A beefy, bearded man stood up from his crate. Wiped his hands down his trousers. Spat into the mud.
“Why the crowd?” Cam asked, his tone clipped and short. Even soaked and filthy, he carried an aura of command. An authority that made people snap to attention. Morgan would give him that, if nothing else.
The stable hand seemed to straighten, eye them in a new respectful light. He pulled his cap off his head. “A boxing match, sir. This afternoon. The place is packed with visitors from as far away as Bournemouth.”
“Any rooms?”
“If ye’re not too picky, there may be a place in the attics. But it’ll be dark”—he cast a doubtful look in her direction—“and musty. Not fit for the lady.”
Morgan dismounted. Tossed her reins to the man. “This lady’s slept in worse.”
Cam cringed, but followed suit, tipping the man as he led both horses away.
Anger burned through her exhaustion at Cam’s involuntary shudder. As if he were ashamed of her. Well, to hell with him. She was who she was. She’d tried pretending at being Miss Femininity and been kicked in the teeth for her trouble.
The inn was as packed as the stable hand had warned. Cam pushed his way through toward the bar, the crowds parting as much for the scarlet jacket as the tall, elegant gentleman wearing it. Waterloo had made heroes out of anyone in military braid.
Morgan shed her cloak, smoothed her hands down her damp, clinging skirts. Wished for the millionth time since leaving London for the comfort and ease of her leather breeches. She’d settled on a simple riding habit for travel. Disguising her breeches beneath the fith-fath’s mirage would have taken considerable concentration. Easier to conform, if less convenient.
The publican stood in the bar, busy filling glasses for the rushing barmaids.
“My wife and I are looking for a room,” Cam said.
The man gave a sheepish look. “This prize fight has filled me from rafters to cellar. I’ve just one left. More a box room than a proper chamber. It’s under the eaves. Awful small. And only one narrow bed.”
He wiped his hands as he showed them the way, each flight of steps narrower, each corridor dimmer as they climbed. Finally they came to the room, a tiny space beneath the roof, as spartan as the innkeeper had described.
Morgan threw her satchel on the bed. Tried not to dwell on how small it was. How there was no possible way she’d be able to lie there without being uncomfortably close to Cam.
She glanced up. Caught the look on his face telling her he was thinking the exact same thing.
She sighed. It was going to be a very long night.
Morgan went to bed early, hoping to be asleep before Cam joined her. Laughter floated up from the hubbub downstairs. Men’s voices raised in loud talk and celebration. Bets won and lost. And occasionally a snatch of song.
She flung herself from one side to the other, trying to focus on the pound of rain overhead. The rattle of gutters. The rumble of distant thunder. But her mind kept skipping back to nights not so long ago when she’d gone to her room in inns similar to this one, Cam’s hand pressed to the small of her back, his voice low and seductive in her ear.
The risk of discovery and subsequent disgrace had worked on her like an aphrodisiac, making everything about their relationship brighter, sweeter, more intense. The knowledge that under Cam’s oh so proper uniform was a body molded by training and hardened by war had created a shivering heat that started low in her belly until she ached to peel off the layers of his respectability, each discarded piece of clothing firing her with anticipation. The jacket. The shirt. Running her hands over the gilded expanse of his chest, across the washboard muscles of his abdomen, and down to trace the line of golden hair from his belly button into his breeches only made the heat spread faster.
Time stretched as together they undressed. In her case, swift and urgent. In his, slow enough to draw out the exquisite torture until she thought she might explode with wanting him.
Naked, they fell laughing to the bed, a tangle of arms and legs. He came over her, curved his hands around her breasts as he bent to suckle them. She arched her back, begging him to take more of her into his mouth. His tongue laving her nipples until they were hard as pebbles.
She combed her fingers through his hair, caressed the stubble of his cheek. Smelled the crisp sweat and soap smell that was uniquely Cam. His hands explored her as his mouth devoured. She drowned in his kisses while his touch set her on fire.
Even now, she tingled, rubbing her hands over herself in memory of a yearning that never fully left her. Her breasts throbbed with a pleasure she’d become used to and now missed. She closed her eyes, trying to recapture that wild, frenzied lust that tore into her like a dagger’s plunge. Passed through her, leaving only a shadow of joy behind.
If she concentrated, she felt again the close of her muscles around him when he’d slid into her. The slow, steady need building in her center as she rocked up to meet his every thrust. He watched her. With eyes as cool and blue as an eagle’s. And in that focused stare burned desire and passion and beauty—her beauty. Because that’s how he’d seen her. And how she saw herself when she lost herself in his gaze.
All sensation rushed to the core of her being. She was light and fire and yearning. The edge loomed close. One rock of his hips would send her spinning over. She tried holding back. Wanted the exhilarating freedom to remain always, but he thrust harder, and she tumbled through. The world tilted, and she cried out.
He drove into her again and again, drawing out the ecstasy until he found his own release and the two lay sated and spent in each other’s arms.
Alone tonight, she pressed her hands to her breasts, rolling her nipples until they hardened. She choked on the lump in her throat. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she dropped her hands lower. Skimmed her stomach, her hips. Lower still, her folds throbbing and wet with the memory of him.
Cam’s face swam before her. The soft, rolling Scottish burr of his words vibrated through her head. “M’eudail. My darling.”
And she’d believed him.
She swiped at the disgraceful tears. What a wretched weakling she was. All it took was seeing him again to recall that crazy, blood-pumping joy. She’d blithely insisted she could handle this assignment. Cam meant nothing to her. Well, damn her for being wrong. And damn him for being here.
Sleep was definitely lost.
Cam knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to go to bed. It was after two, and he needed at least a few hours of sleep if he was going to be alert enough to confront the only surviving victim of Neuv—no, he wouldn’t even dignify the theory by naming it. It was too preposterous. He didn’t care what parlor tricks Morgan had managed back in London to try and convince him. The Fey world was stories told by his gran-da. Relics of a time long past when people believed in the power of faery rings and saw shapes in the mists shrouding the Highland lochs and valleys. These attacks were being carried out by men. Real blood-and-bone humans with a thirst for murder. And when he found them, he’d prove it.
The chamber was dark, not even a sliver of moon to see by. He stumbled against the foot of the bed. Pain shot from his shin straight to his brain, where hours of hanging with the boys had caught up with him. Stifling a curse, he closed his eyes until the worst passed.
“I can light a candle if you need it,” Morgan suggested, cool amusement coloring her words. Her voice was untouched by sleep as if she’d been waiting for him or—like him—had been too troubled by this awkward arrangement to sleep.
“No, thank you,” he grumbled, spreading his bedroll on the floor, using his pack as pillow. He’d fared worse on campaign. He undressed down to his breeks. Lay back, one arm flung over his closed eyes. His other hand unconsciously found the gold chain around his neck. Played with the jet cross hanging there.
He’d never felt completely right after he’d lost the necklace to Charlotte. It had been a part of him too long. One of the few links to his parents. To his chil
dhood in Scotland. To a time when he’d lived life, not just marked time.
With her death, he’d gotten the cross back. And this time he’d make sure it stayed with him. He’d not foolishly hand it over to another grasping female.
The bed creaked, and a match flared.
“You’ve been drinking.”
He dropped his arm. Looked up. The dim light harlequined Morgan’s face, her eyes narrowed on him with that same critical stare she’d worn since London.
“A few. Not enough to matter.”
“And if an enemy chose this moment to attack? You’re hardly fit for a fight.”
“We’re safe enough here.” He shot her a look. “Unless you’re afraid of ghosts. Or is that your latest theory as to who’s killing these soldiers?”
“Go boil your head,” she muttered. “What I ever saw…” Her words grew too low to hear, but he could imagine.
This new Morgan was as far from the passionate, sexy hoyden he’d known in Scotland as one could get. How could she have hidden so much of her true self from him? Had he been blinded by her looks? She was, after all, the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. A jaw-dropper, for sure.
No dimpled elbows. No luscious female curves. No coy flirtatious glances.
Instead, she carried herself with the confidence of a lioness, her lean, supple body made to be caressed, her red-gold hair running like silk through his fingers. And a fire smoldering in her honey gaze. Had the physical jolt of her been enough to delude him into only seeing what he wanted to see?
The silence seemed as charged as if a slow fuse had been lit between them. The air grew oppressive as each tried to out-wait the other. See who broke first.
His hands grew clammy. The floor began rocking as if he were shipboard. He rolled himself onto his side, almost knocking himself out on the leg of the bed—this really was a bloody small room. But even after he stopped moving, his stomach didn’t. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth until the urge to heave passed. It must be the gin. It had been foul, but the others had been drinking it and had urged him to join them. Not the smartest of moves, but he’d already been hazy with brandy fumes and hadn’t been thinking completely straight.
Try not thinking at all.
Of all the people to be paired with, couldn’t Pendergast have found him someone he hadn’t exchanged body fluids with? The next few weeks were going to be sheer hell.
“…drunken sot…get us killed…” she grumbled.
He pounded the lumps in his pack into submission. Lay back down. “Have you always been this self-righteous?”
“Have you always been a drunk?” she snapped back.
“No. And I’m not one now. Damn it, woman. You’re as bad as my wife….”
If the air had been thick before, now it froze ice-solid. His words hung suspended within the chill, spinning out over and over until his head swam, and he wanted to be sick all over again. “I’m sorry, Morgan. Even on your worst day times ten, you were never—could never be as bad as her.”
He didn’t know if she would answer. And if she did—in her current frame of mind—it wouldn’t be good. He cringed, waiting for the eruption. But nothing happened. Not a sound came from the bed.
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Morgan?” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
The quiet reproach was worse than any fireworks would have been. He could have handled those. This slid between the cracks in the armor he’d built around himself over years. Pricked at the tattered remains of his conscience.
“Or didn’t you care? What was one more notch in your bedpost? One more jest with your friends?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
And it hadn’t been. Oh, there had been plenty of women before her. That much was true. His sham of a marriage had been over long ago. Charlotte had wrought her havoc early on. Pulled his life apart strand by strand until nothing had been left of the impetuous young man who’d pledged himself in a fit of youthful ardor. Until his only way out of her personal blend of guilt, accusations, blame, and petty cruelties had been into the cannon’s mouth. An escape, he’d come to find, with its own devastating costs.
But Morgan had been different. Mayhap it was her beauty. He’d never seen a woman who could have a roomful of men watching her every move and be completely oblivious of the attention. Or a woman who could make him hard with one slow, level stare. But then there’d been the laughter and the ease he felt when he was with her, as if maybe—just maybe he could tell her about his war. And she might understand. Not shrink away in horrified shock. Or watch him with fear and loathing in her eyes.
His hand went to the long, puckered scar that started at his shoulder. Ended just before his spine. Aye, Morgan had definitely been different. But being different hadn’t been enough in the end.
“What hurt the most was knowing afterward that even if everything you’d told me was truth…” She paused for what seemed like an eternity. “Even then, it wouldn’t have made a difference. You were still married. And I was still just your latest whore.”
He drew a breath. Felt his hands tighten again around the cross at his neck. “I’m not married now.”
“And I’m not your whore, Cam. Not anymore.” Her voice hardened. “Not ever again.”
Chapter 4
They arrived in Tavistock as the parish clock tower struck two in the afternoon.
The lodging house where the latest victim Ensign Traverse was quartered smelled of boiled onions and dirty laundry and echoed with the shouts and cries of children from the floors above. A faded woman hitching a baby on her hip opened the door to them, her gaze sharp as she raked them over. Not even Cam’s most captivating smile was enough to thaw the chill in her eyes.
“I’ve no rooms to let,” she announced, beginning to close the door even before she’d finished speaking.
Cam slid his foot into the crack. “We’re not here to rent a room. We’re here to speak with Ensign Traverse. Has he rooms here? Is he at home?”
She frowned, pushing away the baby’s hand as it reached up to grab at her cap strings. “And where else would he be? Not exactly fit for battle, is he?” She laughed at her own joke as she swung the door wide to admit them. “I just took him his dinner.” Without checking to see if they followed, she started up the stairs. “He’s a bit better today. Not raving, at any rate.”
The seductive sway of her hips told Cam she wasn’t as hostile as she made out, though the baby’s loud squawking took away from the overall enticement. A swift glance at Morgan showed him she was as aware of the silent flirtation as he was—and highly amused by it. She rolled her eyes. Shook her head. “Are his wounds bothering him?” she asked.
The woman stiffened as if just reminded that Cam wasn’t alone. She stopped at a closed door, equal parts annoyance and suspicion clouding her face. “Wounds? Has he been filling your head with his stories too? The ensign’s not hurt. Not as I can see.”
“We were led to believe—”
Ignoring the baby’s cries, the woman leaned in close. Whispered, her eyes flashing from Morgan to Cam. “An opium eater, he is. That’s my guess. And sickly with the drug from what I can see. It won’t be long now.” She rapped on the door. “Mr. Traverse? Visitors for you.” Motioned them in with a nod of her head. “It’ll be dark. Take no notice. It’s as I said. Not long now.”
The room they entered was dim and hot as an oven. Curtains drawn even though the afternoon was fine and cloudless. A fire burning low and smoky in the grate.
Immediately, sweat dampened Cam’s back. His heavy wool jacket clung to him, and the heat made breathing difficult.
Morgan crossed to the windows to push open the heavy drapes.
“Keep them closed,” a voice snarled from the corner. “No light. I’ve told them. No light.”
Even in the gloom, Cam could make out the humpbacked shape of an old man seated by the meager fire, a shawl across his knees. His knobbed han
ds opened and closed in agitation on the arms of the chair.
Dread settled in the pit of Cam’s stomach. “They told us Ensign Traverse lived here.”
The man in the chair turned his head from the fire. Young, terrified eyes in an ancient, ruined face. “I’m Traverse.”
Horror crushed the final shreds of Cam’s disbelief.
Magic. Swords. Curses. The undead. Every tale his gran-da had related at the nursery bedside come to life.
And if that was real…
He pulled his gaze from Traverse. Settled it on Morgan….
that meant the Other. The Amhas-draoi. All of it was real. She’d been telling him the truth. She really was a bloody great Amazon.
Hysterical laughter bubbled up. Threatened to spill over. He was chasing a damned Fey legend. With a half-blood warrior. That he’d slept with.
Could his life be turned any more upside down?
While he stood like a clod, Morgan poured out a cup of tea from the pot on the table. Brought it to the man. Returned with a tray of food. Helped him juggle his tea and his shawl and his plate. No false sympathy. No bumbling platitudes. She just did it. Comfortable. Efficient. And the awkwardness passed. She pulled up another chair. “Do you mind if I sit, Traverse? We’ve been traveling since Tuesday with few breaks.” Her casual tone implied there was nothing odd about a twenty-four-year old in the body of an octogenarian.
Maybe not in her world.
“Help yourself.”
Traverse’s gaze followed Morgan. And Cam couldn’t blame him. The landlady’s try at temptation was amateurish compared to Morgan’s silky movements. The starched, military cut of her jacket and brisk demeanor in contrast with the graceful tilt of her head, the sweep of cheekbones, and those pouty, kiss-me lips did things to a man’s insides that ought to be illegal. And the killer was, she did it all with an unconscious elegance. It wasn’t a pose. It wasn’t an act. She had no idea what she did to him—he shuddered. He meant Traverse. Definitely Traverse.
Dangerous As Sin Page 3