She’d even pictured him in her bed.
Before she’d known that someone was after her. Before her world had spun out of her control.
The worst part was, her body wanted him still. A disquieting heat throbbed in her loins, pulsed against her lips where the pressure of his mouth had just been. Where she wanted it to be again, damn it all.
“You could have just … taken me. At any time. Why make this devil’s bargain?”
Lord, had she just put that thought into the head of a man who had no conscience? Was she daft?
“I’ve never raped a woman,” he said rather firmly. “And I never will.”
“But coercion is acceptable?” she spat.
“Yes.” His honesty was almost … horrific in its bluntness. It was disconcerting. And yet strangely comforting.
“Answer me this,” she said wearily. “Did you have anything to do with the five women recently killed in London, all mothers to missing sons?”
“No.” She wanted to look into his eyes, to ascertain his veracity. But it seemed to her that he avoided eye contact.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t. But I assure you that I would tell you if I had. I have nothing to hide. Though I’m not convinced those deaths aren’t related to your own predicament. That is something we’ll have to find out. If…” He let the thought trail into the steam. A hot, scandalous, unspoken ultimatum.
If she yielded. If she said yes. If she allowed him into her bed tonight.
There never really had been an if, had there? Not when Jakub’s safety was at stake.
“A-all right,” she forced around a heavy tongue and suddenly dry lips. “I’ll do it.”
His chin lowered in a nod, and she thought, for a moment, that she saw something flare in his eyes. Not heat, but … something deeper. Something that had no name because it was an amalgamation of so many different emotions.
Perhaps only present because she wished it there. Because she feared emotion wasn’t something Christopher Argent was afflicted with.
“I’m going to send for someone while you dress,” he informed her. “He’ll go with you to retrieve your son and accompany you and Ely McGivney to the theater while I interrogate Dashforth.” He placed his fingers under her chin, lifting her head. “Then I will return for you.”
Millie nodded, feeling alarmed, dizzy, relieved, and frightened all at the same time.
“Promise me something,” she said. “Promise me you won’t hurt me, or Jakub. That you’ll never come for us in the future. Ever. After this is done with, and we part ways, I never want to see you again.”
“I give you my word,” he said, releasing her.
Millie searched his face, so aware of her vulnerability. Aware of the sheer lethal power of the man towering over her. Entranced by it. Repelled by it.
Aroused by it.
Whatever she’d been looking for, she couldn’t find. His features were frustratingly blank.
“Does your word truly mean anything, Christopher Argent?”
He paused, then turned from her. “I suppose we’re both about to find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
London was known for a great many things, not the least of which, in Argent’s opinion, was the legion of grubby, wiry errand boys ready to scamper through the city for a coin. He sent one to Hassan Ahmadi, to whom he’d entrust Millie’s safety for the afternoon. The Arab was a longtime employee of Blackwell’s, and would be a large, very visible deterrent to any possible threats.
The fact that the Mussulman was zealously celibate had no bearing on his decision to send for Mr. Ahmadi.
Whatsoever.
Another boy scampered away to bring his butler, Welton, with a carriage and change of attire. Welton had arrived first, as Argent had known he would. While he dressed in dry clothing in the men’s private rooms at the House of the Julii, he instructed his butler that they were to entertain a woman and her son that night.
Welton blinked several times, which was akin to an all-out fit of vapors for him, and promptly took the hired hackney that Mr. Ahmadi arrived in to make the necessary preparations.
“I will keep your black-eyed woman and her son alive and untouched by the filthy, godless hands of any who would wish harm upon them,” the Mussulman promised.
Leaving his carriage to convey Millie to retrieve her son from his school and then to deposit her at Covent Garden for her performance, Argent strode away, confident that the only filthy, godless hands to touch her would be his own.
By the time he reached the white stone building where he would again find Gerald Dashforth’s offices, Argent’s fists clenched to keep from shaking. He conquered the three flights of stairs wishing there had been more, that buildings were taller and he could keep climbing. It would explain the thudding in his chest.
The hallway where Sir Dashforth’s office was located appeared longer than he remembered. For a man who filled any hall nearly to capacity, this passage still seemed remarkably small, and somehow shrinking as his steps echoed against the expensively papered walls. The floors pitched against his feet, like the planks of a ship tossed by the stormy English Channel, and Argent worked at not giving in to the impulse to run and kick open Dashforth’s door, shattering the expensive gold lettering on the tempered glass.
As it was, the door dashed off the wall as he opened it, and the glass rattled loudly, as though trying to decide whether or not to stay intact.