Читать книгу His Sinful Touch - Candace Camp, Candace Camp - Страница 11

Chapter Two

“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” Surely he could not have heard her correctly.

“It’s me I need you to find—not the location because obviously I’m here, but who I am.” She sighed. “I don’t know who I am.”

Alex blinked. It occurred to him that perhaps this was an elaborate joke. This lovely girl was an actress, perhaps, and Con had... No, not Con. If Con had played a prank on him, he wouldn’t have left. He’d still be here, laughing his head off. Alex glanced out the door. He had no feeling of Con’s nearness. But who else would arrange a mad jest like this?

“I see,” he said carefully and cleared his throat.

The girl jumped up. “I know. I know I sound as if I’ve escaped from Bedlam, but I promise you, I haven’t. I mean, well, I don’t feel insane...though I suppose I cannot really know, can I?”

She paused, looking so lost that Alex instinctively went around the desk to her, taking her arm and steering her back to the chair. He propped himself on the edge of the desk. “No, no, I’m sure you’re not insane. It’s just... I, um... Perhaps you could explain the situation further.”

She drew a breath and folded her hands in her lap, looking every inch a proper English gentlewoman—except, of course, that she was wearing an ill-fitting man’s suit. “I don’t know who I am. I cannot tell you my name because I have no idea what it is. I think...” Her fingers went up to her throat, touching something beneath her shirt. “I think it may be Sabrina because that is what is engraved on the locket I’m wearing.”

“Sabrina it is, then.” He liked the sound of it, the intimacy of calling her by her given name, as if he had known her for years. “If you will excuse the, um, the informality.”

“Of course.” Her cheeks colored again in that delightful way. “It’s only reasonable, since I have no idea what my last name is.” She added with a sigh, “Or where I’m from. Or why I’m dressed in this mad fashion.”

“You know nothing about yourself?”

“No, nothing at all. It’s the most awful sensation.” Sabrina reached up a hand to push her luxuriant hair out of the way, and for the first time he saw a purple bruise on the side of her face. Two of them, in fact, one on her forehead and one on the cheekbone below, both at the edge of her hairline. He noted, too, that the hand she lifted was scraped.

“You’ve been hurt!” Anger rose in him so fiercely that he jumped to his feet again. “Who did this to you?”

He bent down to examine her bruises, gently lifting the curls aside. The soft hairs clung to his skin, sending a frisson of pleasure straight up his nerves. His gesture was far too intimate to be appropriate, he realized, and he pulled his hand back, forcing himself to return to his seat against the desk.

“I don’t know who did it,” she told him. “If anyone. Perhaps I fell. There’s more.”

“More?”

“Yes. There are bruises on my arm.” She shrugged out of her coat and pushed up one sleeve almost to her elbow to expose her arm to him. There on the pale skin were small faint smudges of blue.

“Fingertips.” Something clenched, cold and hard, in his chest. “Someone squeezed your arm tightly.”

“I rather thought so. And look.” She undid the top button of her shirt and pushed it down, revealing another long red scratch low on her throat. “And I think...” She frowned, reaching up toward the back of her head. “I think maybe I hit my head. There’s a spot that’s tender.”

Quickly he rounded her chair and bent down to look where she pointed. Carefully he parted her hair, trying to ignore the way it felt beneath his fingers, the ribbons of excitement that stirred deep within him. He drew in a quick, hissing breath. “You’re bleeding. I should have seen...”

He crossed the room to the washstand in the corner and wet a rag, returning to dab carefully at the wound. When she drew in a sharp breath, he said, “I’m sorry. I know this hurts, but I must clean it.”

“I know. It was just that one spot that hurt. You’re quite good at this.”

Alex chuckled. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s cleaning cuts and scrapes.”

“Your business is dangerous?”

“My childhood was.” He smiled to show he didn’t mean it. “My brother and I were constantly falling out of trees or rolling down the hillside or running into things.” He paused, considering. “Come to think of it, we must have been clumsy little brutes.”

When he finished cleaning the wound, he set the rag aside and took up his former seat on the edge of the desk. “Now, you remember nothing of your past?”

“No. Not who I am or what happened to cause these bruises or where I live. Nothing!” Tears glittered in her eyes.

“Very well.” Alex pushed aside the thought of how much he would like to take the woman in his arms and hold her, comfort her. Crossing his arms across his chest, he said, “What is the first thing you do remember?”

“Waking up on a train. The conductor shook my shoulder and woke me up, said we had reached Paddington Station. I was quite groggy. I got off the train and started walking through the station. There were so many people, and it was terribly noisy. I was so confused and...and scared. My head ached. I was trying to remember where I was and why I was dressed this way. And I thought whoever was meeting me wouldn’t recognize me. Then I realized that not only did I not know who I was meeting, I didn’t even know who I was. It scared me, so I sat down on a bench for a while and tried to think.” She shrugged. “It was useless.”

“What did you do then?”

“I—I was hungry.” She smiled faintly. “How very mundane at a time like that, but I was. So I bought some roasted chestnuts from a man with a cart. That’s when I realized that I had some money—a good bit of money, or at least it seemed so to me.” Her gaze sharpened. “So clearly I do remember some things—I know a five-pound note from a shilling, and I knew that there would be hacks outside the station. I knew I was peculiarly dressed. I knew I was going to see...someone. It’s just me that I know nothing about.”

“Did you recognize Paddington?”

She looked thoughtful. “No. I just saw its name on the signs. I... Really, I don’t remember much about the station. I was in a fog. But nothing looked familiar, and when I went outside, I didn’t recognize anyplace—none of the streets or buildings. Perhaps I’ve never been here before. Or perhaps that’s just something else I’ve forgotten.”

“You said you had a locket. Let’s start with that.”

“Yes.” Sabrina reached behind her neck and unfastened a clasp, pulling a chain from beneath her shirt.

Alex reached out his hand, and she laid it in his palm. It was warm from lying against her skin, and he found it unexpectedly arousing. He closed his hand around it and stood up, moving back to Con’s chair behind the desk. It would be better if he were not so close to her. Besides, it gave him a little more time to hold the locket and focus his full concentration on it.

The longer he held an object, the more likely he was to feel something from it. Only very strong remnants of emotions or events leaped out to him immediately—which, fortunately, made it a good deal easier to live normally. The best way to use his skill was to hold the thing tightly and close his eyes, blocking out all other sensations, and home in on the target.

But that would look far too strange to do in front of a stranger. Especially in front of a beautiful girl whom he did not want to think he was insane. Fortunately, the sensation from the locket was strong. It was warm and loving and feminine. He had never noticed before that he had been particularly able to pick out a sense of gender, and he wondered for an instant how far his ability could go. He had never wanted to try.

The strongest thing he felt from the locket was the same sense of her that emanated from Sabrina. And love; the locket had been given and received with love. Unfortunately, none of that helped him to identify her.

Sitting down, he laid the necklace on the desk and studied it. It was quite small and in the shape of a heart, on a delicate golden chain. Inserting his thumbnail into an almost invisible crack, he sprang it open. On one side was written a date and on the other the name Sabrina, as she had told him.

He looked back up at her. “Do you think this is your birthday?” She would be twenty-one soon if so—four years younger than himself. It seemed the right age for her.

She shrugged helplessly. “I wish I knew. Then I’d know two things about me—my age and my first name.”

“We also know that it’s a nice little piece of jewelry, not extravagant, but I’d wager expensive enough. And given the way you speak and your manner, I would venture to say that you’ve been raised as a gentlewoman.”

Sabrina grinned. “I fear that doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“No.” Somewhat reluctantly, Alex handed the locket back to her.

“Maybe something else would help.” She began to dig in her pockets and pull out various items and set them on the desk: a pocket watch on a chain, a leather pouch that clinked when she set it down, a card, a dainty feminine handkerchief, a torn scrap of paper and, finally, a gold ring.

Alex felt as if his heart had flipped in his chest. “A wedding ring?” He reached out for the ring. “You’re married?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel as if I’m married. It was in my pocket. I wasn’t wearing it.”

He picked up the ring, set with a cluster of diamonds in the shape of a flower. “Perhaps you merely took it off to suit your disguise.” He could sense some sort of strong emotion from the ring, but it was muddled, and the whisper of her presence was faint, not permeating it like the locket she’d worn. It could have come just from her carrying it in her pocket. Adding to the confusion was the sense of someone else. It wasn’t necessarily hers.

“Maybe.” She was looking at the thing with a certain disfavor, which Alex found made his chest feel lighter.

He set the ring aside and picked up the handkerchief. It was clearly expensive and feminine. In one corner was an embroidered monogram of a large B mingled with an S and an A. “This S would support your name being Sabrina. A last name beginning with a B.”

Sabrina nodded. “Yes. But I’ve tried and tried to think of a name beginning with a B that might seem familiar, but none of them do. This is the bag of money.” She opened the pouch to show him the contents.

Alex raised his eyebrows. “You’re right. That is a good deal of money to be carrying about, especially for a young lady.”

“It seems suspicious, doesn’t it? A woman dressed as a man, traveling alone, no baggage, carrying a lot of money. I think I must be running away.” She raised troubled eyes to him. “But from what?”

“Do you feel that you’re running away or is it just the evidence?”

“Yes.” She paused. “I don’t know. I’m frightened. Coming over here, I felt that I must get here as fast as I could. But maybe that’s because I don’t remember anything about my life. That’s rather terrifying, all on its own, and of course I’d want to find out who I am as quickly as I could.”

“There are your bruises. Something happened to you.” He was immediately sorry he’d mentioned it, for the fear in her eyes increased. Hastily, he added, “Of course it could have been that you were in a carriage accident.”

He didn’t believe that for a second. A carriage accident would have involved others, at least a driver. They wouldn’t have let her just wander off, dazed and bruised. Nor did it explain the amount of money she carried or the fact that she had dressed up as a man. It seemed far more likely that someone had hurt her...and could right now be pursuing her. Thank heavens she had come here and wasn’t out wandering around, lost and alone.

He turned his mind away from that picture and reached for the piece of paper. It was torn across the top, and the rest of it was filled with elegant copperplate handwriting:

...do say you’ll come. We shall have the most wonderful time. I am already planning a shopping expedition. My aunt has been so kind as to agree to accompany us.

This was followed by a detailed description of a hat that the writer had recently purchased, and it ended, as it had begun, in the midst of a sentence.

“Clearly it’s a letter,” Sabrina said. “But that’s all there is of it. I’ve read it over and over, and I cannot glean anything from it. There’s no salutation, no signature. She doesn’t even say her aunt’s name. I suppose it’s from a friend or a relative, but why wouldn’t I have brought more of it? And why is the page torn in two?”

Again, the letter held a trace of Sabrina, but he also sensed another person, perhaps more. It could have been handled by several people, for all they knew. What Alex could sense, quite distinctly, bothered him. As soon as he’d touched the paper, he’d felt a brush of anger, even rage...which would fit with the paper being ripped in half.

He turned to the pocket watch. There was no inscription inside or on the back. It was clearly a man’s; both the style and the feeling that emanated from it told him that. There was also a whiff of emotion—sorrow? He wasn’t sure. But with it, far more than with the ring, Sabrina’s presence clung to it. He thought perhaps she had carried it for a long time.

A picture of a house flashed through his mind and was gone. Alex froze, his fingers closing around the watch. But across from him, Sabrina said, “What? Did you find something on the watch?”

“What? Oh, no.” He smiled and shook his head, setting the watch back on the desk. Later, perhaps, when Sabrina was not there to see it, he could hold it longer, concentrate on it harder. There had been something there, he was certain.

“I don’t think this will be any help,” Sabrina said as she handed him the last item, a card. “A boy in the train station handed it to me. I think it must be some sort of advertisement, though I’m not sure for what. A milliner’s, perhaps?”

Alex took one glance at the card, and his eyes widened. The piece of paper featured a photograph of two elegantly dressed young women in charming straw hats. They were facing away from the camera. On the other side was printed an address and the words “Come see us from the front.”

“Uh...no, not a milliner’s.” He cleared his throat, aware that his face was turning red.

“Oh.” She sounded a little disappointed. “I thought one of the hats was quite attractive.” She peered at him. “What is it? Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He had the feeling his smile was unnatural. It would certainly fit how he felt at the moment. He tried desperately to think of some way to turn the conversation, but his mind was a blank. Well, not a blank, really, but what was there was completely inappropriate.

She waited for a moment, then asked, “Then what sort of business is it? I don’t understand.”

“It’s one that, um, well, isn’t the sort of thing a lady usually receives. It’s a...a man’s sort of, um...”

Her eyes widened. “You mean it’s a house of ill repute?”

“Well...yes.”

“Oh, my.” Her blush was even deeper than his as she snatched the card back and examined it. “They look so...ordinary.” Again she sounded disappointed, so much so that he had to smile. “I thought they would wear something more, well, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” It was bizarrely titillating to be sitting here talking about bordellos with this girl, all the while remembering how her springing curls had felt beneath his fingertips. The fact that she was dressed as a man somehow only made it more tantalizing. His flush had started from embarrassment, but it was quickly turning into something else altogether. “I believe the intimation is that if one saw them from the other side, they would be more alluring.”

“Oh. I see.” From the way she was looking at the card, he suspected that she did not, but he refrained from saying so. Sabrina went on, “Have you gotten cards like this, too?”

“Well, yes, now and then.” He cleared his throat. “Now, perhaps we might continue.”

Her eyes glinted with amusement as she put the card back into her pocket. “Oh, here’s the ticket.” She pulled her hand out of the pocket, extending the piece of paper to him. “But all it says is Newbury to Paddington.”

“Well, at least we know you came to London from Newbury.”

“I suppose that is where I live,” Sabrina said doubtfully. “It doesn’t seem familiar...though, of course, nothing does.”

“That gives us something to work with.” He leaned back in his chair, thinking. “I know nothing about Newbury, other than it’s west of Reading. I think. Wish Con was here—he’s a wizard with geography.”

“Who’s Con?”

“My brother.” Alex straightened suddenly, his eyes lighting. “That’s it. I know where we should go.” He turned and started for the door.

“Where? What are we doing?” she asked, following him.

“I’m taking you home.”