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Morgan hugged her knees to her. “Then the stories were true? He did discard her for a string of mistresses?”
Amos’s eyebrows shot so high they disappeared into his hairline. “Where’d ye hear such palaver? The colonel’s no saint—I served him for all his years in the army. Could tell ye stories that’d curl your hair. But if anyone did the discardin’, it were her. Not him.”
“But—”
He grabbed up his broom and pail. “No more I’ll say on that. It’s not seemly to be talking of her with ye. She’s gone. You’re here. And the colonel’s due a bit of peace if ye ask me. He’s earned it times ten.” He tipped his head. Banged toward the door.
“What happened to him during those years away, Amos?”
Her words drew him up. His hand clamped around the pail’s handle, an uncomfortable flush creeping up his neck.
“He barely speaks of it, but it’s enough,” she went on. “You were there.”
He turned back, old sorrows dulling his gaze. “The colonel, he knew how to shoot. How to stalk. Things he’d learned back at home in the mountains around Strathconon. First at his father’s side and then his uncle’s. Those men in charge. They saw that, and they twisted it. They took a man already on the edge and pushed him over.”
“I’ve seen glimpses of what he must have been like. But was it so bad?”
Amos nodded. “Aye, it was. By the time we’d reached France, murder and savagery were all the colonel knew. He ate, drank, and dreamed them.” His words grew harsh, his face hard with pity. “Did they think once he’d come home, he’d forget? He’d just go back to the man he’d been? They were fooling themselves. They’ve created a killer. Now they’ve got to live with it.” He swallowed. “But, then, so does he.”
Cam flipped open the morning paper Amos had brought. What he’d hoped to find he couldn’t say. Stories of unexplained magic. Legions of young-old men springing up like mushrooms across London. But nothing of the sort caught his eye. Just the usual scandal and speculation from the upper strata. Lord Tabberner caught in a revealing position with Mrs. Nowell. A banking scandal ruining two members of parliament and an undersecretary in the Foreign Office. The elopement of a young heiress to Gretna Green with her footman.
The notices of murder and mayhem from the lower classes were no more helpful. Bodies discovered washed ashore near Southwark Bridge. A doctor with his head crushed as he returned from a call near Holborn. A break-in and robbery at a gentleman’s home in Cheyne Walk, his housekeeper murdered in the attack.
Pushing the paper aside, he spread the map of the city out on the dining room table. Placed his cup and saucer on one curling corner. The butter dish on the other.
He’d been awake since before dawn, but lay abed listening to the city, a garbled, dissonant roar of warring sounds.
He hated it. Just like every other morning when he’d lain in his room, waiting for the house to wake around him.
The ancient rhythms of the mountains. The purr of the fathomless gray loch, and the lyric sigh of the ever-present wind. The scream of the wildcat as it hunted and the mountain hare as it died. That was the music of his world. Not the incessant, ugly chorus of millions living cheek by jowl.
This was his uncle’s world. This had been Charlotte’s world.
And now it hid a madman.
What drew Doran here? No standing stones. No barrow mounds. But he came with intent. Cam was sure of it.
He scanned the map with no clue to what he searched for. Then reaching the bottom right corner, began again. A name. A street. Anything that jumped out at him as a possibility, he wrote down to be checked later. He’d hired Rastus. But that didn’t mean he’d leave the search to the wily, old corporal.
“You’re up early.” Morgan stood in the doorway, a hand on the knob, uncertainty in her eyes.
He should never have spoken those words last night. Never let her see how much he wanted her. But the look she’d given him had offered hope that mayhap she wanted him too. It had taken all his self-discipline not to go to her. Bury himself inside her and end the unceasing torment of those few unfulfilled moments.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, he motioned her in. Prayed she didn’t notice the hunger in his gaze. “I don’t sleep well. Thought I may as well be doing something.”
She took up position at the opposite end of the table. Stood, looking down at the map, her body rigid.
She wore a gown today. A simple sweep of celadon green that clung to every curve. Emphasized her high round breasts, her mile long legs.
Which was worse? The leave-nothing-to-the-imagination breeks or the hidden curves and tempting flesh of the morning dress? His whole body throbbed. He straightened, plowing his hands through his hair. He had no answer. Both left him hard as a rock.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
His gaze narrowed. “Better. Why?” he snapped, his nerves frayed by the memories this bloody house brought back.
Sparks fired her own eyes. “Just trying to make conversation. I apologize for asking.”
He clenched his jaw. Took firm hold of his seesawing emotions. Morgan didn’t understand. She couldn’t. “No, I’m sorry. Can we begin again? Pretend I didn’t just bite your head off?”
