The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

Her hand tucked under his so that his weight was on it, pressing it into the softness of the mattress. The fist was coiled tight around his throat and ribs, that ragged, matted giant bear wrapped around him and squeezing...

‘I was too young to see any of that when we came to Egypt,’ Sam said. ‘All I saw was a very serious, very smart boy who I wished would like me, as I knew he liked Lucas and Chase. I wish I’d understood you better.’

‘You were a child. You weren’t meant to understand. I didn’t understand. And none of this excuses how I’ve treated you.’

She sighed, slipping her fingers through his.

‘I’m not looking for excuses, Edge. I may not understand you, but I know you. I know you aren’t cruel. I only need you to try to trust me a little.’

‘I do trust you,’ he said the words before he even thought them through and if he could have snatched them back he would have. They hung in the darkness like a sword hovering above his exposed neck and he waited for her to expose them for the lie they were.

But she merely squeezed his hand.

‘You look tired.’

He almost dismissed her words, but decided to try out his new resolution of honesty.

‘I’m exhausted.’

‘Lie down. We can talk tomorrow.’

His disappointment was so severe he pushed to his feet so swiftly he almost stumbled.

‘Edge? Where are you going?’

‘You said...we should sleep.’

She twitched back the blanket.

‘I said you should lie down. And soon—it is cold in here. I had forgotten how un-spring-like English spring can be.’

He lay down carefully and her mouth lost some of its tension as she tugged at his sleeve.

‘You needn’t live up to your name by clinging to the edge. This isn’t the cot on the Lark. There is plenty of room.’

He smiled in the dark, thanking the gods Sam didn’t know how to hold a grudge, no matter how justified. He moved closer to her warmth, still feeling peculiarly tentative despite the banked fire in his body. He laid a hand on her shoulder and realised with dismay that she was shaking.

‘Sam?’

‘Oh, no. I just realised!’

‘What is it? Sam, are you cry—? Are you laughing?’

‘Bunny!’

She was laughing.

‘My sweet, fluffy bunny,’ she cooed, her hand feathering down his chest, his nerves leaping in its wake.

‘Don’t call me that...’ Ending on a groan, it wasn’t quite the pre-emptory statement he’d wanted to make.

‘Bunny...’ she murmured again, pressing kisses to his throat, her laughing breath spreading over his skin like sun-warmed silk. ‘Warm. Cuddly. Bunny.’

How the devil did she make something so humiliating sound so erotic?

‘Stop it, Sam.’

He was filling with unbearable fire, any second now he would go up in flames like a paper lantern.

‘Should I, Edge? Should I stop?’ She dropped her hands to her sides, brushing them over the bed instead, the fabric hissing under her fingertips.

‘Damn it, call me whatever you want, just don’t stop.’

She laughed and turned back to him, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as she pulled it upwards.

‘Anything you say, my adorable, fluffy bunny...’

* * *

‘Wake up! Goodness, you sleep like a log.’

Edge groaned, trying to cling to the image of Sam dancing in the middle of a lush garden, her scarves floating away one by one as she came closer... He reached for her. She could at least atone for interrupting such a promising beginning.

‘Wake up or I shall have Inky wake you!’

That shattered the marvellous dream.

‘Don’t you dare!’

She laughed, bouncing on the side of the bed. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. Her bouncing once annoyed him to no end. Right now he didn’t mind in the least if she would only bounce a little closer.

‘I’m awake. Now make it worth my while to remain awake.’

‘My uncle sent a note.’

He sat up so abruptly he cracked his skull on the headboard.

‘Blast. What does it say?’

‘It is addressed to you. I do not open other people’s correspondence,’ she said primly. He reached for the sealed paper she held, but then thought better of it. Trust.

‘Read it.’

Her bouncing stilled. After a moment she broke the seal and read aloud.

‘“You are in luck, Lord Edward. A man resembling the description of your brother, accompanied by a younger man, was spotted at the Ship and Kettle in Shoreditch, speaking with a Mr Geoffrey Pettifer two mornings ago.

“Not a reliable person, Pettifer owns Pettifer’s World of Wonders on Piccadilly, which is apparently a museum of curios with a strong emphasis on the Egyptian and the Oriental. Currently his most successful crowd-pleasers are Mummy Unwrappings—he acquired a shipment of mouldering mummies lately from Egypt, and the hoi polloi pay a princely sum to witness him unpeel them.