An evening that had promised to be routine was turning out
to be peculiar indeed.
It had been a long time since a woman had aroused Cam’s
interest as Amelia Hathaway had. The moment he had seen her standing
in the alley, wholesome and pink-cheeked, her voluptuous figure
tidly contained in a modest gown, he had wanted her. He was at
a loss to understand why, when she was the embodiment of everything
that annoyed him about Englishwomen. It was obvious Miss Hathaway
had a relentless belief in her own ability to organize and manage
everything around her. It was furthermore obvious that she was
opinionated, controlling and far too certain of herself. Cam’s
usual reaction to that sort of female was to flee in the opposite
direction. But as he had stared into her pretty blue eyes, and
seen the tiny determined frown hitched between them, he had felt
an unholy urge to snatch her up and carry her away somewhere
and do something uncivilized. Barbaric, even.
Of course, uncivilized urges had always lurked a bit too close
to his surface. And in the past year Cam had begun to find it
more difficult than usual to control them. He had become uncharacteristically
short-tempered, impatient, easily provoked. The things that had
always given him pleasure were no longer satisfying. Worst of
all, he’d found himself satisfying his sexual urges with
the same lack of enthusiasm he was doing everything else these
days.
Finding female companionship was never a problem--Cam had found
release in the arms of many a willing woman, and had repaid the
favor until they had purred with satisfaction. There was no real
thrill in it, however. No excitement, no fire, no sense
of anything other than having taken care of a bodily function
as ordinary as sleeping or eating. Cam had been so troubled
by his recent lack of sexual enthusiasm that he’d actually
brought himself to discuss it with his employer, Lord St. Vincent.
Once a renowned skirt-chaser, now an exceptionally devoted
husband, St. Vincent knew as much about these matters as any
man alive. When Cam had asked glumly if decreased physical
urges was something that naturally occurred when a man entered
his thirties, St. Vincent had choked on his drink.
“Good God, no,” the viscount had said, coughing
slightly as a swallow of brandy seared his throat. They
had been in the manager’s office of
the gaming club, going over account books after the place had
been closed in the early hours of the morning.
St. Vincent was a handsome man with wheat-colored hair and
pale blue eyes. Some claimed he had the most perfect form
and features of any man alive. The looks of a saint, the soul
of a scoundrel. “If
I may ask, what kind of women have you been taking to bed?”
“What do you mean, what kind?” Cam had asked warily.
“Beautiful or plain?”
“Beautiful, I suppose.”
“Well, there’s your problem,” St. Vincent said in a matter-of-fact
tone. “Plain women are far more enjoyable. There’s no better aphrodisiac
than gratitude.”
“Yet you married a beautiful woman,” Cam had pointed out.
A slow smile had curved St. Vincent’s lips. “Wives
are a different case altogether. They require a great deal of
effort, but the rewards are substantial. I highly recommend wives,
especially one’s own.”
Cam had stared at his employer with annoyance, reflecting that
serious conversation with St. Vincent was often hampered by the
viscount’s fondness for turning it into an exercise of
wit. “If I understand you, my lord,” he said curtly, “your
recommendation for a lack of desire is to start seducing unattractive
women?”
Picking up a carved silver pen holder, St. Vincent deftly fitted
a nib into the end and made a project of dipping it precisely
into an ink bottle. “Rohan, I’m doing my best to
understand your problem. However, a lack of desire is something
I’ve never experienced. I’d have to be on my deathbed
before I stopped wanting--no, never mind, I was on my deathbed
in the not-too-distant past, and even then I had the devil’s
own itch for my wife.”
“Congratulations,” Cam muttered, abandoning any hope of prying
an earnest answer out of the man. “Let’s attend to the account
books. We have more important matters to discuss than sexual habits.”
St. Vincent scratched out a figure and set the pen back on
its stand. “No, I insist on discussing sexual habits. It’s
so much more entertaining than work.” He smiled lazily. “Discreet
as you are, Rohan, one can’t help but notice how ardently
you are pursued. It seems you hold quite an appeal for the ladies
of London. And from all appearances, you’ve taken full
advantage of what’s been offered.”
Cam stared at him without expression. “Pardon, but are
you leading to an actual point, my lord?”
Leaning back in his chair, St. Vincent made a temple of his
elegant hands and regarded Cam steadily. “Since you’ve had
no problem with lack of desire in the past, I can only assume
that, as happens with other appetites, yours has been sated with
an overabundance of sameness. A bit of novelty may be just the
thing.”
Considering the statement, which actually made sense, Cam wondered
if the notorious former rake had ever been tempted to stray from
his wife.
Having known Evie since childhood, when she had come to visit
her widowed father at the club from time to time, Cam felt as
protective of her as if she’d been his younger sister.
No one would have paired the gentle-natured Evie with such a
wicked libertine. And perhaps no one had been as surprised as
St. Vincent himself to discover their marriage of convenience
had turned into a passionate love match.
“What of married life?” Cam asked softly. “Does it eventually
become an overabundance of sameness?”
St. Vincent’s expression changed, the light blue eyes warming
at the thought of his wife. “It has become clear to me,” he
murmured with a faint smile, “that with the right woman,
one can never have enough. I would welcome an overabundance of
such bliss--but I doubt such a thing is mortally possible.” Closing
the account book with a decisive thud, he stood from the desk. “If
you’ll excuse me, Rohan, I’ll bid you good evening.”
“What about finishing the night’s accounting?”
“I’ll leave the rest in your capable hands.” At Cam’s
scowl, St. Vincent shrugged innocently. “Rohan, one of us is an unmarried
man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening.
The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile
young wife waiting upstairs. Who do you think should do the damned account
books?” And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office.
“Novelty” had been St. Vincent’s recommendation--well, that
word certainly applied to Miss Hathaway. Cam had always been consistent in
his tastes, preferring experienced women who regarded seduction as a game and
knew better than to confuse pleasure with emotion. He had never cast himself
in the role of tutor to an innocent. In fact, the prospect of initiating a
virgin was distinctly off-putting--nothing but pain for her, and awkwardness
for both of them, and the appalling possibility of tears and regrets afterward
. . . he recoiled from the idea. No, there would be no pursuit of novelty with
Miss Hathaway.
Hastening his pace, Cam went up the stairs to the room where
the woman waited with the dark-faced Chal. Merripen was a common
Romani name. Yet the Gypsy was in a most uncommon position. It
appeared he was acting as the woman’s servant, a bizarre
and repugnant situation for a freedom-loving Gypsy. Had their
relationship been that of friends or lovers--also bizarre in
light of his people’s aversion to mixing with the gorgio--Merripen
would never have allowed the woman to do the talking.
So the two of them, Cam and Merripen, had something in common
. . . both of them working for gorgios instead of roaming the
earth freely as God intended. However, rather than making him
more kindly disposed toward Merripen, the knowledge fostered
a sense of antagonism. It underscored how little Cam liked his
own situation.
A Romani didn’t belong indoors, enclosed in walls. Living
in boxes, as all rooms and houses were, shut away from the sky
and wind and sun and stars. Breathing in stale air scented with
food and floor polish. Cam felt a surge of mild panic. He fought
it back and focused on the task at hand--getting rid of the peculiar
pair in the receiving room.
Tugging at his collar to loosen it, he pushed at the half-open
door and entered the room.
Amelia Hathaway stood near the doorway, waiting with tightly
leashed impatience, while Merripen remained a dark presence in
the corner. As Cam approached and looked into Amelia’s
upturned face, the panic dissolved in a curious rush of heat.
Her blue eyes were smudged with faint lavender shadows beneath,
and her soft-looking lips were pressed into a tight seam. Her
hair had been pulled back and pinned tightly, dark and flat and
shining against her head.
Whatever her responsibilities and worries were--and with Ramsay
as a brother, they were undoubtedly considerable--Cam wanted
to distract her from them. Before he could stop himself, he thought
of what it would be like to take the pins from that glossy hair
and run his fingers through it. The skin of her throat was as
light as ivory . . . it would be like that everywhere. He wanted
all her soft paleness beneath him, her mouth open and panting,
her capable hands weak and trembling as they pressed on his back.
Damn it. Of all the times to have regained his sexual drive,
this was the most inappropriate. And of all the women to lust
after, she was the most impossible.
“Well?” Amelia demanded, clearly unaware of the turn of his thoughts.
Which was a good thing, as they likely would have sent her screaming from the
room. “Have you discovered anything about my brother’s whereabouts?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“Lord Ramsay visited earlier this evening, lost some money at the hazard
table--”
“Thank God he’s alive,” Amelia exclaimed.
“--and apparently decided to console himself by visiting the local brothel.”
“Brothel?” A fascinating flush of pink swept upward from the high
collar of her matronly gown. She shot Merripen an exasperated glance. “I
swear it, Merripen, he’ll die at my hands tonight.” She looked
back at Cam. “How much did he lose at the hazard table?”
“Approximately a thousand pounds.”
The blue eyes widened in outrage. “He’ll die slowly
at my hands. Which brothel?”
“Bradshaw’s,” Cam replied.
Amelia reached for her bonnet. “Come, Merripen. We’re
going there to collect him.”
Both Merripen and Cam replied at the same time. “No.”
“I want to see for myself if he’s all right,” she said calmly. “I
doubt he is.” She gave Merripen a frosty stare. “I’m not
returning home without Leo. You know me well enough to take me at my word.”
Half-amused, half-alarmed by her force of will, Cam asked Merripen, “Am
I dealing with stubbornness, idiocy, or some combination of the
two?”
Amelia replied before Merripen had the opportunity. “Stubbornness,
on my part. The idiocy may be attributed fully to my brother.” She
settled the bonnet on her head and tied its ribbons beneath her
chin.
Cherry-red ribbons, Cam saw in bemusement. That frivolous splash
of red amidst her otherwise sober attire was an incongruous note.
Becoming more and more fascinated by this singular creature,
Cam heard himself say, “You can’t go to Bradshaw’s.
Reasons of morality and safety aside, you don’t even know
where the hell it is.”
She appeared unperturbed by the profanity. “I assume a
great deal of business is sent back and forth between your establishment
and Bradshaw’s. You say the place is local, which means
all I have to do is follow the foot-traffic from here to there.
Goodbye, Mr. Rohan. Your help has been greatly appreciated.”
Cam moved to block her path. “All you’ll accomplish
is making a fool of yourself, Miss Hathaway. You won’t
get past the front door. A brothel like Bradshaw’s doesn’t
exactly take strangers off the street.”
“How I manage to retrieve my brother, sir, is no concern of yours.”
She was correct. It wasn’t. But Cam hadn’t been this
entertained in a long time. No sensual depravities, no skilled
courtesan, not even a room full of naked women, could have interested
him half so much as Miss Amelia Hathaway and her red ribbons.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
She frowned at him. “I don’t need your services,
Mr. Rohan.”
Cam could think of a number of services she was clearly in
need of, most of which would be a pleasure to provide. “Obviously
it will be to everyone’s benefit for you to retrieve Ramsay
and leave London as quickly as possible,” he said. “I
consider it my civic duty to hasten your departure.”
