The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

He took off his gloves, cupping her face in the warmth of his palms.

‘I wrote the first chapter watching Jacob sleep,’ he continued. ‘He was all of three months old, but he would fall asleep staring at the drawing you sent with your mother’s letter congratulating me on his birth. Do you remember it?’

She nodded. Of course she did. That drawing had cost her. The news of Jacob’s birth had been an even worse agony than Edge’s marriage. Only a horrible person would wish a child unborn. But while the wounded core of her crawled deeper, the part of her that cared for Edge beyond herself and wanted him to be happy drew a kitten seated on a stoic camel as they made their way through the desert.

‘He liked it?’

‘He loved it. He would babble at it long before he babbled at me. So I told him a story about two friends lost in the desert trying to find their homes and Rafe told me I should write it down for Jacob so I did. Then I couldn’t stop and by the time it was done it was a book. Rafe convinced me to send it to a publisher for Jacob’s sake. By that point Jacob had been ill and I knew his life would be marked by suffering. I wanted the book to be a gift for him, for him to know he’d inspired them. I wrote it for him, but I wrote it with your vivid world in my mind. I didn’t ask Durham to contact you because I was being kind, I did it because it was the most natural thing in the world, however hard it was knowing... I felt it best you did not know I was the author.’ His hands stilled, withdrew, like a flower furling as night fell.

‘Thank you, Edge.’ Her voice sounded as though she’d crushed it into the gravel path. She wanted to wrap herself around his words, capture them like fireflies in a glass jar so she could warm herself by their light when she was alone.

‘You have nothing to thank me for. Quite the opposite.’ He was back to Edge now, the vivid music of his words leached away. He was nervous, she realised. As afraid as she by this strange bond that was connected yet separate from their marriage. She touched her fingers to his chest.

‘I’m glad it’s you. Frightened but glad. I don’t want to ruin it. For either of us.’

His chest rose and fell, her fingers with it.

‘Well, that’s both of us, then. I still wish other people didn’t know. It would be nice to find a house away from...people. I didn’t tell you, but one of the guests in there told me his wife is hoping their next child is a boy so they can name him Gabriel. I could do without any more such confidences.’

She laughed, moving closer. ‘Poor Edge. I shall have to build you a castle with a moat and fend off the hordes.’

‘If you bellow at them from the battlements as you did from the Howling Cliffs, I doubt they will make any effort to invade.’

‘You see? My madcap ways may prove useful after all.’

‘Yes.’ His hands slid under her cloak, over her waist and hips and down over her behind, holding her as he stepped in and shaped her against him. His breathing changed. ‘We need to find this castle soon. I’m tired of chasing Rafe.’

‘You don’t really mean that.’

‘I needed to know he is alive and Miss Osbourne’s words prove he is obviously well. He must know I’m worried and if he can’t be bothered to send me word then devil take him. I have more pressing matters to see to.’

Since one of them was pressing against her right then Sam found it hard to think, let alone object, but she knew Edge.

‘Tomorrow you will change your mind. I know you cannot let it go without at least trying that advertisement in The Times.’

‘Tomorrow. Come, let’s find the carriage. I need to warm you before we reach the bedroom.’

‘We could warm up in a nice hot bath.’

‘I will reach a boil before the water does. You are a very bad influence on me, Sam.’

Chapter Fifteen

Sobek wrapped his thick tail about Gabriel’s legs, scales rasping against his skin. ‘Two kinds of people cross this river. Those searching for something and those escaping something. Which one are you, Servant of the Sprite Queen?’

—Temple of the River God,

Desert Boy Book Two

The cool air wrapped about his naked body as he let the curtain fall back and Sam snuggled deeper under the covers, as if even in sleep she could feel the cold skittering over his skin.

For someone with such an impetuous streak she was far too attuned to others. Or perhaps it was just to a few. She had a disconcerting knack of seeing where he was going and cutting around him, like a djinn popping up in front of him when he least expected her. Like Leila the sprite—always a little ahead of Gabriel, always prepared to sacrifice more, do more for those under her care.