The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

There was a snap of disdain in her voice and at least she stopped torturing him, shifting away. Contrarily he held on to her and after a moment of resistance she let him pull her back against him. He breathed in and out, slowly. He was in agony, but she felt so good, soft and warm and...

‘Sam.’ He couldn’t stop that single word and the answer shivered through her, like a silver ripple on the surface of the Nile. ‘Let’s go home.’

Home. He hadn’t meant to use that word. The only home he could remember aside from Poppy’s was the home he’d temporarily created for Jacob. Too short and too bittersweet for him to even realise that was what it was until death destroyed it. He’d never expected to have one again. But Sam deserved the home she so obviously yearned for.

‘We need a house of our own,’ he murmured against her hair.

She began to turn, her morning-sea eyes searching his, but he moved her towards the exit. He didn’t want to talk. Right now all he cared about was getting her into bed. He could even make do without the bed.

Inside the carriage he watched the streets flow past, trying to think about his next move regarding Rafe and not the way his hands itched to pull Sam to him. He’d set out on this journey to find Rafe, not a wife. If he’d been a little swifter he might even have come across Rafe in Meroe and would have put an end to this uncertainty. But then he would not have found himself in Qetara. Or met Sam again. None of this would have happened. He might have found Rafe, but still been lost himself in a world without an ounce of passion.

Until he’d reached Qetara he’d hardly paid attention to his passage through Egypt. He’d not stopped for a moment to sink into the world he’d known better than any other, as if stopping to smell the camel dung and the almost-cinnamon scent of the desert dust would act on him like laudanum on an opium fiend. Like quicksand. He’d felt nothing but duty and fear. At least until he came to Bab el-Nur and found Sam yelling at the skies like a houri and she’d begun to subvert his life once more.

Then his rusty innards were kicked into motion. Annoyance and exasperation were feelings, too, weren’t they? And lust. At the moment it felt more like cataclysmic earthquake. No—earthquakes didn’t burn like this. A volcano, perhaps.

Sam. His own Vesuvius simmering away under the surface and threatening to upend everything.

‘Did Pettifer make you less worried about Rafe?’ Sam’s question broke through his thoughts and he turned to her, grateful for the distraction.

‘I don’t know... No, he didn’t. Rafe is a law unto himself, but his actions are always rational. Right now I can’t make sense of them and that worries me—more than worries me. Rafe cut off all ties with our parents when he was practically still a boy and other than his valet Birdie I may be the only person who cares what happens to him. He stood by me through the worst days of my life, but he would never expect anything of me and that is precisely why I need to see him, to hear directly from him that all is well. I know it might appear...obsessive or even quixotic to you, but if there is even a chance that he is in trouble and needs me...’

Sam took his hand, squeezing it between hers.

‘It doesn’t appear obsessive to me at all, Edge. I think especially for you knowing something is wrong but not being able to put your finger on it is worse than knowing precisely what is wrong. At least if you knew that, you could take action.’

‘Yes.’ He sighed with relief that she understood. ‘So I cannot stop until I am certain he doesn’t need me, Sam.’

‘I would never ask you to, Edge. You always call me stubborn, but you are by far the stubbornest man I know. And loyal. And infuriating.’

Laughter made her eyes shine like the dawn sun on a winter sea. He wished he could take her hair down right now, sink his hands into its dark warmth. Sink in to her...

‘You’re doing it again.’ Her smile faded. ‘Going away.’

‘I’m right here.’

‘No. Not truly. So shall we ask my uncle to enquire about this Mr Osbourne?’

‘I already have.’

‘What? When?’

‘While you were inside I sent the footman, Tubbs’s son, to your uncle with a message.’

‘So that was why you were gone so long. And here I thought I had won a battle of wills with you.’

‘Are you keeping a tally? You needn’t bother, the odds are clearly in your favour.’

She tilted her head to one side, capturing her lower lip with her teeth. His thumb brushed across the upholstered seat, imagining that warm, damp surface...

‘I may win more small ones, but you win the large ones, Edge.’