that no one resided on this floor, Cole moved with the utmost care, with the sense he was on hallowed ground. An expectant stillness permeated the room, a sacred silence that both beckoned and repelled him.