Awaken the Curse (4 page)

James dove on her as a second shot exploded off the obelisk where her head had been a moment before.

Shock and rage shimmered in his eyes as he stared at her, his body a pressing weight shoving her deep into the wet snow. His face so familiar; the stubborn chin, the high knifing cheekbones, the tiny scar at the edge of his mouth. Perhaps it was fear or astonishment or the cold spreading through her backside to mix with the heat coiling tight in her stomach. She refused to believe it was the lingering sweet combination of James and ice cream that seemed to have taken a permanent spot in her discombobulated brain.

But whether it was fear or dessert, before Katherine could think better of it, she cupped his face in her hands, lifted her head, and kissed him.

*   *   *

James sat shirtless on the edge of his bed, Katherine standing in front of him. Silken chestnut curls escaped her pins to frame the porcelain pallor of her face, bottom lip caught between her teeth. Her scent filled his head, the pulse at the base of her throat fluttering like a caged bird. His own blood throbbed far more forcefully and farther south. Tip forward an inch and he’d be pillowed between her breasts. His tongue able to taste her—

“Ow!” He yanked his arm away from Katherine’s grip. “That damn well hurts.”

“Quit behaving like a baby.” She grabbed him again, holding him steady as she cleaned the reopened gash on his upper arm and bound it tight with a new thick white bandage. “This time try to keep from being knifed, shot at, or otherwise injured. I’m running out of laudanum and clean bandages, and you’re running out of luck.”

Luck? His present state was about as unlucky as one man could get. All it would take was a firm hold and a quick flip and she’d be nestled underneath him. After her unexpected and completely delectable kiss, why not?

He pushed aside his lecherous thoughts. Why not? He could think of at least two good reasons, both of them in real danger of being kneed into oblivion if he tried. There was also the little matter of his not being a complete jackass despite numerous assertions otherwise. And last and largest, because while he’d arrived with juvenile ideas of toying with Katherine, he’d realized within the first few minutes he would be the one ending up burned by that childish game.

She stepped back before he threw caution to the winds and acted on every impulse thundering through his lust-hazy brain. “There. How does that feel?”

He was about to answer,
Damned painful, thanks
when he realized she meant his arm. He windmilled it a few times. Sore, but not impossible. He’d live. The bullet had only grazed him. It was the sharp tree branches and a fall on the rocks as he chased after their assailant that had ripped his stitches open. Whoever shot at them knew the area well. The tracks James followed ended in a granite outcropping already shed of snow and, beyond that, a muddy, well-trodden lane where one set of prints was easily lost. He’d given up, returning to Katherine at the obelisk, scraped, bloody, and dangerously light-headed.

She crossed to refill the basin with clean water. Stumbled over the rug. Knocked into the table. And dropped the bar of soap.

“Drat,” she muttered, bending to retrieve it.

Only when she slammed the pitcher down on the table with water-sloshing force did he notice her chattering teeth and the glimmering brightness of her eyes.

He rose, easing her around by the shoulders. “Don’t cry,” he murmured.

“I’m not crying,” she sniffed. “I’m just on edge. This is twice in two days you could have been killed. Like Father.”

“Hold on. You don’t know your father is dead.”

“That was blood on the obelisk, James. Father’s blood.”

“I’ll concede his disappearance may be connected to the shooting,” James argued, “but I’m not ready to believe your father’s dead. Not until I have more proof than a lost button and a few smears of blood.”

“What more proof do you need? Another bullet? Two? Maybe an entire fusillade?”

“That would definitely clinch it,” he answered dryly.

“Jokes aside, that wasn’t a peashooter.” Her gaze slid to his bound arm. “Someone tried to kill you, James—again. I want to know why. And don’t try to tell me it was the nightwalkers. No ghost walks around with a loaded gun.”

“If you’re so worried, why won’t you look me in the face? You haven’t once met my eye since we returned to the house.” He tipped her chin up with a finger, but she slid her gaze to somewhere behind his left shoulder. “Is it because you kissed me?”

Her face bloomed scarlet, but at least she was looking at him now. In fact, she was flaying him alive with her glittering tawny eyes. “That kiss was a mistake.”

“Was it?”

Her mouth firmed, her brows drawn into a stern frown. “You know it as well as I do. There’s no going back even if we wanted to.”

She protested but didn’t seek to escape. Instead her body remained perilously close. He felt the warmth rising from her skin, the soft, peachy fragrance of it filling his head until it spun. “Do you want to?”

She wrenched free to pace a few steps away, fists clenched at her sides, back straight as a poker. “Don’t do this, James. Don’t pretend to feelings that aren’t there.”

James whispered a few words over his flattened palm, blew a slow steady breath. A small tangled swirl of mage energy appeared in the cup of his hand, burning blue and gold and pink and lilac until it solidified into a diamond, the magic caught within its heart like a flame. “Take it.”

She accepted the jewel from him, though her gaze remained wary. “It’s beautiful, but how . . . ?”

“I haven’t spent all my time in London playing the scoundrel. A little training can do wonders when the raw power is already there. I could deck you in diamonds. Cover you in rubies and sapphires, emeralds and pearls. You would glow like a star with Fey-wrought riches.”

“I never wanted diamonds or rubies.”

“Didn’t you? I’m not sure whether to be relieved or glum. If you were happy with poverty, it must have been me you objected to.”

She gazed at the diamond in her hand until tears burned in her eyes.

“What
did
you want, Katherine?” he asked. “Why did it go so wrong between us?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he lowered his head, barely brushing her lips. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks, a soft breath expelled in a tiny whimper. It was all the prompting he needed as he slid an arm around her tiny waist, her body fitting perfectly against his.

She placed a hand upon his bare chest, her touch bursting through him like a shot of whisky. He was tossed back in time to those moments they’d shared. She’d been full of laughter and enthusiasm, an exuberant flame among the dry tomes and rigid facts of university life. Unlike anyone he’d ever met, with her clear honest gaze and her forthright manner. It had enchanted him and excited him and then it had smacked him over the head with the force of a frying pan.

He’d not meant to fall in love. Hell, he’d not known he was capable of the emotion, or at least not for one woman and for an entire lifetime. But he’d walked into that damned parlor looking for Professor Lacey and she’d been sitting there, the afternoon light streaming through the window behind her, transforming her auburn hair to livid flame and illuminating her pearly skin.

He couldn’t remember what he’d said or what she’d answered, but her voice and the tone and the way she looked at him—no one had ever looked at him that way. Not a scapegrace second son with holes in his pockets and a scholar’s bent.

Bloody hell, none had looked on him that way since. As if she saw straight through him to who he was and even more—who he could be. It had been pride inducing and damned frightening all at the same time. He’d lost his heart to her in that moment. And in the months following, his very soul.

And as she threaded her hands in his hair, his whispered name like a ragged prayer on her lips, he knew he was very much in danger of falling again.

“James,” she whimpered again.

Liquid fire shot through his body. He rained kisses upon her face, her neck, the spot behind her ear. Skimmed her sides, feeling the shudder of every curve and contour beneath her gown. He wanted to press his mark upon her. Bind her to him with desire.

“We can’t,” she said even as she arched closer, small sounds of pleasure arousing him further. The bed was close. A step away. Blankets and pillows, an unfulfilled need consuming them both.

“A terrible idea. We’ll regret it.” He backed her against the bed until she dropped upon it, her hands caressing his chest, his stomach, her eyes like stars. He knelt, bringing them face-to-face, tracing the way her hair curled riotously against her cheeks, the upturned tilt of her nose, her mouth swollen with his kisses. “But I’ve never wanted to regret anything so much in my life.”

He dragged her gown free of her shoulders so that it hung at her waist and began untying the ribbons of her chemise. Every second he expected her to stop him with a slap to the face, but he would relish these moments while he could and worry over repercussions later. Leaning forward, he tongued her breast, the flesh hot, the skin like silk. She gasped, her body like a coiled spring. She was ready for him, as wild for it as he was. He cradled her in his arms, taking his time as he unwrapped her like a precious treasure. Each new exposure of flesh needing his touch, his caress, his lips. She smiled up at him, half-sorrowful, half-trusting.

And he stopped. Unable to continue. Hating himself.

“James?” she said, confusion replacing her joy.

“Katherine, I—”

“Miss Lacey! Come quick!” Enid’s shout cut through the moment like a damascened blade.

Katherine’s eyes seemed to focus, her body stiffening, her expression hardening to one he had never hoped to see—shame.

“Coming, Enid!” she called, throwing herself from his bed, pulling herself together. Bundling her hair back into a hasty bun. Checking herself in his tiny mirror. “I’ll be right there!”

He made no move to hold her or speak to her. Instead he followed slowly, pulling on his shirt. Splashing cold water over his face. Dragging in a few restorative gulps of air.

He came down the stairs to excited voices from the professor’s study.

“I don’t understand,” Katherine asked. “Who could have done this?”

“I found it like this when I came in to lay the evening fire, miss. And the window open.”

“What’s happened?” James asked.

Both women jumped, Enid ducking away to make way for him at the door. He peered into the room, seeing a blizzard of papers and turned-over drawers, as if the study had been torn apart in a frantic search.

Wrapping a hand around the amulet, he began to suspect exactly what they’d come for.

*   *   *

While James sat at her father’s desk reorganizing scattered pages of notes, Katherine sought to armor herself against further temptation, gaze locked on her cup of tea and off the width of his shoulders, the calm strength in his face.

She ran a finger around the rim of her cup, staring into the murky brew as if she might read her future among the milk and sugar—a home of her own, children, a husband. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she squinted, all she saw was her own distorted image. She gave a sharp snort of laughter at her own foolishness. James had never offered any of these things. Not then. Not now. And all the wishing in the world would never change that simple fact.

But what would have happened if Enid hadn’t interrupted? Would she really have given in to James’s persuasions and her own desires? For five long years, she’d taken virtuous and obedient to new heights. And yet a mere forty-eight hours in James’s company and she felt her passivity shedding away like an old outgrown skin. As if she couldn’t hide the truth from the one man who had always known her better than she knew herself.

“Tell me about Cade,” he said.

A safe topic. One that steered them away from treacherous ground like stolen kisses and passionate memories that had become all too real, all too easily. She could almost be grateful to her mysterious housebreaker for interrupting them before she made the ultimate humiliating error in judgment. All right, the second ultimate humiliating error—but who was counting?

“He and Enid came with the house. He’s been very helpful in assisting Father with his interviews. The locals are much more willing to talk to one of their own than an outsider, especially about the nightwalkers.”

James picked up a notebook, riffled through it. “And yet, when I asked Cade about them, he all but told me I was crazy to believe in faerie tales.”

“Cade can’t be involved. It doesn’t make sense. Why help Father if he doesn’t want him to learn anything? And Cade hasn’t been here all day. He couldn’t have been the one to search the study.”

“But he could have taken those shots at us in the clearing.”

“Perhaps,” she acknowledged, “but I still don’t believe it. Father and I wouldn’t have made it through the winter without his help. If we’re looking for suspects, I’d look to Monsieur d’Espe. He was nearby, and you said yourself he’s ruthless when he’s after a prize.”

“But the tracks I followed were clearly those of a man on foot,” James argued. “Besides which, it sounds as if d’Espe’s dealing with his own disruptions.”

“True. He even accused Father of sabotage. Said he sprang three of his mantraps and damaged the only bridge over the river. Since then, the chevalier’s had to travel two hours downstream to the ford.”

“So we’re right back at the beginning with just as many questions and no answers.” James turned back to the upended drawers with a shake of his head. “What if they weren’t looking for something belonging to your father? What if they were looking for something of mine?” He drew her eye to the silver disk, holding it up so the light rippled over its surface like oil upon water.

“The amulet?”

He gave a half shrug. “It makes sense.”

“Then why didn’t they search your chambers? Why the study?”

“Perhaps there wasn’t time. Perhaps Enid was upstairs cleaning and they couldn’t risk being seen. Perhaps they assumed I’d leave anything relating to the obelisk down here with the material your father’s already gathered. There could be any number of reasons.”