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At his look of disbelief, she laughed. “See for yourself.” She unwound the bandage. Dropped it on the floor.
Cam’s eyes rounded at the ugly, pink weal. “Incredible.”
“Not really. You’ll still be sore for a few weeks. I’m not an expert at healing. My gifts don’t run that way, and it’s hard to perfect a talent that doesn’t come naturally.”
He shoved himself higher on his pillows. Ran a hand through sleep-tousled hair, the barest hint of a smile in his eyes. “I thought you just wiggled your nose or crossed your arms and nodded your head. I’d no idea magic was so complicated.”
She’d grown up with brothers so she recognized a barbed comment when she heard one. Cam teased, but this time not in a mean way. More to see what he could get away with. Even so, it caught her off guard. Cam was supposed to remain taciturn and unpleasant. Not charming. Or amusing.
Not in a way that might make her start to like him.
Unsure of how to respond, she let his remark slide. “We, Other, keep to ourselves. Most of us hide our abilities and our Fey heritage. Or use it in a way that the mortal world would never suspect the truth. Like a dark family secret. The mad aunt in the attic no one talks about.”
“And your family?”
A shallow grief passed over her heart. “In our case the mad aunt actually lived in a comfortable set of apartments. But that’s another story.”
“I meant how do they handle their…Fey-ness?”
She’d forgotten he’d met her family once. In the spring. He’d been investigating the fifth death at a tomb near Lands End. And she’d been horrified by his invasion into what she’d always thought of as a sanctuary. The one place she could truly let her hair down. With his unexpected appearance, the world of Other and mortal collided head-on in one bloody awful mess.
It had collided again in General Pendergast’s office, but at least she’d had some warning. Time to prepare against the pain of seeing him again.
Or so she’d thought.
She shrugged. “My family’s a bit of both. My brother Ruan’s always hated his Fey blood.”
She paused, unable to tell whether Cam was really interested or whether he was just being polite. He’d never asked about her past before. As if their lives before
meeting hadn’t mattered once they’d found each other. Or—the more cynical side chided—as if he’d never meant for it to last long enough to bother.
Still, he asked now. That counted for something.
“And your other brother?” he pressed.
She shot him a look, but saw nothing but open curiosity in his question. “He’s more like my grandmother. Jamys studied to become a physician, but left university before finishing. Now he tends to the health of the tenants and the villagers and those who’ve heard of his luck with even the most stubborn illnesses.”
Cam shifted his shoulder. “No doubt.”
She twisted the wolf-head ring—her family’s emblem—on her finger, the citrine eyes of the beast winking up at her. Ridiculous, but she missed them. She’d fought her whole life to get away from her family’s overwhelming, in-your-business closeness, and now when she’d finally won her independence, she wished she could curl up with Gram for a long heart-to-heart. Trade good-natured insults with Ruan and Jamys. Or fling her arms around her father and bury her face into the warm, pipe smell of his jacket.
And it wasn’t just her family she ached for. She missed rambling Daggerfell’s woods. Watching the ships pass east through the Channel. Rounding the last turn of the drive to have the rambling old house appear out of the trees as if conjured there, its lamplit windows beckoning her home.
“What about you?” she ventured, heading off a surprising wave of homesickness.
He went still, his eyes trained on some distant past. “My aunt and uncle had the raising of us after our parents died. They’d no children of their own, you see. As the oldest, I was supposed to follow into the family business. Marry the woman they’d picked for me. Raise a passel of little Sinclairs. Grow fat and respectable.”
“I take it you didn’t exactly fall in with the family plan.” She could sympathize. She’d bucked tradition as well. First, by spending more time tagging after her brothers and cousins than attending to the proper pursuits of a young woman of quality. Later, when she’d made it known she wished to journey to Skye rather than London for the Season they’d planned for her.
Cam grimaced. “Wrong woman. Wrong profession—”
Morgan’s gaze fell on the powerful muscles of his arms. The broad chest. “And nowhere near fat or respectable.”
That drew a laugh. “Uncle Josh tried to understand, but…well, let’s just say I’ve spent my life disappointing him.”
“I’m sorry.” A ridiculous response, but the only words that sprang to mind.
He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
