Page 59 of The Duke
Was this the message the killer had intended? Lady Broadmore had seemed bent on making an enemy of Imogen. Had one of the men in her employ or—dare she think it?—a guest left her a gruesome gift in the form of her adversary’s corpse?
The other more frightening possibility was that the killer had, indeed, mistaken Lady Broadmore for Imogen in the dark. Once he’d gotten his hands on her and discovered his mistake, he had still carried out his dastardly crime upon the wrong woman.
This seemed most likely the case. Imogen chewed on her lip as she contemplated the next question very carefully.
Who wanted her dead?
Barton was always a possibility. Though she’d been certain at the time that she’d stabbed him in the artery, perhaps she’d been mistaken. He’d never been found. What if he’d been stalking the shadows all this time, waiting to finish what he’d started in that terrifying alley behind the Bare Kitten? If he’d let his anger fester nearly two years to an obsessive point, it made perfect sense that he should return for her with the intention of carrying out his rape and mortal revenge.
She really should have notified the inspectors of him. They had the list of former criminals in their possession, and the chance remained that it could be one of them. However, she’d unfairly left out a significant piece of the puzzle.
Because Trenwyth had been there. Because she still wasn’t certain that she was safe from a charge of murder.
And because if she made it known, even to the police, that she’d once been a Kitten of St. James’s Street, everything she had worked for would be ruined. Her charity disgraced. Poor Isobel would be a pariah. She might lose the patronage and friendship of Millie, Farah, and Mena. Indeed, though she’d made a brittle truce with Cole this very afternoon, he still might carry through with his threat to bring into question the validity of her marriage to Lord Anstruther.
He’d be so angry with her for lying to him. She was certain of that now.
Lord, what a mess she seemed to make of everything. She’d been a fool to think that she could run from her troubles. That money and a title would erase the misdeeds of her past.
That she wouldn’t make new and grave mistakes.
Who else had had access to her garden that night? Only all of London, she thought woefully. Even a few characters from her past. Jeremy Carson, the sweet barkeep who misquoted just about everyone. Dr. Longhurst, a dark horse afflicted with brilliance. A brilliance accompanied by a certain amount of awkwardness in society. A touch of cold indifference, as when he’d informed her of poor Molly’s death.
Was it possible he…
The unmistakable sound of flesh connecting with flesh in aggression broke her reverie, and she abruptly realized she’d drifted close to the stone and iron fence that separated her garden from that of Trenwyth Hall.
Her breath accelerated in time with her heart as she drifted close enough to rest her hand upon the ivy crawling the iron trellis, and impeding her view. Grunts and growls provided a lethal melody to the percussion of violent strikes that she felt down to her very bones.
What was going on? Had Inspector O’Mara chased an assailant onto the grounds of Trenwyth Hall? Had the duke, himself, found someone in his own garden?
Imogen attempted to part the thick ivy, but was thwarted by her lack of strength. Then she remembered what Cole had said when he’d appeared in the garden that morning. The ancient tree, not twelve paces away, hid a passage between their properties.
She didn’t know what time it was; late enough that dew had begun to collect on the moss beneath her feet as she hurried to duck beneath the ponderous branches of the Wych elm. Reaching the trunk, she instantly noted the part where the stone and mortar had crumbled away; leaving enough space for someone to shimmy through. Though how a man of Trenwyth’s size managed remained a mystery to the laws of man and nature.
She could feel the striations of the tree bark snag at her shawl as she shimmied through the fissure and held close to the stone wall. Crouching down, she peered from beneath the low-hanging branches and caught her breath as her mind struggled to process the magnitude of what she saw. The sheer masculine brutality of it.
Cole brawled, but not with a murderer.
Or perhaps she was wrong about that. In fact, she became certain she was, because two men who moved and struck like this were physically made for little else but systematic execution.
The moonlight reflected off the golden warmth of his naked torso, and burnished his bronze hair in a shroud of silver beams. He seemed to shimmer like a mirage, the illusion made more severe by the incomprehensible speed with which he moved against his opponent.
Christopher Argent, of all people.
The grounds of Trenwyth Hall were decidedly more grass than garden, and the two men fought each other clad in naught but loose trousers. Like Imogen, even their feet were bare.
Ducking a brutal blow, Cole tucked his lithe body and rolled out of Argent’s reach, unfolding to stand a great distance off. They circled each other like predators fighting over territory, eyes gleaming and feral, teeth bared, and muscles knotted. Each looking for a weakness in the other to exploit and finding none.
Judging by the sweat slicking their hair at the temples and creating a rather intriguing sheen on their scandalously bared flesh, they’d been at this play for quite some time. Each held what looked like blunted metal knives in their right hands.
A thin line of blood dripped from Trenwyth’s eyebrow, following the line of his temple, but he hardly seemed to note its existence.
Imogen knew she should not be watching this, but she couldn’t help but play the dishonorable voyeur to such an emollient moment. Violence was about to explode between them, and a shameful, primitive part of her wanted to watch the detonation.
For the artistic value, if nothing else.
These men, locked in a timeless engagement, were not built for this era of elegance and refinement. They were creatures of combat and carnage, their muscles crafted in layered ropes and swells advertising a strength born of hardship and labor.
