Mr. Burns had been terrified in his last moments, and Mena was glad of it.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on you,” the killer stated in that toneless, stony way of his.
“Mr. Argent.” A fair-haired man in a perfectly pressed suit leaned into her cell from the doorway, his light brows drawn down his forehead with somewhat paternal disapproval. Though he couldn’t have been much older than either Dorian Blackwell or Christopher Argent. “Did you just murder that man?”
Argent toed at Burns’s limp shoulder, his chilling features a smooth, blank mask of innocence. “No, Chief Inspector Morley, I—found him like this.”
The chief inspector glanced from Christopher Argent down at Mena, his blue eyes full of compassion, and then to the devil crouched over her. The director of Scotland Yard was no idiot, and Mena could tell that he ascertained the situation within a matter of seconds.
“Blackwell?”
“Bastard must have slipped whilst accosting the lady.” Dorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More, shrugged as he touched gazes with Argent, and then slid his notice back to Morley.
A tense and silent conversation passed between the three men, and after a moment where even Mena forgot to breathe, the chief inspector dropped his shoulders and nodded. “I’ll send for a doctor for the viscountess,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “A real doctor, as I intend to see the one running this institution hanged.”
“I’ll dispense with this heap of rubbish.” Taking Burns by the ankle, Argent dragged the limp and dirty orderly away as though he weighed no more than a gunnysack.
Turning back to Mena, Dorian tilted his head so he was regarding her solely out of his good eye. “Stay still a while longer, Lady Benchley,” he said with a gentleness Mena hadn’t known such a villain capable of. “My wife, Lady Northwalk, is waiting in the carriage. Once the doctor says it’s all right to move you, we’re taking you away from here.”
Mena fainted again, this time from profound relief.
CHAPTER TWO
Hallucinations. Delusions. Waking dreams. All symptoms of absolute madness.
And yet every time Mena pinched herself, the pain didn’t wake her.
This was really happening.
She blinked rapidly against misty-eyed gratitude as she looked at the two women occupying their own chaise longues, enjoying their second day of watching Madame Sandrine and her efficient minions fit Mena with a new wardrobe. If she were to paint them as they were now, she’d name the work Seraphim and Seductress.
Farah Leigh Blackwell, Countess Northwalk, perched on Mena’s right, a study of feminine, angelic English gentility. Her ivory muslin and lace gown played with the few gold strands in her white-blond coiffure as she sipped tea from a delicate cup. One would never at all suppose that she was the wife of the most notorious Blackheart of Ben More, king of the London Underworld.
On Mena’s left, Millicent LeCour draped her scarlet-clad body across her chaise like a luscious libertine, twirling an ebony ringlet about her finger. She narrowed catlike midnight eyes in assessment and bit through a soft truffle, rolling it in her mouth with sensual enjoyment.
“I know you’re self-conscious about the breadth of your shoulders, dear, but if you roll them forward like you’re doing now, you convey submission and doubt. You’ve a lovely, statuesque figure and must use it to your advantage. Throw your shoulders back and roll them down from your neck, like you have angel wings you need to stow.” Unfolding her legs, Millie stood to demonstrate her instruction, her posture the very image of confidence and authority. “And another thing, keep your chin parallel to the floor. Look anywhere you must if you can’t meet someone’s eye, but whatever you do, don’t drop your chin.”
Lessons in comportment from the most famous actress on the London stage; Mena could scarce believe it. She did her best to imitate Millie’s posture of regal grace and checked her progress in the mirrors surrounding the dais upon which she stood.
Her shoulders were the solid picture of dignity, wide and imposing. Her bosom thrust proudly aloft, although it was crushed into her new corset to make it appear smaller, pressed against the plain, elegant black buttons of her green and gold plaid day dress, the perfect uniform for her new position as governess.
It was her features that killed the effect.
Mena’s tongue touched the healing split in her lip and she realized the swelling had gone down dramatically in the three days since she’d been rescued from Belle Glen. Her eye had blackened and swelled until she couldn’t see from it. But she’d applied cold compresses provided by Lady Northwalk, and finally her features were beginning to look like her own again. Though the color from both bruises remained angry.
Much like the man who’d put them there.
Millicent LeCour’s fiancé, Christopher Argent, had snapped Mr. Burn’s neck easy-as-you-please. Mena wondered if the actress knew what her intended was capable of. She must, for one only had to gaze upon Argent to ascertain that he was a lethal man. The arctic chill in his ice-blue eyes only melted for the actress and her cherubic son, Jakub. Mena would be ever grateful to the man, as he’d pulled Mr. Burns off her unconscious body, saving her from the indignities the monster had intended to inflict.
Mena felt as though she should be horrified at having witnessed the ending of a life. But she was glad, grateful even, that Burns was no longer able to torment the helpless. And more thankful, still, that these two women had taken her under their respective wings, going so far as to pay for a new trousseau made by the most sought-after seamstress in all of London, as well as a bevy of undergarments, shoes, and haberdashery.