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He inclines his head but doesn’t flash one of his easy smiles or make any move to come inside. Instead, he nods toward the shadows on the porch behind him. “Thank you. Can we talk briefly? Alone?”
Glancing over my shoulder to see Kitty and Laura still happily sharing a plateful of salmon, effectively barring my access to the fridge and the juice I’ll need to make Annie a virgin cocktail, I nod. “All right.” I step outside, closing the door behind me and wrapping my cardigan tighter across my chest. I’m not cold, but an extra barrier between my tingling skin and Edmond seems like a good idea. “What’s on your mind?”
“You, of course,” he says, in a deep, sexy rumble that instantly makes my panties damper than they were before. “And our…predicament.”
Ribs tightening, I nod. “Good. It’s past time we addressed the predicament.” I glance around the empty front yard and the street beyond, still as paranoid as I was the night Amy was nearly taken a second time. Finally, I add in a whisper, “What are we going to do? Actually get married and then get a secret divorce or something? Because I think we have to get married, Edmond. I’ve been looking and looking for another way out, but I haven’t found reason for hope in any of the spell books or history books or—”
“Of course, we’ll marry,” he cuts in, his gorgeous eyes pinching at the edges. “And I’ll make sure you and Amy have enough money to sustain you for the rest of your lives and that all the legal paperwork is in order as soon as the wedding certificate’s ink has dried.”
“No, Edmond,” I say, waving a hand in the air. “I don’t need your money. I’m fully capable of providing for Amy on my own.”
“I know you are, but I want to provide for you. It will be…a comfort to me, a final good deed before my time here is through.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He sighs. “I haven’t wanted to tell anyone. There’s nothing that can be done to stop the curse from being fulfilled, so I thought it was better that it come as a terrible, sudden surprise than become a ghost haunting every party and dinner conversation. But I only have a few months left and I don’t believe in lies between spouses, even spouses of convenience, so…” He tips his head to his chest for a beat before lifting it again and adding in softer voice, “I refused my maker’s offer to become her mate. Enraged by the rejection, she had me cursed, bound by an unbreakable magic to die one hundred years from the day I refused her hand. Those hundred years are up come January 1st.”
Stomach filling with acid and dread, I shake my head. “No. There has to be a way to stop this, Edmond. We’ll talk to Blaire and our magic tutor, Celeste. They’re both crazy powerful. They’ll know some way to—”
“No, they won’t. Some curses can be broken, but not this one. Believe me, I tried to find a way out. At first, I tried very, very hard.” He shrugs, a charming smile curving his lips. “But now I’ve accepted my fate, and I can’t think of a better way to spend my last few months on earth than with my Chicago Girl.” He bends, pressing a kiss to my forehead as my jaw drops. “Of course, I remembered. How could any man ever forget you?” he says, answering my unspoken question. “And how could I forget the best night of my life?”
I pull in a breath, sputtering as I try to think of how to respond, how to express all the miserable, sad, angry, shocked, frustrated emotions rushing through me. But by the time I regain control of my tongue, he’s halfway across the front yard.
“Wait!” I call after him. “Come back. We’re not finished here.”
“Oh, I hope not,” he says. “I’d say we’re just getting started, in fact.” He blows me a kiss, but keeps walking, strolling through our front gate and turning left, whistling a merry tune as he heads toward the tram to the Blackmore estate.
I’m left gaping at the street, the wheels in my head spinning furiously.
Because I am going to save his life.
Of course, I am, or my name isn’t Cassandra Chamomile Wonderfully.
