Читать книгу Stranger: - Zoe Archer - Страница 12

The only thought careening through Catullus’s head as he flew through the air was, God, please let her be safe. Jumping off speeding trains wasn’t something he did daily, but he had enough experience with it to feel confident about landing without being hurt. Gemma, however, was new to his world. She could be hurt. Or worse.

He hit the ground, pulling his arms in close to take the impact. Rolling, he tumbled down a low hill. He smothered a curse as he bounced over a rock, but then, mercifully, the hill ended and he came to rest in a ditch. He heard the distant sound of the train speeding away, but no Heirs in pursuit.

The Blades and Gemma had gotten away. For now, they were safe. Or maybe not.

His eyes opened to find himself staring up at a curious sheep. It stared at him with black, ovine eyes before trotting off with a bleat. Catullus took a mere moment to be sure that all his limbs were still functioning before sitting up. He looked around quickly; then his heart pitched.

Gemma lay on the ground, a few feet away. And she wasn’t moving.

He scrambled over to her, a litany of swearing tumbling from his lips. She lay on her back, one arm flung overhead, the other resting on her stomach. Tiny cuts and scrapes dotted her face and hands, and her hair had come down into a mass of copper waves.

He knew better than to try to move her right away, but he had to restrain himself from gathering her up in his arms.

“Gemma?”

No answer.

He said her name again, then bent low to her mouth, where, saints be praised, he felt the stirring of her breath. Gently taking up her wrist, he felt for her pulse, and it came steadily against his fingertips.

Catullus brushed strands of her satiny hair from her face.

“Gemma?”

Then, she moaned softly, and her eyes flittered open. He thought he might shout with joy to have those sapphire eyes on him again.

“Catullus,” she whispered. “The Heirs?”

“Gone, for the moment.”

She blinked, coming back into herself, then tried to push herself upright.

“Careful. Don’t move. Are you hurt anywhere?”

She shook her head slightly, but the motion made her gaze unfocused. “Dizzy.”

“Rolling down a hill tends to do that to a person.” He felt anything but droll, however. “I’m checking you for injuries. Let me know if anything pains you.”

His hands moved over her, impersonal—or he tried to be. He tested her arms, her hands, and gained his first true understanding of her slim, strong body. When he progressed to her feet and legs, he struggled to remain objective. This was simply a matter of field doctoring, the same as he’d done hundreds of times in his life for himself and other Blades.

Except it wasn’t. Gemma Murphy was not a Blade, and his body somehow knew the difference. He tested her slender ankles with gentle attention, trying like hell to dampen his reaction to her. “Does this hurt?”

“No.”

Her legs needed to be checked for breaks or sprains. Over the skirt, or under it? He had to be thorough. “I’m sorry, but—” His hands slid under her skirt to touch her calves.

Some mystic in India once taught Catullus special breathing techniques to help gather his thoughts, calm his mind and body when the world grew too present. Catullus drew upon every drop of that training to help him now.

Good God, she had gorgeous legs. He could not see them, but he could feel with a greater sensitivity. The muscles of her calf were sleek and lithe beneath the coarse knit of her stockings, not the calf of a leisured lady who reclined upon a chaise all day, but the kind that attested to an active life full of motion and purpose. And, damn him, if he didn’t find that unbearably arousing.

He wanted so badly to take his hands up farther, over her knee, across her thighs to feel those muscles and the band of bare flesh above her stockings. But he could not. That would be a violation.

He pulled his shaking hands away, and carefully smoothed down her skirts. “Try moving your legs.”

Her skirts rustled as she did this. He set his teeth against the sound.

She said, “They’re fine.”

“What about … your ribs? Are they bruised?”

She made to bring her hands up to feel them, but the movements were fitful as she struggled to regain her strength. “I don’t know.”

“May I?” He was a tongue-tied boy again, simple words stuttering in his mouth.

“Yes, please.”

So he lowered himself beside her, and, at her nod, ran his hands along her sides. Her dress was worn thin, and he felt beneath the fabric the material of her corset, each individual lace and hook that constrained her body. It was a corset for traveling, lightly boned, so that he knew now, to his deep joy and dismay, that the curves of her waist were entirely hers and not the result of a corsetmaker’s art.

What he wouldn’t give to slide his hands up higher, cup those exquisite, full breasts in his hands. He had large hands, but she would spill from them with their abundance. He wanted to touch her so badly, his own breath sawed through him, louder than a steam engine.

“Does this hurt?” he asked, hoarse. Because it was hurting him.

Beneath his hands, her breathing quickened. “N-no.” She stared at him, eyes wide but unafraid, and her soft, pink lips parted slightly. “It feels … nice.”

He was braced over her now, his body stretched alongside hers, so that he had only to lower his head to touch his lips to hers. Thoughts of the Heirs, the Primal Source all dissolved like vapor beneath the sun of his and her shared awareness. Her gaze flicked down to his mouth, as well, and the dropping of her lashes and flush spreading across her cheeks revealed that not only had she shared his thought, but wanted it, too. What would she taste like? Both the scientist and the man within him needed to find out.

Slowly, slowly he bent lower, suspended in liquid time. His heart slammed within the cage of his chest, and he was tight and hard everywhere. He cradled the juncture of her neck and jaw, feeling the rush of her pulse at that tender convergence. Such delicacy. Combined with remarkable strength.

“You’re a very courageous woman,” he breathed, close enough to count freckles.

She brought her hand up to curve around the back of his head. “I know,” she answered.

He smiled at that, a small smile. And then he stopped smiling, because he kissed her.

Soft, at first. Just the brush of lips. Then more. Her mouth was silken, yielding, yet had its own demands. When he deepened the kiss, she met him with an equal need, opening her lips to take him inside, her tongue touching his without hesitation.

Heat tore through him with the strength of a firestorm. He’d never experienced in his life a kiss this potent, overwhelming him with desire. Catullus, rousing even more, took the kiss further, slipping from the reins of his control. Had he some sense of himself, he might have been shocked at the way he was devouring her. But she devoured him, in turn, and so he had no sense of himself. No sense of anything but his need for her, the taste of her, which, he learned, was the taste of summer fruit warmed in the sun. Sweet and ripe.

And so damned responsive. As they kissed, she moaned softly into his mouth, her fingers gripping tighter on the back of his head. His free hand began its ascent, tracing the curvature of her ribs, and then higher, until it brushed the underside of her breast.

Sweet heaven, yes.

“I see you survived the jump.”

Catullus broke the kiss and looked up with hazy eyes to see Astrid and Lesperance standing some five yards away. Lesperance trained his gaze studiously on a nearby farm outbuilding, as if it was truly fascinating. But Astrid stared at Catullus with her arms crossed over her chest, wearing a distinctly frosty expression.

Catullus felt like a boy caught just before supper with a mouthful of plum cake.

He edged back from Gemma. “Yes, well … Gemma … Miss Murphy had, ah, taken quite a tumble—”

“Or was about to,” Lesperance said, sotto voce.

Catullus glowered at Lesperance, but had recovered enough to get to his feet. Thank God he had on his overcoat, or else he’d treat Astrid, Lesperance, Gemma, and the sheep grazing nearby to the sight of his aching erection. The cashmere coat provided a welcome bit of privacy.

He held out a hand to Gemma. “Can you stand?”

She nodded, and slid her hand into his. The feel of her skin against his own ensured that he’d have to wear his coat for a good while longer.

Catullus helped her to standing, and he couldn’t stop himself from noticing her lips, red from kissing, and the riotous mass of her unbound hair cascading over her shoulders. She looked like a woman moments from being ravished.

He felt both exhilarated and appalled by his behavior. The Heirs could, even now, have reached the next station and be heading back to finish what they’d begun on the train. Meanwhile, Catullus had been caressing and kissing a woman in a ditch—a ditch!—as if powerless to stop himself from the pull of desire between them. He’d never done anything like that, not once, in the whole of his existence. Why, after forty-one years, would he do something like that now?

It was her. A woman unlike any other he’d ever met. Gemma Murphy, watching him with her crystalline eyes and flushed, freckled cheeks.

“Are you truly all right?” he asked her lowly. He’d flog himself before hurting or taking advantage of her.

“I really am,” she answered. “And this has been one of the most interesting days of my life,” she breathed for his ears alone. A tiny smile bowed the corners of her mouth.

Her smile held both a woman’s experience and a girl’s freshness, and Catullus, a rational man of sober temperament and restraint, felt against reason a small gleam of happiness.

But reality set in. And his happiness winked out, like a doused lamp.

“The day isn’t half over. And neither is the danger.”

They would have to keep to bridle paths and game trails. The main road was far too trafficked for safety. If the Heirs knew enough to put some of their men on the correct Southampton-bound train, they’d have the roads watched, too. Time, always in short supply, became even more scarce.

So, collecting their strewn baggage, Catullus, Gemma, Lesperance, and Astrid quickly made their way to a narrow, seldom-used path running parallel to the main southern road. Horseback would be faster, but more conspicuous, leaving the party one option—to proceed on foot.

Catullus tried to calculate the number of miles to Southampton, how long they would be vulnerable on the road, on foot. England’s great forests were mostly gone under the plow, or felled to make room for yet more urban development. Wide fields and roads were fine if one didn’t mind traveling completely exposed. He missed the forests of Canada, or the wild barrens of the Gobi Desert. At least there one could journey hidden in the landscape. England’s sedate pastures left him, Astrid, Lesperance, and Gemma far too open to attack.

He wanted to stay vigilant, but his mind kept fogging. It probably wasn’t a good idea to have Gemma walk in front of him. He was mesmerized by the unconscious sway of her hips as she moved, as well as the way she looked about her, taking in the landscape with an alert and eager eye.

He rather wished she would put her hair back up. But she hadn’t, and he became equally enthralled by the gleaming mass as it trailed down her back in brilliant waves.

Catullus made himself study the surrounding land, the familiar world of hedgerows and paddocks, stiles and hay-fields. Underneath all these quotidian sights lay ominous threats. The Heirs could be anywhere, and had many means of spying.

He and the others couldn’t reach Southampton fast enough. He hated having Gemma vulnerable in any way, and could not fail her when it came to her protection. And he needed to focus all his faculties on the issues at hand. There were so damned many issues: the Heirs and the Primal Source, the inevitable battle that could very well determine the fate of the world. He couldn’t allow his thoughts to be muddled by overwhelming, surprising desire for a female American journalist. Once she was safe at headquarters, he could devote himself fully to the mission.

It did not help that whenever he turned his gaze from Gemma, he found Astrid staring at him with concern. He and Astrid were good friends, and he’d worried about her terribly when she’d retreated into the Canadian wilderness. Now it was her turn to worry about him—though he wasn’t entirely sure what she protected him from. Certainly not Gemma Murphy. Or, did Astrid see something in her that Catullus didn’t?

He couldn’t believe that Astrid was jealous. Not with her heart so fully given to Lesperance. Only two other times had Catullus witnessed such a powerful bond between lovers: Thalia Burgess and her husband, Gabriel Huntley; and Bennett Day and his wife, London Harcourt. Astrid loved Lesperance just as deeply. Further, Catullus and Astrid had always been strictly platonic friends. So she did not resent Gemma for a romantic reason. But why, then?

“How wide a net do you think the Heirs have over this area?” he asked Astrid, to keep his mind on track.

“There’s no way to know,” she answered.

“We could be walking right into them,” said Lesperance.

“Perhaps it would be wise to do some reconnaissance, before moving on.” Catullus wished he had more than a spyglass with him, but he’d had to leave behind his larger pieces of equipment in the haste to return to England. He might be able to fashion something—though the surrounding farmland didn’t leave him much to work with.

Nearby, a shaggy pony at the edge of a field looked up from cropping grass and watched them. It wore a halter. Perhaps he could salvage some of the leather and metal….

Astrid halted, bringing the whole group to a stop. “How do you suggest we attempt that?”

Catullus scanned the surroundings, then spotted a densely wooded dell to the west. “Astrid, you’re one of the Blades’ best scouts.” She did not contradict him. “You can take that pony and reconnoiter. Lesperance, you can … provide aerial assistance.”

Gemma frowned in confusion, but Lesperance understood.

“And you?” asked Astrid.

“Gemma and I will find shelter in that dell.”

Astrid raised a brow.

“I can help, too,” Gemma objected.

But Catullus shook his head. “Scouting is too dangerous for a civilian, and I don’t want to leave you on your own and unprotected.”

He wondered to himself how much of this was truth, and how much was an excuse to be alone with her again—something he both craved and dreaded. He decided he didn’t want to investigate his motivations.

Thank God no one pressed him on this. With promises to convene at the dell within an hour, the party broke into two. The late autumn day had only a few more hours of daylight, so time was vital.

“Is all of England like this?” Gemma asked as they tramped speedily through a soggy field. She refused to allow Catullus to carry her little bag, so she slung it over a shoulder and marched onward with a lively stride. Likely the result of having such wonderfully long legs.

Stop it. Get her safely to Southampton and then move forward. Stay alert.

But, damn it, he liked talking to her, even as he kept his eyes in constant motion, assessing for threats. “You don’t fancy our English pastoral?”

“Oh, it’s fine, I suppose,” she said airily.

“Just fine?”

“Well,” she said, “if you have to press.” She gazed around as she walked. “It’s pretty enough. But there’s no drama. It’s very … tame.”

Oddly, her words stung, as if she was criticizing him and not the sodding landscape. “There’s nothing wrong with being cultivated.”

“But not everything should be contained and tidy. Without a little mess and wilderness, things would be so dull.”

“There is wilderness in England. The Lake Country. The moors. The Cornish coast.” Why did he sound like a priggish geography professor? “All quite wild, I can assure you.”

She sent a playful smile over her shoulder. “I’ve got no doubt that beneath England’s civilized exterior, there’s a good deal of wildness.”

His footsteps faltered briefly before he regained his pace. This, he discovered, was where he got into trouble with women. When it was a matter of letting the body do as it demanded, he followed instinct and need. But this interaction, this banter and play, reading subtle cues, artful compliments and deft, intriguing evasions, here his admittedly gifted brain left him at an utter loss.

So, like an ass, all he could say to Gemma’s teasing was, “Ah.”

It had been much simpler kissing her. He liked that. He liked it very much. Very, very much.

They reached the dell, a little wooded niche whose steep sides and rock-strewn bed kept it safe from cultivation. Autumn had already stripped the branches of their leaves, but tree trunks offered ample camouflage. Catullus found a large fallen chestnut tree and guided Gemma to sit in its shelter.

“Just a moment,” he said before she sat, and produced a square of tartan flannel to lay upon the ground. “To keep you from getting dirt upon your clothing.”

She murmured her thanks before settling down. For himself, he couldn’t sit quietly, not when the Heirs could be near. So he paced. And thought. When he reached Southampton, he’d go straight to his workshop and begin raiding his arsenal and supplies. What might he need for a massive battle against the Heirs? Ammunition, his demolition kit for urban combat, the wireless telegraph device he’d been developing. Blades out in the field would need to communicate with each other, and the devices could be incredibly helpful for transmitting information between distances. He’d also have to consider— “I’m getting dizzy.”

He froze at Gemma’s words. “Is it the jump from the train? You might have hit your head rather hard—”

“From watching you pace.”

Heat crept into his face. “Sorry.”

She brushed aside his embarrassed apology. “Don’t fret. I like watching you think. I just wish you’d do it in a more stationary way.”

She liked to watch him think? “It’s difficult for me to remain static when I’m ruminating.” Even now, he struggled to keep from tapping his foot, restless both from the need to think as well as being the subject of her frank interest.

“You must have worn a trench in the floor of your office.”

“Very nearly.” He felt himself almost vibrating with tension.

With a low laugh, she waved a hand at him. “You look like you’re about to spontaneously combust. Please, keep pacing.”

He started to move, then forcibly stopped himself.

“But—”

“I’ll try to avert my gaze.” Her eyes glinted with wry amusement before she drew up her legs and rested her head upon her knees. “But it won’t be easy.”

Oh, God, was she teasing him? If he had Bennett’s skill with repartee, he could think of something clever and urbane, perhaps pay her a compliment with a hint of suggestiveness. Like what? What could he say? He’d kissed her passionately not that long ago, and she’d enjoyed it. Words should not be so difficult after a devastating kiss.

“Erm, thank you,” he muttered, and resumed his pacing.

“When did you become a Blade?” she asked. When he hesitated in his answer, she added, “This can be, as we say in journalism, ‘off the record,’ if you’re worried I might write about you.”

“I would appreciate that.” He scanned the afternoon sky for any suspicious avian activity. The Heirs often made use of birds’ sensitivity to magic, binding them with spells and forcing them into service as surveillance. Catullus wondered if Lesperance was having any difficulty on that front. However, considering how well Lesperance had handled himself in Canada, Catullus shouldn’t be overly concerned. That didn’t stop Catullus’s mind from whirling, though.

“So …?”

He snapped out of his thoughts at her prompt. No wonder he could never sustain a relationship with a woman. Always spinning off into the kingdom of his own mind. No woman could tolerate such perceived neglect. His arrangement with Penelope, the wealthy mercer’s widow in Southampton, worked because they expected only bodily gratification from each other. Their usual pattern had him arriving between eleven and eleven thirty in the evening, after most of her staff had gone to sleep. He and Penny barely exchanged pleasantries. Once in her bedroom, they silently took off their clothing and had sex, sometimes in bed, sometimes elsewhere in her room.

He made sure Penny felt pleasure, and she gave it, as well. But the truth was, the whole process bordered on mechanical, stripped of real connection. Half the time they were together, his thoughts drifted to current projects and inventions. Penny wasn’t offended. She only wanted his cock. Not his mind, not his heart.

What would Gemma want? Would she be bothered by his straying thoughts? She did not appear impatient now, nor did she seem unconcerned, like Penny.

Gemma patiently waited for his response.

“I became a Blade at eighteen,” he answered. “On a mission to protect a Source in the Åland Islands.”

“Seems awfully young!”

“Not for my family. We’ve been providing mechanical assistance to the Blades for generations. It was simply a matter of time before I became an official Blade of the Rose.”

“Generations,” she repeated. She raised her head, frowning in confusion.

He saw the source of her bewilderment. “Great-great-grandmother Portia came to England from a sugar plantation in Jamaica. She came with her owner as a gift to his daughter in London.”

The implication of that statement widened Gemma’s eyes.

“Yes. She was a slave.” He didn’t stop his pacing, though he slowed, out of consideration for Gemma’s balance.

“Oh, Lord, Catullus,” she gulped. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why? You had nothing to do with it.”

“I know, but … it’s awful to think about. Someone in your family actually being considered … property … instead of a human being.”

He shrugged, long inured to this. “Great-great-grandmother Portia wasn’t the only one. A third of my male relatives were slaves in the British Caribbean at one point in their lives.”

“No one would blame you,” she said slowly, “if you hated England.”

“My skin’s pigment does not define me, no more than your freckles define you. Although,” he mused to himself, “I am extremely fond of freckles.”

He wasn’t actually aware that he had spoken this last bit aloud, until Gemma said with a smile, “That’s good news, since I have quite a lot of them.”

He blinked at her response, and then repressed an urge to yell his triumph. He’d done it! He’d said something flirtatious, and received a very encouraging reaction! That should be recorded in one of his journals, like an experiment.

Though his response to Gemma had little to do with science. Perhaps biology. And something beyond the body. Was there a science of the mind, of the heart? There ought to be.

His attempt at flirtation had been purely accidental, so he couldn’t repeat the procedure. Gemma looked up at him with those sparkling eyes, fringed with red-gold lashes, and he didn’t know what to say. The volley ended with him, like a missed tennis ball whiffing past a racquet. He forged onward, taking up his pacing again so that he wouldn’t have to dwell on the fact that he was not, and would never be, a rake.

“But, ah, to return to great-great-grandmother Portia.” He turned in slow circles, his eyes on the horizon for any possible hazards. “She displayed a tremendous talent for mechanical devices of all kind. Fixing clocks, perfecting the springs on carriages, even making adjustments on the fireplaces so they burned more efficiently.”

“She sounds quite remarkable,” she said, thoughtful.

Despite his relentless scrutiny, nothing loomed in the distance, except his increasing interest in Gemma Murphy. “Never met her, myself, but all accounts described her as a singular woman. Eventually, her mistress freed her, and Portia found work in a household in Southampton. That household was, in fact, the headquarters of the Blades of the Rose. And that’s how the long association began. So it continues to the present day with myself and my sister Octavia.”

“Is Octavia married?”

“Yes, and a mother, but she continues to develop devices for the Blades, when she has time.”

“And you?”

“I’m always developing devices,” he answered abstractedly, preoccupied by a shape on the horizon. He ought to have his shotgun ready, and cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. But as he bent to retrieve the firearm from its case, her softly stated question caused him to freeze like a startled fox.

“I mean, are you married?”

He bolted upright, weaponry forgotten. “Good God, no!” Catullus swung to her, plainly appalled. “You don’t think that I’d … that I would even consider …”

“Kissing me,” she filled in helpfully. He remained mute, stunned into silence, so she shrugged. “Married men have been known to kiss women who weren’t their wives.”

“I would never do that!”

She contemplated him for several long moments, while Catullus’s heart threatened to burst from his chest and find its own way to Southampton. “No,” she said after some time. “I don’t believe you would. And, on the record,” she added, “I don’t kiss married men.”

“Well …” he said, “that is a relief.”

The candor of her gaze revealed that she found them both, at that moment, a little ridiculous.

He’d traveled all over the civilized world, and battled his way through the uncivilized one, as well. Polar seas, barren deserts, obscure jungles. Glittering world capitals and villages that could fit inside a rabbit hutch. And yet the exotic country of Gemma Murphy left him lost. It was easier to dwell in action than dwell on the conversation they were now having.

Catullus hefted his shotgun, but saw the shape on the horizon turn into nothing more than a collection of sheep meandering across a pasture. A pity. He’d rather brawl with the Heirs than fumble his way through another attempt at flirtation with this sharp-eyed, forthright woman.

He whirled around with his shotgun ready as he became aware of a close, noiseless presence. Gemma gave a small yelp when Astrid appeared, like a dryad, from behind a nearby tree. Yet there was no magic in Astrid’s stealth, only a lifetime of experience that had taught her hard lessons. Catullus’s heart ached for the pain she’d had to endure. There wasn’t a Blade or soldier, however, who could match Astrid for strength and skill. Suffering had forged her. Now she was ready for combat.

“The main road is watched,” Astrid said without preamble. She strode toward him and a rising Gemma. “I saw a coach stopped and searched just outside the nearest village. Apparently, the Heirs have convinced the local law that we’re fugitive thieves.”

Catullus feared as much. The authority of the Heirs easily awed village constables and magistrates. “We stay off the arterial roads, then.”

“Getting all the way to Southampton will be a challenge.”

“But we must manage it.”

“I found an inn ten miles from here,” said Lesperance, also emerging silently. Catullus saw Gemma’s observant gaze fix on Lesperance’s necktie, which showed itself to be not completely knotted, as if only just put on, and a few buttons undone on his waistcoat. She did not miss much, this journalist.

“Safe?” Catullus asked.

“Looks like it was built before the train line, and the village it’s in isn’t on the main road.”

The man had done his reconnaissance well. Meanwhile, the sun traced its path closer to the horizon. Nightfall approached. They needed shelter. Catullus had spent countless nights sleeping on the ground, but he’d try like hell to spare Gemma that discomfort. For all her strength and bravado, this world—the world of Heirs and dangerous magic and pushing oneself to the brink of physical collapse—wasn’t hers but his.

“Good,” Catullus said. “We need to reach there before the sun sets.”

Lesperance’s information proved correct. The village they walked into was barely more than a handful of cottages, the high street unpaved, without even a church or grocer. Catullus saw not gas lamps but candles burning inside the houses that lined the street. Some of the cottages stood dark and moldering, and weeds pushed their way through cracks in walls. The few people out were, to a one, elderly and dressed in the fashions of King George.

The technological glories of the century meant nothing in this forgotten little town. Catullus could well imagine that he and his traveling companions had somehow penetrated the veil of time, journeying at least fifty years into the past.

Some misfortune had befallen the village to see it slowly grind into nothingness. Within a decade, the streets would stand empty, and no one would mourn the village’s surrender to obscurity. The deepening shadows of dusk crept through the lane, sweeping the small town further into darkness.

Yet, amidst this quiet and decay, stood an inn. It seemed so perfectly incongruous that the four travelers could only stand outside and marvel for a moment.

“Is this place real?” whispered Gemma.

“Let us hope so.” Catullus strode through the open door, with everyone following. “For I’ve need of food, ale, and a bed, in whatever order they are given to me.”

He and the others stood alone for several moments just inside the doorway, until, finally, Catullus called out, “Hallo the house.”

A wiry man with equally wiry white hair scampered forward, hastily donning an apron. He stood gaping at them, momentarily shocked to have actual guests.

“We’ll need three rooms for tonight,” said Catullus.

The innkeeper started. “What’s that? Rooms?”

“Three,” said Catullus again.

“Oh, sir “—the innkeeper wrung a handful of apron in his hands—” only two are available.”

Catullus glanced around, dubious. It wasn’t a large inn, or even medium-sized, but it boasted two floors and a taproom, where three equally white-haired men were sitting and watching the new arrivals with no attempt at disguising their interest. No one had the look of a traveler, save for Catullus and his companions. “Surely there are more than that.”

The innkeeper smiled in embarrassment. “Yes, there are four guest rooms in all, but one of ‘em, it’s full of things. When the Denbys moved away, they sold us the lot of furniture. Chairs, tables, Sarah Denby’s loom—though me and my wife can’t use it. And then the Yarrows moved to Gloucester, so we took their furniture. Same with the Cliffords, only they moved to Birmingham, not Gloucester. But we didn’t know where to put everything, so it all got shoved into one room, you see. And it’d take days to clear it out.”

“And the other?” Catullus asked, fighting weariness. The day had been long. He wanted an English beer, and he wanted it now.

“That’s where we keep the cheese.”

“The cheese?” Gemma repeated.

“My wife’s cheese. She makes it herself,” the innkeeper said with pride, “and the room is cool, so it works quite nicely as a pantry. So you see, sir “—he made an apologetic shrug—” there are only the two rooms.” Seeing their expressions, he added hastily, “But each of ‘em has a nice, big bed, so they can sleep two all nice and comfy.”

At the mention of beds, it took more self-control than Catullus knew he possessed not to glance over at Gemma. The possibility of sharing a bed with her lay waste to his fatigue, his entire self sharpening with alert awareness. “So, will you be staying, sir?”

Catullus, after a silent conference with Astrid, nodded, and the innkeeper leapt forward to take everyone’s luggage. “Put the ladies’ bags in one room,” Catullus said.

The innkeeper froze as he bent to retrieve the baggage, startled, then regained his professional demeanor. “Very good, sir. If you all will follow me, I’ll take you up right now. And there’s supper, if you’d like it. ‘Tis plain country food, not the sort of fancy stuff you might get in the city,” he said with a concerned look to Catullus’s stylish, though now somewhat travel-worn, clothing.

“I’m sure whatever you serve will be more than delightful. Especially the cheese.”

The innkeeper ducked his gratitude and pointed them up the stairs. “Just this way, please.”

As everyone climbed the steep stairs, Gemma asked, “Do you get many guests?”

“Gramercy, no!” The innkeeper chuckled. “You fine folks are the first guests we’ve had in four months.”

“Isn’t that hard for business?”

“’Tis,” came the cheerful answer as he stopped on a landing, “but this inn’s been in my family for four generations. It stayed open after the mail route changed, taking most of the travelers—and townsfolk—with it. And then when the trains skipped this corner of the shire, well” —he smiled, fatalistic— “that about killed us, it did. I reckon the inn won’t be able to stay open after me and Sarah pass on.”

Gemma gently touched the old man’s hand. “I’m very sorry.”

“Ah, obliged to you, miss.” He reddened to be the recipient of a pretty young woman’s sympathy. “But ‘tis the way of things. We all must leave this world at some point, even inns. And, now,” he continued, taking the stairs again, “just a little farther, and here we are.”

A single, narrow corridor ran the length of the story, floorboards warped by the passage of years, a framed drawing of London Bridge the only adornment on the walls. Four doors faced each other across the passageway, two on the left, two on the right.

“The ladies will take the free room on the left,” the innkeeper announced. “And you gentlemen will have the one on the right.”

Astrid, after sending Lesperance a glance of parting, took her bag and went into one room. Lesperance looked unhappy to be without her for even a moment, but he found his way into the other room.

“I’ll leave you to get your supper ready.” The innkeeper bobbed, but Catullus stopped the old man before he headed down to the kitchen and gave him a florin.

“Thank ‘ee, sir,” the innkeeper chirped, brightening, then hurried away.

For a minute, Catullus and Gemma stood alone in the corridor. The narrow space forced them to stand close to one another, and all around them came the sounds of life—Astrid in her room, Lesperance in the other, the innkeeper downstairs happily chattering to someone, pots banging in the kitchen—everything quite ordinary, quite domestic, like any other inn Catullus had visited. Yet here, standing with his body very close to Gemma so that he saw the flutter of her pulse just beneath her jaw as she looked up at him, nothing was ordinary or domestic, but charged and fraught with possibility.

“Collecting material for your article?” he asked softly. He cast a quick look to the staircase, down which the innkeeper had walked.

“No.” She faintly frowned at the idea she might exploit the innkeeper’s tale for her own benefit. “I just like to hear people’s stories.”

He didn’t doubt that. Gemma Murphy was, he continued to learn, exceptionally inquisitive. Not only for her work as a journalist, but for herself, because she loved knowing and learning and exploring for their own sakes. She imbued even the proprietor of a dying, tiny country inn with gravity and worth, where others—more thoughtless—might dismiss such a man.

This woman is very dangerous. Not in the common way dangerous, ready with a knife or betrayal, but danger of another sort. A well-guarded heart might not be as fortified as previously thought. And a body that had gone far too long without pleasure and release could not resist her, with her lush, seductive curves, her freckled, warm skin, her nimble hands.

But he would. He knew self-discipline, and good manners, and a lifetime of loneliness that could not be eradicated within the span of a few days. So, despite everything within him demanding that he close the small space between him and Gemma, and press her against the wall as he kissed her thoroughly, he said, instead, “See you at supper, then.”

Catullus thought he saw a look of disappointment cross Gemma’s face, but it vanished before he could make certain. “Yes, at supper.”

Then she turned and went into her room, and Catullus stood by himself for many moments afterward.