Mine Till Midnight (11 page)

He tried to think of something that would interest her. “Horehound,” he said to her in a matter-of-fact manner.

Her eyes bulged with alarm, and a pulse throbbed visibly in her neck. “H-h-h…” she whispered.

“Horehound, licorice root, and honey. It’s good for getting rid of phlegm in the throat. My grandmother was a healer—she taught me many of her remedies.”

The word “phlegm” nearly caused her eyes to roll back in her head.

“Horehound is also good for coughs and snake bites,” Cam continued helpfully.

Her face drained of color, and she set her spoon on her plate. Turning away from him desperately, she gave her attention to the diners on her left.

His attempt at polite discussion having been rebuffed, Cam sat back as the soup was removed and the second course was brought out. Sweetbreads in béchamel sauce, partridges nestled in herb beds, pigeon pies, roast snipe, and vegetable soufflé laced the air with a cacophony of rich scents. The guests exclaimed appreciatively, watching in anticipation as their plates were filled.

But Amelia Hathaway barely seemed aware of the sumptuous dishes. Her attention was focused on a conversation at the end of the table, between Lord Westcliff and her brother Leo. Her face was calm, but her fingers clenched around a fork handle.

“… obvious you possess a large acreage of good land that has gone unused…” Westcliff was saying, while Leo listened without apparent interest. “I will make my own estate agent available to you, to apprise you of the standard terms of tenancy here in Hampshire. Usually these arrangements are unwritten, which means it is an obligation of honor on both sides to uphold the agreements—”

“Thank you,” Leo said after downing half his wine in an expedient gulp, “but I’ll deal with my tenants in my own time, my lord.”

“I’m afraid time has run out for some of them,” Westcliff replied. “Many of the tenant houses on your land have run to ruins. The people who now depend on you have been neglected for far too long.”

“Then it’s time they learn my one great consistency is neglecting the people who depend on me.” Leo flicked a laughing glance at Amelia, his eyes hard. “Isn’t that right, sis?”

With visible effort, Amelia forced her fingers to unclench from the fork. “I’m certain Lord Ramsay will lend his close attention to the needs of his tenants,” she said carefully. “Pray don’t be misled by his attempt to be amusing. In fact, he has mentioned future plans to improve the tenant leaseholds and study modern agricultural methods—”

“If I study anything,” Leo drawled, “it will be the bottom of a good bottle of port. The Ramsay tenants have proven their ability to thrive on benign neglect—they clearly don’t need my involvement.”

A few guests tensed apprehensively at Leo’s insouciant speech, while others gave a few forced chuckles. Tension thickened the air.

If Leo was deliberately trying to make an enemy of Westcliff, he couldn’t have chosen a better way of doing it. Westcliff had a deep concern for those less fortunate than himself, and an active dislike for self-indulgent noblemen who failed to live up to their responsibilities.

“Drat,”
Cam heard Lillian mutter beneath her breath, as her husband’s brows lowered over cold dark eyes.

But just as Westcliff parted his lips to deliver a withering speech to the insolent young viscount, one of the female guests gave an earsplitting shriek. Two other ladies jumped up from their chairs, along with several of the gentlemen, all of them staring in white-eyed horror at the center of the table.

All conversation had stopped. Following the guests’ collective gazes, Cam saw something—a lizard?—wriggling and slithering its way past sauceboats and salt cellars. Without hesitation he reached out and captured the small creature, cupping it in closed hands. The lizard squirmed furiously in the space between his closed palms.

“I’ve got it,” he said mildly.

The vicar’s wife half fainted, slumping back in her chair with a low moan.

“Don’t hurt him!” Beatrix Hathaway called out anxiously. “He’s a family pet!”

The assembled guests glanced from Cam’s closed hands to the Hathaway girl’s apologetic face.

“A pet?… What a relief,” Lady Westcliff said calmly, staring down the length of the table at her husband’s blank countenance. “I thought it was some new English delicacy we were serving.”

A swift wash of color darkened Westcliff’s face, and he looked away from her with fierce concentration. To anyone who knew him well, it was obvious he was struggling not to laugh.

“You brought Spot to supper?” Amelia asked her youngest sister in disbelief. “Bea, I told you to get rid of him yesterday!”

“I tried to,” came Beatrix’s contrite reply, “but after I left him in the woods, he followed me home.”

“Bea,” Amelia said sternly, “reptiles do not follow people home.”

“Spot is no ordinary lizard. He—”

“We’ll discuss it outside.” Amelia rose from her chair, obliging the gentlemen to hoist themselves out of their seats. She threw Westcliff an apologetic glance. “I beg your pardon, my lord. If you will excuse us…”

The earl gave a composed nod.

Another man … Christopher Frost … stared at Amelia with an intensity that raised Cam’s hackles. “May I help?” Frost asked. His voice was carefully devoid of urgency, but there was no doubt in Cam’s mind about how much the man wanted to go outside with her.

“No need,” Cam said smoothly. “As you can see, I have everything in hand. At your service, Miss Hathaway.” And, still holding the squirming reptile, he accompanied the sisters from the room.

Chapter Eight

Cam led them away from the dining hall, through a pair of French doors that opened to a conservatory. The outdoor room was sparsely furnished with cane-back chairs and a settee. White columns around the edge of the conservatory were interspersed with lush hanging plants. Clouds sulked across the humid sky, while torchlight sent a brisk dance of light across the ground.

As soon as the doors were closed, Amelia went to her sister with her hands raised. At first Cam thought she intended to shake her, but instead Amelia pulled Beatrix close, her shoulders trembling. She could barely breathe for laughing.

“Bea … you did it on purpose, didn’t you?… I couldn’t believe my eyes … that blasted lizard running along the table…”

“I had to do something,” the girl explained in a muffled voice. “Leo was behaving badly—I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I saw Lord Westcliff’s face—”

“Oh … oh…” Amelia choked with giggles. “Poor Westcliff … one moment he’s def-fending the local population from Leo’s tyranny, and then Spot comes s-slithering past the bread plates…”

“Where is Spot?” Twisting away from her sister, Beatrix approached Cam, who deposited the lizard in her outstretched palms. “Thank you, Mr. Rohan. You have very quick hands.”

“So I’ve been told.” He smiled at her. “The lizard is a lucky animal. Some people say it promotes prophetic dreaming.”

“Really?” Beatrix stared at him in fascination. “Come to think of it, I
have
been dreaming more often lately—”

“My sister needs no encouragement in that regard,” Amelia said. She gave Beatrix a meaningful look. “It’s time to say farewell to Spot, dear.”

“Yes, I know.” Beatrix heaved a sigh and peered inside the loose cage of her fingers at her erstwhile pet. “I’ll let him go now. I think Spot would rather live here than at the Ramsay estate.”

“Who wouldn’t? Go find a nice place for him, Bea. I’ll wait for you here.”

As her sister scampered off, Amelia turned and gazed at the dim verge of the house, its outline melding into an ironstone wall set along the bluff overlooking the river.

“What are you doing?” Cam asked, approaching her.

“I’m taking a good last look at Stony Cross Manor, since this is the last time I’ll ever see it.”

He grinned. “I doubt that. The Westcliffs have welcomed back guests who have done far worse.”

“Worse than setting wild creatures loose at the supper table? Dear heaven, they must be desperate for company.”

“They have a great tolerance for eccentricity.” He paused before adding, “What they don’t take well, I’m afraid, is callousness.”

The reference to her brother caused a delicate play of emotions on her face, humor fading to chagrin. “Leo was never callous before.” She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, as if she wanted to tie herself into a self-protective bundle. “It’s only been in the past year that he’s become so intolerable. He’s not himself.”

“Because he inherited the title?”

“No, that has nothing to do with it. It’s because—” Looking away from him, she swallowed hard. He heard a nervous tapping from a foot half concealed beneath her skirts. “Leo lost someone,” she finally said. “The fever struck many people in the village, including a girl he … well, he was betrothed to her. Laura.” The name seemed to stick in her throat. “She was my best friend, and Win’s, too. A beautiful girl. She liked to draw and paint. She had a laugh that would make you laugh, too, just to hear it.”

Amelia was silent for a moment, lost in her memories. “Laura was one of the first to fall ill,” she said. “Leo stayed with her every possible moment. No one expected her to die … but it happened so quickly. After three days she was so feverish and weak you could barely feel her pulse. Finally she lost consciousness and died a few hours later in Leo’s arms. He came home and collapsed, and we realized he had caught the fever. And then Win had it, too.”

“But the rest of you didn’t?”

Amelia shook her head. “I had already sent Beatrix and Poppy away. And for some reason, neither I nor Merripen were susceptible. He helped me nurse them both through it. Without his help, they would both have died. Merripen made a syrup with some kind of toxic plant—”

“Deadly nightshade,” Cam said. “Not easy to find.”

“Yes.” She gave him a curious glance. “How did you know? You learned it from your grandmother, I suppose.”

He nodded. “The trick is to administer enough to counteract the poison in the blood, but not enough to kill the patient.”

“Well, both of them came through it, thank God. But Win is quite fragile, as you can probably see, and Leo … now he cares for nothing and no one. Not even himself.” Her foot resumed its nervous tapping. “I don’t know how to help him. I understand how it feels to lose someone, but…” She shook her head helplessly.

“You’re referring to Mr. Frost,” he said.

Amelia gave him a sharp glance and flushed deeply. “How did you know? Did he say something? Was there gossip, or—”

“No, nothing like that. I saw it when you talked to him earlier.”

Shaking her head, Amelia raised her hand to her heat-infused cheeks. “Dear heaven. Am I that easy to read?”

“Perhaps I’m one of the
Phuri Dae,
” he said, smiling at her. “A mystical Gypsy. Were you in love with him?”

“That’s none of your concern,” she said, a bit too quickly.

He watched her closely. “Why did he leave you?”

“How did you—” She broke off and scowled as she understood what he was doing, throwing out provocative questions and gleaning the truth from her reactions. “Bother. All right, I’ll tell you. He left me for another woman. A prettier, younger woman who happened to be his employer’s daughter. It would have been a very advantageous marriage for him.”

“You’re wrong.”

Amelia gave him a perplexed glance. “I assure you, it would have been an
enormously
advantageous—”

“She couldn’t possibly have been prettier than you.”

Her eyes widened at the compliment. “Oh,” she whispered.

Approaching her, Cam touched her vibrating foot with his own. The tapping stopped.

“A bad habit,” Amelia said abashedly. “I can’t seem to rid myself of it.”

“A hummingbird will do that in spring. She hangs on the side of the nest and uses her other foot to tamp down the floor.”

Her gaze chased around as if she couldn’t decide where to look.

“Miss Hathaway.” Cam spoke gently, while she fidgeted before him. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until she quieted. “Do I make you nervous?”

She brought herself to look up at him, her eyes harboring the blue-black glitter of a moonlit lake. “No,” she said immediately. “No, of course you …
yes.
Yes, you do.”

The vehement honesty of her answer surprised both of them. The night deepened—one of the torches had burned out—and the conversation devolved into something halting and broken and delicious, like pieces of barley sugar melting on the tongue.

“I would never hurt you,” Cam said in a low voice.

“I know. It’s not that—”

“It’s because I kissed you, isn’t it?”

“You … you said you didn’t remember.”

“I remember.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked in a half-whisper.

“Impulse. Opportunity.” Aroused by her nearness, Cam tried to ignore the coursing readiness of his own body. “Surely you would have expected no less of a Roma. We take what we want. If a Roma desires a woman, he steals her for himself. Sometimes right out of her bed.” Even in the darkness he could see the rich renewal of her blush.

“You just said you would never hurt me.”

“If I carried you away with me…” The idea of it, her soft, struggling weight in his arms, sent his blood surging. He was caught by the primitive appeal of it, all reason crushed beneath the thumping heat of desire. “The last thing on my mind would be hurting you.”

“You would never do such a thing.” She was trying very hard to sound matter-of-fact. “We both know you’re too civilized.”

“Do we? Believe me, the issue of my civility is entirely open to question.”

“Mr. Rohan,” she asked unsteadily, “are you
trying
to make me nervous?”

“No.” As if the word required emphasis, he repeated softly, “No.”

Hell and damnation,
he thought, wondering what he was doing. He was at a loss to comprehend why this woman, in her intelligent prickly innocence, should have captivated him so thoroughly. All he knew was a fierce longing to reach something in her, to strip away all the artificial trappings of stays and laces and shoes, the curtain of her gown, the little hooks of her hairpins.