Win descended the main staircase of the hotel while one of the Hathaways' footmen, Charles, followed closely. "Careful, Miss Hathaway," he cautioned. "One slip and you could break your neck on these stairs."
"Thank you, Charles," she said without moderating her speed. "But there's no need to worry." She was quite adept at stairs, having gone up and down long staircases at the clinic in France as part of her daily exercise. "I should warn you, Charles, that I will proceed at a vigorous pace."
"Yes, miss," he said, sounding disgruntled. Charles was somewhat stout, and not fond of walking. Although he was getting on in years, the Hathaways were loath to dismiss him before he wished to retire.
Win bit back a smile. "Just to Hyde Park and back, Charles."
As they neared the entrance to the hotel, Win saw a tall, dark form moving through the lobby. It was Merripen, looking moody and distracted as he walked with his gaze focused downward. She couldn't suppress the flutters of pleasure that went through her at the sight of him, the handsome, bad-tempered beast. He approached the stairs, glancing upward, and his expression changed as he saw her. There was a flash of hunger in his eyes before he managed to extinguish it. But that brief, bright flare caused Win's spirits to lift immeasurably.
After the scene that morning, and Merripen's display of jealous rage, Win had apologized to Julian. The doctor had been amused rather than disconcerted. "He is exactly as you described," Julian had said, adding ruefully, "… only more."
"More" was a fitting word to apply to Merripen, she thought. There was nothing understated about him. At the moment he looked rather like the brooding villain of a sensation novel. The kind who was always vanquished by the fair-haired hero.
The discreet glances Merripen was attracting from a group of ladies in the lobby made it evident that Win was not the only one who found him mesmerizing. The civilized attire suited him. He wore the well-tailored clothes without a trace of self-consciousness, as if he couldn't have cared less whether he was dressed like a gentleman or a dock laborer. And knowing Merripen, he didn't.
Win stopped and waited, smiling, as he came to her. His gaze swept over her, not missing a detail of the simple pink walking gown and matching saque jacket.
"You're dressed now," Merripen remarked, as if he were surprised that she wasn't parading naked through the lobby.
"This is a walking dress," she said. "As you can see, I'm going out for some air."
"Who's escorting you?" he asked, even though he could see the footman standing a few feet away. "Charles," she replied.
"Only Charles?" Merripen looked outraged. "You need more protection than that."
"We're only walking to Marble Arch," she said, amused.
"Are you out of your mind, woman? Do you have any idea what could happen to you at Hyde Park? There are pickpockets, cutpurses, confidence tricksters, and gangs, all ready for a nice little pigeon like you to pluck."
Rather than take offense, Charles said eagerly, "Perhaps Mr. Merripen has a point. Miss Hathaway. It is rather far… and one never knows…"
"Are you offering to go in his stead?" Win asked Merripen.
As she had expected, he put on a show of grumbling reluctance. "I suppose so, if the alternative is to see you traipsing through the streets of London and tempting every criminal in sight." He frowned at Charles. "You needn't go with us. I'd rather not have to look after you, too."
"Yes, sir," came the footman's grateful reply, and he went back up the stairs with considerably more enthusiasm than he had shown while descending them.
Win slipped her hand through Merripen's arm and felt the fierce tension in his muscles. Something had upset him deeply, she realized. Something far more than her exercise costume or the prospective walk to Hyde Park.
They left the hotel, Merripen's long strides easily keeping measure with her brisk ones. Win kept her tone casual and cheerful. "How cool and bracing the air is today."
"It's polluted with coal smoke," he said, steering her around a puddle as if it might cause mortal harm to get her feet wet.
"Actually, I detect a strong scent of smoke from your coat. Not tobacco smoke, either. Where did you and Mr. Rohan go this morning?"
"To a Romany camp."
"For what reason?" Win persisted. With Merripen, one could not be easily be put off by terseness, or one would never get anything out of him.
"Rohan thought we might find someone there from my tribe."
"And did you?" she asked softly, knowing the subject was a sensitive one.
A restless shift of the muscle beneath her hand. "No."
"Yes, you did. I can tell you're brooding."
Merripen glanced down at her, and saw how closely she was studying him. He sighed. "In my tribe, there was a girl named Shuri…"
Win felt a pang of jealousy. A girl he had known and never mentioned. Perhaps he had cared for her.
"We found her today in the camp," Merripen continued. "She hardly looks the same. She was once very beautiful, but now she appears much older than her years."
"Oh, that's too bad," Win said, trying to sound sincere.
"Her husband, the rom baro, was my uncle. He was… not a good man."
That was hardly a surprise, considering the condition Merripen had been in when Win had first met him. Wounded, abandoned, and so savage that it was clear he had lived like a wild creature.
Win was filled with compassion and tenderness. She wished they were in some private place where she could coax Merripen to tell her everything. She wished she could embrace him, not as a lover, but as a loving friend. No doubt many people would think it ludicrous that she should feel so protective of such an invulnerable-seeming man. But beneath that hard and impervious facade, Merripen possessed a rare depth of feeling. She knew that about him. She also knew that he would deny it to the death.
"Did Mr. Rohan tell Shuri about his tattoo?" Win asked. "That it was identical to yours?"
"Yes."
"And what did Shuri say about it?"
"Nothing." His reply was a shade too quick.
A pair of street sellers, one bearing bundles of watercress, the other carrying umbrellas, approached them hopefully. But one glower from Merripen caused them to retreat, braving the traffic of carriages, carts, and horses to go to the other side of the street.
Win didn't say anything for a minute or two, just held Merripen's arm as he guided her along with exasperating bossiness, muttering, "Don't step there," or, "Come this way," or, "Tread carefully here," as if stepping on broken or uneven pavement might result in severe injury.
"Kev," she finally protested, "I'm not fragile."
"I know that."
"Then please don't treat me as if I'll break at the first misstep."
Merripen grumbled a little, something about the street not being good enough for her. It was too rough. Too dirty.
Win couldn't help chuckling. "For heaven's sake. If this street was paved with gold and angels were sweeping it, you would still say it was too rough and dirty for me. You must rid yourself of this habit of protecting me."
"Not while I live."
Win was quiet, gripping his arm more tightly. The passion buried beneath the rough, simple words filled her with an almost indecent pleasure. So easily, he could reach down to the deepest region of her heart.
"I'd rather not be put on a pedestal," she finally said.
"You're not on a pedestal. You're-" But he checked the words, and he shook his head a little, as if he was vaguely surprised he'd said them. Whatever had happened that day, it had shaken his self-control badly.
Win pondered what possible things Shuri might have said. Something about the connection between Cam Rohan and Merripen…
"Kev." Win eased her pace, forcing him to go more slowly as well. "Even before I left for France, I had the idea that those tattoos were evidence of a close link between you and Mr. Rohan. Being so ill, I had little to do except observe the people in my sphere. I noticed things that no one else had the time to perceive, or think about. And I've always been especially attuned to you." Taking in his expression with a quick sidelong glance, Win saw that he didn't like that. He didn't want to be understood, or observed. He wanted to stay safe in his iron-clad solitude.
"And when I met Mr. Rohan," Win continued in a casual tone, as if they were having an ordinary conversation, "I was struck by many similarities between the two of you. The tilt of his head, that half smile he has… the way he gestures with his hands… all things I had seen you do. And I thought to myself, I wouldn't be surprised to learn someday that the two of them are… brothers."
Merripen stopped completely. He turned to face her, standing right there on the street while other pedestrians were forced to go around them, muttering about how inconsiderate it was for people to block a public footpath. Win looked up into his heathen dark eyes and gave an innocent shrug. And she waited for his response.
"Improbable," he said gruffly.
"Improbable things happen all the time," Win said. "Especially to our family." She continued to stare at him, reading him. "It's true, isn't it?" she asked in wonder. "He's your brother?"
Kev hesitated. His whisper was so soft she could barely hear it. "Younger brother."
"I'm glad for you. For both of you." She smiled up at him steadily, until his mouth took on a wry, answering curve.
"I'm not."
"Someday you will be."
After a moment he pulled her arm through his and they began walking again.
"If you and Mr. Rohan are brothers," Win said, "then you're half gadjo. Just like he is. Are you sorry about that?"
"No, I-" He paused to mull over the discovery. "I wasn't as surprised as I should have been. I've always felt I was Romany and… something other."
And Win understood what he didn't say. Unlike Rohan, he wasn't eager to face this entire other identity, this vast part of himself that was so far unrealized. "Are you going to talk about it with the family?" she asked softly. Knowing Merripen, he would want to keep the information private until he'd sorted through all its implications.
He shook his head. "There are questions that must be answered first. Including why the gadjo who fathered us wanted to kill us."
"He did? Good heavens, why?"
"My guess is that it was probably some question of inheritance. With gadjos, it usually comes down to money."
"So bitter," Win said, clinging more tightly to his arm.
"I have reason."
"You have reason to be happy as well. You have found a brother today. And you found out that you're half-Irish."
That actually drew a rumble of amusement from him. "That should make me happy?"
"The Irish are a remarkable race. And I see it in you: your love of land, your tenacity…"
"My love of brawling."
"Yes. Well, perhaps you should continue to suppress that part."
"Being part-Irish," he said, "I should be a more proficient drinker."
"And a far more glib conversationalist."
"I prefer to talk only when I have something to say."
"Hmmm. That is neither Irish nor Romany. Perhaps there's another part of you we haven't yet identified."
"My God. I hope not." But he was smiling, and Win felt a warm ripple of delight spread through all her limbs.
"That's the first real smile I've seen from you since I came back," she said. "You should smile more, Kev." "Should I?" he asked softly.
"Oh yes. It's beneficial for your health. Dr. Harrow says his cheerful patients tend to recover far more quickly than the sour ones."
The mention of Dr. Harrow caused Merripen's elusive smile to vanish. "Ramsay says you've become close with him."
"Dr. Harrow is a friend," she allowed.
"Only a friend?"
"Yes, so far. Would you object if he wished to court me?"
"Of course not," Merripen muttered. "What right would I have to object?"
"None at all. Unless you had staked some prior claim, which you certainly have not."
She sensed Merripen's inner struggle to let the matter drop. A struggle he lost, for he said abruptly, "Far be it from me to deny you a diet of pabulum, if that's what your appetite demands."
"You're likening Dr. Harrow to pabulum?" Win fought to hold back a satisfied grin. The small display of jealousy was a balm to her spirits. "I assure you, he is not at all bland. He is a man of substance and character."
"He's a watery-eyed, pale-faced gadjo"
"He is very attractive. And his eyes are not at all watery."
"Have you let him kiss you?"
"Kev, we're on a public thoroughfare-"
"Have you?"
"Once," she admitted, and waited as he digested the information. He scowled ferociously at the pavement before them. When it became apparent he wasn't going to say anything, Win volunteered, "It was a gesture of affection."
Still no response.
Stubborn ox, she thought in annoyance. "It wasn't like your kisses. And we've never…" She felt a blush rising. "We've never done anything similar to what you and I… the other night…"
"We're not going to discuss that."
"Why can we discuss Dr. Harrow's kisses but not yours?"
"Because my kisses aren't going to lead to courtship."
That hurt. It also puzzled and frustrated her. Before all was said and done, Win intended to make Merripen admit just why he wouldn't pursue her. But not here, and not now.
"Well, I do have a chance of courtship with Dr. Harrow," she said, attempting a pragmatic tone. "And at my age, I must consider any marriage prospect quite seriously."
"Your age?" he scoffed. "You're only twenty-five."
"Twenty-six. And even at twenty-five, I would be considered long in the tooth. I lost several years-my best ones perhaps-because of my illness."
"You're more beautiful now than you ever were. Any man would be mad or blind not to want you." The compliment was not given smoothly, but with a masculine sincerity that heightened her blush.
"Thank you, Kev."
He slid her a guarded look. "You want to marry?"
Win's willful, treacherous heart gave a few painfully excited thuds, because at first she thought he'd asked, "You want to marry me?" But no, he was merely asking her opinion of marriage as… well, as her scholarly father would have said, as a "conceptual structure with a potential for realization."
"Yes, of course," she said. "I want children to love. I want a husband to grow old with. I want a family of my own."
"And Harrow says all of that is possible now?"
Win hesitated a bit too long. "Yes, completely possible."
But Merripen knew her too well. "What are you not telling me?"
"I am well enough to do anything I choose now," she said firmly.
"What does he-"
"I don't wish to discuss it. You have your forbidden topics; I have mine."
"You know I'll find out," he said quietly.
Win ignored that, casting her gaze to the park before them. Her eyes widened as she saw something that had not been there when she had left for France… a huge, magnificent structure of glass and iron. "Is that the Crystal Palace? Oh, it must be. It's so beautiful-much more so than the engravings I've seen."
The building, which covered an area of more than nine acres, housed an international show of art and science called the Great Exhibition. Win had read about it in the French newspapers, which had aptly termed the exhibition one of the great wonders of the world.
"How long since it was completed?" she asked, her step quickening as they headed toward the glittering building.
"Not quite a month."
"Have you been inside? Have you seen the exhibits?"
"I've visited once," Merripen said, smiling at her eagerness. "And I saw a few of the exhibits, but not all. It would take three days or more to look at everything."
"Which part did you go to?"
"The machinery court, mostly."
"I do wish I could see even a small part of it," she said wistfully, watching the throngs of visitors exiting and entering the remarkable building. "Won't you take me?"
"You wouldn't have time to see anything. It's already afternoon. I'll bring you tomorrow."
"Now. Please" She tugged impatiently on his arm. "Oh, Kev, don't say no."
As Merripen looked down at her, he was so handsome that she felt a pleasant little ache at the pit of her stomach. "How could I say no to you?" he asked softly.
As he took her to the towering arched entrance of the Crystal Palace, and paid a shilling each for their admission, Win gazed at her surroundings in awe. The driving force behind the exhibition of industrial design had been Prince Albert, a man of vision and wisdom. According to the tiny printed map that was given out with the tickets, the building itself was constructed of over a thousand iron columns, and three hundred thousand panes of glass. Parts of it were tall enough to encompass full-grown elm trees. All totaled, there were one hundred thousand exhibits from around the world.
The exhibition was important in a social sense as well as a scientific one. It provided an opportunity for all classes and regions, the high and low, to mingle freely beneath one roof in a way that seldom happened. People of all manner of dress and appearance crowded inside the building.
A fashionably dressed gathering waited at the transept, or central cross-section, of the Crystal Palace. None of them seemed to take an interest in their surroundings. "What are those people waiting for?" she asked.
"Nothing," Merripen replied. "They're only here to be seen. There was a similar group when I was here before. They don't go to any of the exhibits. They merely stand there preening."
Win laughed. "Well, should we stand nearby and pretend to admire them, or shall we go look at something really interesting?"
Merripen handed her the little map.
After scrutinizing the list of courts and displays, Win said decisively, "Fabrics and textiles."
He escorted her through a crowded glass hallway into a room of astonishing size and breadth. The air chattered with the sounds of looms and textile machinery, with carpet bales arranged around the room and down the center. Scents of wool and dye made the atmosphere acrid and lightly pungent. Goods from Kidderminster, America, Spain, France, the Orient, filled the room with a rainbow of hues and textures… natweave, knotted pile and cut pile, looped, hooked, embroidered, braided… Win removed her gloves and ran her hands over the gorgeous offerings.
"Merripen, look at this!" she exclaimed. "It's a Wilton carpet. Similar to Brussels, but the pile is sheared. It feels like velvet, doesn't it?"
The manufacturer's representative, who was standing nearby, said, " Wilton is becoming much more affordable, now that we are able to produce it on steam-powered looms."
"Where is the factory located?" Merripen asked, running a bare hand over the soft carpet pile. " Kidderminster, I assume?"
"There, and another in Glasgow."
As the men conversed about the production of carpet on the new looms, Win wandered farther along the rows of samples and displays. There were more machines, bewildering in their size and complexity, some made to weave fabrics, some to print patterns, some to spin tufts of wool into yarn and worsted. One of them was used in a demonstration of how stuffing mattresses and pillows would someday be mechanized.
Watching in fascination, Win was aware of Merripen coming to stand beside her. "One wonders if everything in the world will eventually be done by machine," she told him.
He smiled slightly. "If we had time, I would take you to the agricultural exhibits. A man can grow twice as much food with a fraction of the time and labor it would take to do by hand. We've already acquired a threshing machine for the Ramsay estate tenants… I'll show it to you when we go there."
"You approve of these technological advances?" Win asked with a touch of surprise.
"Yes, why wouldn't I?"
"The Rom doesn't believe in such things."
He shrugged. "Regardless of what the Rom believes, I can't ignore progress that will improve life for every-one else. Mechanization will make it easier for common people to afford clothing, food, soap… even a caipet for the floor."
"But what about the men who will lose their livelihood when a machine takes their place?"
"New industries and more jobs are being created. Why put a man to work doing mindless tasks instead of educating him to do something more?"
Win smiled. "You speak like a reformist," she whispered impishly.
"Economic change is always accompanied by social change. No one can stop that."
What an adept mind he had, Win thought. Her father would have been pleased by how his Gypsy foundling had turned out.
"A large workforce will be required to support all this industry," she commented. "Do you suppose a sufficient number of country people would be willing to move to London and the other places that-"
She was interrupted by an explosive puff and a few cries of surprise from the visitors around them. A thick, startling flurry of down filled the air in a choking gust. It seemed the pillow-stuffing machine had malfunctioned, sending eddies of feathers and down over everyone in sight.
Reacting swiftly, Merripen stripped off his coat and pulled it over Win, and clamped a handkerchief over her mouth and nose. "Breathe through this," he muttered, and hauled her through the room. The crowd was scattering, some people coughing, some swearing, some laughing, as great volumes of fluffy white down settled over the scene. There were cries of delight from children who had come from the next room, dancing and hopping to try to catch the elusive floating clumps.
Merripen didn't stop until they had reached another nave that housed a fabric court. Enormous wood and glass cases had been built for displays of fabric that flowed like rivers. The walls were hung with velvets, brocades, silks, cotton, muslin, wool, every imaginable substance created for clothing, upholstery, or drapery. Towering bolts of fabric were arranged in vertical rolls affixed to more display walls that formed deep corridors within the court.
Emerging from beneath Merripen's coat, Win took one look at him and began to gasp with laughter. White down had covered his black hair and clung to his clothes like new-fallen snow.
Merripen's expression of concern changed to a scowl. "I was going to ask if you had breathed any of the feather dust," he said. "But judging from all the noise you're making, your lungs seem quite clear."
Win couldn't reply; she was laughing too hard.
As Merripen raked his hand through the midnight locks of his hair, the down became even more enmeshed.
"Don't," Win managed, struggling to restrain her laughter. "You'll never… You must let me help you; you're making it worse… and you s-said I was a pigeon to be plucked…" Still chortling, she snatched his hand and tugged him into one of the fabric corridors, where they were partially concealed from view. They went beyond the half-light and into the shadows. "Here, before anyone sees us. Oh, you're too tall for me-" She urged him to the floor with her, where he lowered to his haunches. Win knelt amid the mass of her skirts. Untying her bonnet, she tossed it to the side.
Merripen watched Win's face as she went to work, brushing at his shoulders and hair. "You can't be enjoying this," he said.
"Silly man. You're covered in feathers-of course I'm enjoying it." And she was. He looked so… well, adorable, kneeling and frowning and holding still while she de-feathered him. And it was lovely to play with the thick, shiny layers of his hair, which he never would have allowed in other circumstances. Her giggles kept frothing up, impossible to suppress.
But as a minute passed, and then another, the laughter left her throat, and she felt relaxed and almost dreamlike as she continued to pull the fluff from his hair. The sound of the crowds was muffled by the velvet draped all around them, hanging like curtains of night and clouds and mist.
Merripen's eyes held a strange dark glow, the contours of his face stern and beautiful. He seemed like some dangerous pagan creature emerging from the witching hour.
"Almost done," Win whispered, although she was already finished. Her fingers sifted gently through his hair. So vibrant, heavy, the shorn locks like velvet pile at the back of his neck.
Win's breath caught as Merripen moved. At first she thought he was rising to his feet, but he tugged her closer and took her head in his hands. His mouth was so close, his exhalations like steam against her lips.
She was stunned by the moment of suspended violence, the savage tightness of his grip. She waited, listening to his hard, angry breathing, unable to understand what had provoked him.
"I have nothing to offer you," he finally said in a guttural voice. "Nothing."
Win's lips had turned dry. She moistened them, and tried to speak through a thrill of anxious trembling. "You have yourself," she whispered.
"You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. The things I've done, the things I'm capable of- you and your family, all you know of life comes from books. If you understood anything-"
"Make me understand. Tell me what is so terrible that you must keep pushing me away."
He shook his head.
"Then stop torturing the both of us," she said unsteadily. "Leave me, or let me go."
"I can't," he snapped. "I can't, damn you." And before she could make a sound, he kissed her.
Her heart thundered, and she opened to him with a low, despairing moan. Her nostrils were filled with the fragrance of smoke, and man, and the earthy autumn spice of him. His mouth shaped to hers with primitive hunger, his tongue stabbing deep, searching hungrily. They knelt together more tightly as Win rose to press her torso against his, closer, harder. And every place they touched, she ached. She wanted to feel his skin, his muscles bunched and hard beneath her hands.
The desire flared high and wild, leaving no room for sanity. If only he would press her back among all this velvet, here and now, and have his way with her. She thought of taking him inside her body, and she flushed beneath her clothes, until the crawling heat made her squirm. His mouth searched her throat, and her head tipped back to give him free access. He found the throb of her pulse, his tongue stroking the vulnerable spot until she gasped.
Reaching up to his face, she shaped her fingers over his jaw, the heavy grain of shaven beard scraping deli-ciously against her delicate palms. She guided his mouth back to hers. Pleasure filled her as she was blindfolded by the darkness and the sensation of him all around her.
"Kev," she whispered in between kisses, "I've loved you for so-"
He crushed her mouth with his desperately, as if he could smother not only the words but the emotion itself. He stole as deep a taste of her as possible, ardently determined to leave nothing unclaimed. She clung to him, her body racked with sustained shivers, her nerves singing with incandescent heat. He was all she had ever wanted, all she would ever need.
But a sharp breath was torn from her throat as he pushed her back, breaking the warm, necessary contact between their bodies.
For a long moment neither of them moved, both striving to recover equilibrium. And as the glow of desire faded, Win heard Merripen say roughly, "I can't be alone with you. This can't happen again."
This, Win decided with a surge of anger, was an impossible situation. Merripen refused to acknowledge his feelings for her and wouldn't explain why. Surely she deserved more trust from him than that.
"Very well," she said stiffly, struggling to her feet. As Merripen stood and reached for her, she pushed impatiently at his hand. "No, I don't want help." She began to shake out her skirts. "You are absolutely right, Merripen. We should not be alone together, since the result is always a foregone conclusion: you make an advance, I respond, and then you push me away. I am no child's toy to be pulled back and forth on a string, Kev."
He found her bonnet and handed it to her. "I know you're not-"
"You say I don't know you," she said furiously. "Apparently it hasn't occurred to you that you don't know me, either. You're quite certain of who I am, aren't you? But I've changed during the past two years. You might at least make an effort to find out what kind of woman I've become." She went to the end of the fabric corridor, peeked out to make certain the coast was clear, and she stepped out into the main part of the court.
Merripen followed. "Where are you going?"
Glancing at him, Win was satisfied to see that he looked as rumpled and exasperated as she felt. "I'm leaving. I'm too cross to enjoy any of the displays now."
"Go the other direction."
Win was silent as Merripen led her from the Crystal Palace. She had never felt so unsettled or peevish. Her parents had always called irritability an excess of spleen, but Win lacked the experience to comprehend that her ill humor stemmed from a source quite different from the spleen. All she knew was that Merripen seemed similarly vexed as he walked beside her.
It annoyed her that he didn't say a word. It also annoyed her that he kept pace so easily with her brisk, ground-digging strides, and that when she had begun to breathe hard from exertion, he barely seemed affected by the exercise.
Only when they approached the Rutledge did Win break the silence. It pleased her that she sounded so calm. "I will abide by your wishes, Kev. From now on, our relationship will be pi atonic and friendly. Nothing more." She paused at the first step and looked up at him solemnly. "I've been give a rare opportunity… a second chance at life. And I intend to make the most of it. I'm not going to waste my love on a man who doesn't want or need it. I won't bother you again."
When Cam entered the bedroom of their suite, he found Amelia standing before a towering pile of parcels and boxes overflowing with ribbons and silk and feminine adornments. She turned with a sheepish smile as he closed the door, her heart tripping a little at the sight of him. His collarless shirt was open at the throat, his body almost feline in its lithe muscularity, his face riveting in its sensuous male beauty. Not long ago, she would never have envisioned being married at all, much less to such an exotic creature.
His gaze chased lightly over her, the pink velvet dressing gown open to reveal her chemise and naked thighs. "I see the shopping expedition was a success."
"I don't know what came over me," Amelia replied a touch apologetically. "You know I'm never extravagant. I only meant to purchase some handkerchiefs and some stockings. But…" She gestured lamely to the piles of fripperies. "I seem to have been in an acquisitive mood today."
A smile flashed in his dark face. "As I've told you before, love, spend as much as you like. You couldn't beggar me if you tried."
"I bought some things for you, too," she said, rummaging through the pile. "Some cravats, and books, and French shaving soap… although I've been meaning to discuss that with you……"
"Discuss what?" Cam approached her from behind, kissing the side of her throat.
Amelia drew in a breath at the hot imprint of his mouth and nearly forgot what she had been saying. "Your shaving," she said vaguely. "Beards are becoming quite fashionable of late. I think you should try a goatee. You would look very dashing, and…" Her voice faded as he worked his way down her neck.
"It might tickle," Cam murmured, and laughed as she shivered.
Gently turning her to face him, he stared into her eyes. There was something different about him, she thought. A curious vulnerability she had never seen before.
" Cam," she said carefully, "how did your errand with Merripen go?"
The amber eyes were soft and alive with excitement. "Quite well. I have a secret, monisha. Shall I tell you?" He drew her against him, wrapping his arms around her, and he whispered into her ear.