Home > The Hunter (Victorian Rebels #2)(8)

The Hunter (Victorian Rebels #2)(8)
Author: Kerrigan Byrne

“It’s called acting,” Millie muttered under her breath. Rynd was a startlingly handsome and unerringly friendly man, to be sure, but he was also self-involved and bombastic. No one would guess this, but Millie preferred quiet gentlemen. Someone with unimposing intelligence and unfailing kindness. Forgiving. Patient. Indulgent.

Safe.

Her notice returned to her shadow man. He’d taken off his hat, yet sat taller than most. And still. So impossibly motionless. But a sensation creeping over the fine hairs at her nape caused her to wonder if those eyes, pale and cold as a winter sky, were watching her right now. Something about the idea caused a wicked stirring inside of her laced with a delicious sort of anxiety.

She knew nothing about him, but had a feeling that he was neither unimposing nor safe. Something about his watchful stillness unsettled her. She took an involuntary step back into the safety of the velvet curtains and her own shadows, thinking that her bedsheets were a midnight-blue satin, and those eyes would glimmer from amongst them like crystalline stars against the darkest night.

Catching a sudden breath, she shuddered and brushed away the secret thrill from low in her belly. Best not even to fantasize. Everyone in her life was held at arm’s length but one. Marriage, or even a lover, was strictly out of the question.

Her secrets were simply too dangerous.

CHAPTER TWO

Reconnaissance. Argent answered his own internal question. That’s what he was doing at the gin-soaked club at midnight. The Sapphire Room was little more than a veritable mélange of shadowed nooks and private rooms sprouting from the main dance hall with no shortage of cushioned furniture from which to drape oneself.

The cacophony of the revelers packed beneath the crystal chandeliers all but drowned out the chamber musicians. Everything sparkled. From the gowns of the waltzing demimondaines, fashionable in their jewel tones, to the ladies’ intricate coiffures, to the champagne, all glimmered and winked like fallen stars beneath the new electric lights of the Sapphire Room.

Christopher had to suppress a wince as a woman’s high, fake cackle breached his eardrum. He never understood why people pretended amusement or hilarity. It was as though they believed that if they laughed loudly enough, they would create happiness where there was none. Their worthless lives wouldn’t seem so meaningless if they could drown out the sound of their own empty existence with enough champagne and laughter.

What fools.

At times like this Christopher appreciated his uncommon height, as he could stand a head above the crowd, and scan the herd for his prey. It wouldn’t be difficult to find her here. Millie LeCour’s hair was an uncommon shade of ebony. Her eyes, though nearly black themselves, shone with such life, they reminded him of multifaceted volcanic glass.

Those eyes. He’d watched the abundant life drain out of them as Othello had strangled her with his large, dark hands. Above them, alone in his box, Argent had held his own breath as the light that captured all of London dimmed and extinguished to rousing, thunderous applause.

He’d leaned toward her then, gripping the railing of the box. Willing her to wake, truly wondering if he hadn’t just watched someone carry out his own charge to murder her in front of an audience of hundreds.

Argent had seen the real thing so many times he’d lost count, and she captured the dull lifelessness with such precision, he didn’t breathe again until the curtain lifted for a final bow. And there she was, her smile brighter and more prismatic than Covent Garden’s crystal chandelier.

He’d actually slumped back into his chair.

She’d turned to him, pressed her hands together, and curtsied with such grace, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Alive. Not only alive. Full of life. Brimming with it. Pressing her rouged lips to her hand, she’d tossed a kiss to the crowd. And again, he could have sworn, she turned and tossed one to him.

She’d been happy. He’d observed enough of humanity very closely to recognize the emotion. The true glow of transcendence. And as she’d waved at the boxes, his box, beaming that elated smile at him, he’d felt the most peculiar impulse to return it.

He’d become unsettled by that. Restless, chilled, and uncharacteristically prone to movement. His fingers curled and uncurled. His jaw clenched. His heart quickened its pace along with his breath. A pressure exerted itself against his heavy ribs and squeezed.

At first he’d considered apoplexy. Now he was altogether convinced it was something else, entirely.

He’d … felt. Not only that, the phenomenon hadn’t abated.

For the first time in more than twenty years, he’d been a victim of affect. Something he’d thought himself rid of indefinitely.

Even still, at this moment, he was searching the crowd for her with a stunning sense of … what he could only identify as anticipation. Not for the violence, but just for another glimpse of her dark and mesmerizing eyes.

Grimacing and shaking his head, he took up a silent guard against the far wall, hoping the odd sensation would dissipate. That she could affect him so was an impossibility. What sort of creature was she? According to Dashforth, Millie LeCour was a liar and blackmailer. A charismatic narcissist dancing with a death sentence. A mark with private rooms above Bow Street. It was all Argent needed to know.

Wasn’t it?

So … why was he here prowling amongst the crowds of common people like a serpent in a container of mice?

Oh yes. Reconnaissance. He’d do well to remember that.

A murmur of pleasure and surprise swept through the crowd, followed by a swell of applause directed toward the entrance.

   
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