He left a path of devastation in his wake as he stormed and thundered through Trenwyth Hall. The corpses of his mother’s priceless vases. A splintered antique table Robert had acquired in Sumatra. An upended glass-cased shadow box of rare coins it took his father a lifetime to collect.
Rubbish. All of it. Everything. The trinkets of people who’d left them behind. Who’d left him behind. Who could take nothing with them to the hereafter. The legacy of an empty family built on little else but tradition and held together by insubstantial things. Money. Expectation. A title.
A name.
What’s in a name? a star-crossed lover had once inquired. What, indeed?
He reached his study and locked the door, aware that a few of the staff tiptoed up from below stairs to investigate the commotion.
Would a rose by any other name be as sweet? Would a woman by another name remain the same woman?
Apparently not.
American natives had taught him that a name held much power, a belief held by many, including the Catholic Church. If one could exorcise a demon, one must first learn its name.
Leaning against the window, staring out at a garden both foreign and achingly familiar, Cole knew it would take more than even an exorcism to free him of her.
Not of Ginny. Of Imogen.
Damn her. He made a fist and raised it, but only rested it gently against the cold pane.
She’d somehow crawled inside of that empty cavern in his chest so many had abandoned. She’d filled it with bright colors. Claimed it with her easily won smiles and infuriatingly stubborn altruism. She’d become a part of him without him even realizing it.
A kind, caring, clever, beautiful woman. A consummate liar.
He worked his jaw over powerful emotion and encroaching indecision. All this time. She’d been right below this window.
A window from which he’d considered her below his notice as well. She’d been right about that.
She’d been right about a lot of things.
Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against the window, letting the cool glass temper the heat of his skin. In the darkness behind his lids, he finally conjured Ginny’s face. Imogen’s face.
She’d been gaunt and pale, all sharp, prominent bones and large, melancholy eyes. He’d thought her an ethereal wraith, a dark-haired, delicate beauty. Was that because he’d not cared to recognize desperation and poverty when confronted with it? He’d not considered that her heavy makeup hadn’t been meant to entice, but to conceal. Conceal skin with an exotic hint of color and a touch of freckles.
During every moment he’d spent in that hellish prison, he’d inspected and dissected different parts of their experience together. Of her. The soft hitch of surprise on her breath when he’d pleasured her. The spread of her lashes against her pale cheek when her shyness overcame her. The gleam of her dark hair. The warmth of her body as he sank inside of her. Her delicate shivers of bliss. Her sweet whispers and words.
In that dissection, he’d lost the whole of her. Of course there had been drink, and dimness, and deceit to help muddle things. But had he truly looked at Ginny, he might have actually seen her. Furthermore, had he really taken a moment to look at Imogen, at Lady Anstruther, as anything but a collection of labels he’d already given her, he might have found what he was searching for ages ago.
He was so angry at her. But no more than he was angry with himself.
He’d thought his hubris would protect him, that he could look down upon the world from this lofty tower and shut out that which threatened his survival and sanity.
But he’d forgotten one very important thing. That whichever room he locked himself into, whichever wall he built around himself, reinforcing it with contempt and cruelty, he’d never been able to escape his worst enemy.
Himself.
His own past, his nightmares, his memories. His prejudices, his upbringing, his title.
Opening his eyes, he gazed down at the garden, her garden, and ached.
Imogen was no longer the same woman. She was healthy, vigorous, unashamed. She was the mistress of her own destiny. A destiny that might not include him, because he’d never presented himself to her as an enticement. Only an opponent.
He’d pompously thought the whore he’d fallen for would take him in whatever capacity he offered. That she’d be happy to accept this broken, bitter, barbarous man he’d allowed himself to become.
It had never occurred to him she’d want more. Or that he had no right to her secrets. That he had no claim on her heart.
The cold inside began to lick at his skin now that his ire and ardor had cooled. Now that the warmth he’d found inside of her body faded and the heat of her passion had become frigid rejection.
She’d gently and kindly thrown him out of her home. Out of her life.
Turning to his chair, he reached for his jacket, and paused. Remembering he’d left it on the bench before climbing the trellis to the balcony. He glanced out the window at the empty bench. Then followed the trellis over to the balcony where the door to the master’s rooms stood ajar.
In all his years as a spy, he’d learned a rule to entering a house undetected which he’d never broken.
You always leave things as you found them.
He’d shut and locked the balcony door behind him.
What if, in his self-righteous distraction, he’d led a killer right into Imogen’s home? What if he was too late?
What if she became a casualty of his pride?
Trenwyth bolted out of his study, almost bowling over his butler. “Send for Inspector Morley,” he ordered. “Someone’s broken into the Anstruther house.”
Unholy dread chased him through his own gardens to the fissure in the wall beneath the tree. The stone and bark abraded his flesh as he forced his way through a space he’d used care to maneuver in the past. He didn’t even feel it. Desperation drove him forward.
An arrow of fear pierced his heart, the force of it almost knocking him off his feet as he watched his nightmare become a reality.
The countess suites of the Anstruther manse were not as grand as that of the master’s, and did not boast a balcony because of the high, rounded parapetlike structure with a grand window seat. The lady of the house might enjoy the panoramic view from indoors, away from the elements, situated higher than any other room save the attic.
It was from this window that Jeremy Carson was trying to lower Imogen’s limp body, secured by nothing but a makeshift hammock of bedclothes tied in what Cole prayed to God were secure knots.
Doused with a fear colder than the Baltic Sea, Cole summoned a burst of speed like he’d never done before, tormented by the knowledge that if Jeremy dropped her now, not even he would make it in time.
“She’s not dead. But take one more step and she will be.”
The threat planted Cole’s feet to the ground, his every muscle strung tighter than a crossbow. His temper and desperation pushed the pressure needle to red, heat gathering in his blood with no release. He needed to think. He needed to stay calm.
Imogen’s life depended on it.
“I love her. Loved her longer than you, I expect,” Jeremy called down casually, and Cole had heard enough lies in his life by now to ascertain the truth. “But I’ll send her to heaven before I let you soil her again. See if I don’t.”
Another truth.
Cole put up both hands, the metal of his prosthetic glinting a little in the moonlight. He hoped it made him seem less threatening somehow. He noticed that, though Jeremy was holding the sheets in both hands, his boot braced against the ledge, he didn’t seem to be straining beneath her weight.