The Hunter (37 page)

In every possible way.

Patience was a virtue to most, and a necessity to him. Today, patience was something he would have murdered for.

Literally.

Something was wrong. He wasn’t himself. In fact, he could feel his sense of self slipping through his fingers like a mooring rope in a tempest. His shoulders gathered into a tense bunch, threatening to engulf his neck. His stomach twisted and roiled, refusing sustenance. His hands were twitchy, his lungs tight, and his legs restless. He wanted to sprint far enough to outrun the desire and desperation banked in his loins. He wanted to climb into a dark hole and hide from the memories that stalked him through the streets of London like a pack of starving beasts. A part of him wanted to wallow like a dog in the bed they’d shared, engulfing himself in her scent. The other half kept scrubbing his clammy palms on his trousers, as though he could rid them of the recollection of the texture of her creamy skin.

But they wouldn’t forget.
He
would never be rid of her. Millie LeCour would forever be a part of him whether he saw her again or not. She owned some sort of distinction that he couldn’t identify. She was his first, she was his only, and his every. However, those sentiments remained incomplete, didn’t they? He needed to fill in the missing bits, but he didn’t dare. Couldn’t possibly.

He’d been her first, her only lover. And he was going to walk away.

Because he was afraid. Afraid of her. Afraid of himself. Afraid to hope, to want, and …

To feel.

He was a fucking coward. He knew it, and now she knew it as well. He could see it in her eyes when he’d left her.

That’s why it was better not to look.

Spotting the slim, elegant form of Lady Thurston stepping from the manor gate, he noted which pocket she slipped the key into before Argent gave the woman his back and leaned casually against a stone post on the corner of the property. He used the time it took for her to brush behind him to check the windows of Thurston Place to make certain no one was looking. He counted her steps without glancing over his shoulder, taking into account her size, stride, and adjusting for any momentary pauses. With his honed senses, he could make out the moment she passed behind him, and he turned to trail her for less than a half minute, the time it took to get the precise angle within the foot traffic of St. James’s to pick her key from her pocket without her knowledge. That accomplished, he took three more steps, and then smoothly changed direction, back toward the mansion.

According to the man Argent had watching Lord Thurston since the night Argent had fought in the pit, he had learned that the earl was a creature of habit, which made his job easier. At half past five Thurston retired to his library to enjoy a cigar and a port or Scotch to relax until the evening meal. Now, at three quarters past the hour, he’d been given enough time to pour his drink and begin to enjoy his cigar.

The cigar he would never finish.

Glibly, as though he belonged there, Argent unlocked the gate and strode inside, immediately ducking into the long, late-afternoon shadow cast by the western wall and its hedgerow. Staying to the shade, he circled the gardens, using them for cover until he aligned with a clear path to the back trellis covered with thick ivy. The latticework threaded through to cover a large pipe and gutter that served to hold the wood structure in place. If he distributed his weight as evenly as he could, it should hold … If not, he knew how to minimize the damage of a fall and would have to enter on the main or lower floors, which was not optimal due to the amount of staff having their tea and meal below stairs before they had to bustle to feed the household.

The top floors would be deserted of staff, thus providing him with ample time and privacy in which to conduct his business.

A sprint and one-legged leap off the brick wall brought the trellis into reach, and Argent hung from one arm for a breathless moment. On a strong swing, his other arm caught the trellis and he climbed with a hand-over-hand ascent that became exponentially easier once his feet could do some of the work. At this angle, even so far up, he was effectively invisible from the street, but anyone who dared peek out the second- or third-story windows would catch him immediately.

With one last grunt of effort, he used his upper body strength to swing from the trellis to the third-floor balcony, the door of which, to his delight, stood ajar, gauzy fabric billowing in the gentle breeze.

Argent had hoped to use his garrote, to watch Jakub’s villainous father struggle against the cord as it cut into the skin of his throat, slowly filling his airway with blood and then horribly undoing the curl of wire within the man’s neck, pulling tight and snapping the spinal column in the process.

Argent filled his lungs with calming breath as his hands began to tremble. What was this? Rage? Anticipation? Perhaps an infuriating combination of the two? This was too dangerous, he shouldn’t want it this much.

“Your death will be slow and painful. I was paid extra for slow and painful.”

Argent froze. That melodic, conversational voice could only belong to one man. A man he
knew
he’d have to tangle with again, but not so soon.

Not today.

Drawing his long knife out of its sheath, Argent tucked it against his arm and slithered into the library.

The splash of entrails spilling onto the floor assaulted his senses. The sound, like the buckets of steaming water the shop owners splashed over the dirty cobbles every morning on the Strand, only a little muffled by the fine carpet. The sight, like the unraveling of a gruesome rope, or something a Scotsman wouldn’t mind eating. Then there was the smell.

Argent was no stranger to blood, and had no scruples about opening a vein, but the human body was home to all kinds of gore and offal, and he generally liked to keep those bits encased in their respective cavities.

Charles Dorshaw, though, had no such compunctions. He gleefully turned his victims inside out. Often whilst still alive, as David, Lord Thurston, currently was.

Blue eyes identical to Jakub’s magnified bespectacled ones peeled open as wide as their sockets allowed as Lord Thurston’s scream was muffled by his gag. He struggled uselessly against the bonds tying his naked body to his chair. When he spied Argent, he slumped back, his eyelids fluttering. They both knew he was already a dead man.

“The ironic thing is…” Dorshaw continued his one-sided conversation with his victim, as relaxed and unperturbed as a man at his club. “I
prefer
slow and painful, so it’s unnecessary to pay me extra as you would most—purveyors of my services.” Wiping the blood on the carpets, Dorshaw brought the clean blade’s flat, reflective surface to his face and brushed a lock of dark hair behind his ear with a bloody finger. Like a lady primping in a mirror. “But when a client wants their victim to suffer as badly as mine does, when they offer such a vulgar amount of money, it’s just bad business sense to turn it down, wouldn’t you agree, Argent?”

Argent said nothing, but closed the doors behind him, securing the exit. Dorshaw likely had caught his reflection in the blade. If Dorshaw took care of Fenwick, Argent’s own intended victim, he could rid the world of Dorshaw and call it a day’s work well done.

“You’re going to have to stop interrupting my kills like this, Argent, I’m beginning to think it’s personal.” Rising from his crouched position on the floor, Dorshaw faced him, tossing his knife back and forth from one elegant hand to the next.

“Did you escape or were you released?” Argent asked coldly.

Dorshaw scoffed, dropping a hand and leaning on Fenwick’s shoulder as if it were the back of a chair. “We both know I’ve never met a prison cell that could hold me for long. Whereas you, however, never seem to escape yours…”

“How the devil would you know—”

“Do you want to know what I find curious about you turning up here?” Dorshaw queried, tapping the tip of his knife against his pursed lips.

“All I want to know is how long you’ll take to die.”

Dorshaw chuckled, his dark eyes dancing with the almost sensual thrill he felt at spilling blood combined with the heady mix of having an edge on the competition. “Oh come now, Argent, you’re known for your efficiency, not your cruelty. That’s my domain. Don’t leave me in suspense. I was given this contract against Lord Thurston exclusively. So that leaves me to wonder what you’re doing here and what your business is with Lord Thurston. We don’t have to be at odds, you know. I could make him tell you anything you wanted before he dies. We’ll call it … a professional courtesy.”

Argent paused, considering the consequences of stalling. “I want to know what he’s doing with the missing boys, if they’re still alive … and why he contracted against the lives of all those women.”

“Women like Millicent LeCour?” Dorshaw’s eyes flared, and Argent fought the urge to pluck them out. “Should we ask him? He’s bleeding faster than I’d expected, he doesn’t have much time.” With a cruel yank, Fenwick’s gag fell to his throat, and Dorshaw held the knife beneath the man’s jugular. “Tell my friend Argent just why those women are dying, and how they’re connected to you.” Bending his lean, graceful frame down toward his victim, Dorshaw stage-whispered in Fenwick’s ear, his lips almost touching the man’s honey-colored hair tipped with his own blood. “Tell him just
who
is responsible for all that killing, and
who,
upon occasion, has actually wielded the knife.”

“You?” Argent accused, pointing his own knife at Dorshaw.

Thurston’s pallor had begun to match the marble in his fireplace. Ivory-white rimmed with blue. Dry, bloodless lips parted, and panting breaths formed his last words. “Those boys … they’re … mine.” Tears streamed down his once robust face, the wrinkles becoming more prominent as the veins beneath the skin emptied. “Jakub … my son.”

“You don’t deserve to say his name, you disgusting swine.” Argent snarled at the dying man. “Now where are the rest? Are they alive?”

“I … don’t … know…” The man’s breath dissolved into painful, sobbing coughs.

“Oh dear.” Dorshaw tsked. “I feel as though we’ve run out of time.” He petted the earl’s hair like one would an ailing dog, then his eyes brightened as though he had an idea. “I suppose I could tell you, as I know where they are, and if they are dead or alive, as I collected on half the contracts, myself.”

“Where?” Argent demanded. Thinking of Millie, of Jakub, of all the boys lost and never found, or locked away and not released until it was too late. “Where are they?”

“I said I
could
tell you, but I don’t think I will. You were unforgivably rude last time we met, and that doesn’t foster feelings of good will, does it?”

Argent brandished his own weapon. “You’re going to tell me.”

Dorshaw giggled, a high, gleeful sound, waving his own knife. “Mine’s bigger and longer, which means I don’t have to.”

“I’ll make you.” Stepping forward, he tracked Dorshaw as the wiry man ducked behind Fenwick’s chair.

“It’s not your way, torturing information out of people.”

“It is now.” Advancing, Argent tested the knife in his hand, feeling the familiar ridges, knowing how it conformed to his grip. He was going to have his pound of flesh before he put this sick bastard down.

This time, he wouldn’t be interrupted.

“Not one more step or I’ll shoot you both!” Chief Inspector Carlton Morley bellowed from the library doorway.

Goddammit.
Argent froze, knowing his back was the broadest target for Morley’s pistol, and Dorshaw was partially shielded by Thurston’s fine chair and also, if the angle was correct, Argent’s body.

He’d never had much in the way of run-ins with Inspector Morley, but he did know that the Scotland Yard leader hated Blackwell.

This could end badly for him. The only advantage he had was his proximity to the French doors and thereby the closest means of escape. However, it was deucedly difficult to outrun a bullet.

“You’re here for Dorshaw,” Argent said calmly. “I have nothing to do with this.”

“I did, indeed, follow Dorshaw’s trail here,” Morley stated, his deep voice just as calm and smooth as Argent’s, touched with the air of one who wasn’t used to having his authority questioned. “But there’s a disemboweled nobleman in front of you, and you’re holding a knife.”

“He’s killed half of those women. He cuts on them. Leaves only clothing and some entrails to find. Sound familiar?” Argent dared to look over his shoulder to pinpoint Morley’s exact location. “He knows what happened to those boys.”

“Did you kill the other half of them, Christopher Argent?”

Christ.
Argent gritted his teeth.

“That’s right, I know who you are and who you work for, so you’ll stay where you stand until my men show, or I’ll paint that rare book collection with your brain matter. I’m that good of a shot, so don’t even think—”

Morley didn’t see the knife Dorshaw threw until it was almost upon him. The inspector was able to turn his torso just in time to absorb the blade into the right shoulder, instead of the heart.

The gun went off. Glass shattered. Morley went down.

Argent whipped his own knife at Dorshaw, who ducked in time to miss a blade through the eye. Another blade was in Argent’s hand before the first weapon embedded in the far wall with an ominous sound.

Grinning, Dorshaw also produced a weapon from his boot, remaining where he’d crouched behind Lord Thurston’s chair. Sometime between the man’s last words and now, the earl had died, and taken his secrets with him.

Fuck
.

“Give it up, Dorshaw, I’m blocking your only means of escape,” Argent taunted. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make it painless.”

“Let me go before the copper’s minions arrive, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me everything now and I’ll consider—”

Fenwick’s chair toppled, revealing Dorshaw’s sinewy body mid-leap, his knife arcing toward Argent.

Crouching, Argent caught Dorshaw by the hips and used the man’s own momentum to throw him over his shoulder and into the wall. Hopefully head-first.