Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

“I expect we’ll be discovered soon,” he said without looking up. “Go to the door and watch through the crack. Tell me when someone approaches.”

His voice was dispassionate, his actions swift but measured as he sorted through the stack.

Garrett’s insides tightened with unease. She went to the closed door and discovered there was just enough of a space between the edge and the jamb for her to squint through. With a touch of amazement, she realized Ethan was so attuned to detail, so aware of everything in his periphery, that he noticed such things as a quarter-inch-wide crack in a door.

Two or three minutes passed while Ethan rifled through the account book. He pulled a folding knife from his coat and flicked it open. The blade flashed as he severed a few pages neatly from the bound spine.

“Are you nearly finished?” Garrett asked in a hushed voice.

He responded with the briefest of nods, his expression impassive. She wondered at his excessive calmness, when anxiety percolated all through her.

As she returned her attention to the hallway, she saw a flicker of movement, and her stomach flip-flopped. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered. Hearing no response, she looked back over her shoulder, and saw Ethan gathering the files and ledgers back into a stack. “Someone—”

“I heard.”

Garrett looked through the crack again. The distant figure had enlarged rapidly—the man had reached the door—she started and took several steps backward as the knob rattled.

Casting a wild glance at Ethan, Garrett saw that he had set the stack of materials back into the safe and was fiddling with the lock.

A key was inserted into the door.

Garrett’s heart performed acrobatic feats, seeming to launch skyward as if it had been shot from a cannon, descending with gathering velocity, then catapulting again. What in God’s name should she do? How should she react? In the midst of her panic, she heard Ethan’s quiet voice.

“Don’t move.”

She obeyed, frozen and struggling in every muscle.

With a swiftness that defied the laws of physics, Ethan closed the safe and pushed the paneling back over it. He tucked a handful of folded pages neatly inside his coat. Just as the key twisted in the lock, he vaulted sideways over the desk with stunning ease, the fingertips of one hand touching the surface lightly as he passed over it.

Garrett turned toward him blindly as he landed with catlike grace. In the next moment, she felt his arms close around her. A panicked sound escaped her, and he smothered it with his mouth.

Her head was pushed back from the hard, hungry pressure of his kiss, but he gripped the back of her neck with a supportive hand. The tip of his tongue flicked between her lips like the touch of flame, and she couldn’t help opening for him. He gathered her more firmly into his embrace, the kiss intensifying until her bones turned molten and she felt faint. All she wanted was to relax into darkness and sensation.

Ethan’s hand stroked her face as he eased his mouth slowly from hers and guided her head to his shoulder. The sheltering tenderness of his touch contrasted sharply with the soft menace of his tone as he spoke to the man who had entered the study. “What do you want, Gamble?”

Chapter 13

“This room is off-limits,” came an accusing, rough-sawn voice. “What are you doing in here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ethan asked dryly.

“I’m going to report this to Jenkyn.”

Tucked securely against Ethan’s chest, Garrett risked a quick glance at the intruder, who was dressed in the evening livery of a butler, or under-butler, but certainly didn’t behave like one. He had the same air of alert physicality as Ethan, although his build was more wiry and spare. His hair was black and cut tight to the skull, emphasizing the aggressive angle of his brow. The skin of his face was youthful, unlined, a few pockmarks pitting the cheeks and chin. An unusually thick neck pressed the front notch of his standing collar slightly open. As Garrett found herself staring into eyes as hard and flat as a pair of stove plates, she thought he looked like the kind of man she would have crossed the street to avoid.

Feeling her stiffen, Ethan toyed with the soft hairs at her nape. His touch soothed her, communicating a wordless message of reassurance.

“Of all the rooms you could have chosen,” Gamble asked, “why Tatham’s office?”

“I thought I’d help him out by doing some filing,” Ethan said sarcastically.

“You’re supposed to be helping with security.”

“So are you.”

The air was charged with conflict. Garrett stirred uneasily within the covert of Ethan’s hard arms. Earlier he’d warned her that she was holding a wolf by the ears. Well, at the moment, she felt as if she were in the company of a pair of wolves, both bristling with aggression.

Gamble looked at Garrett as if he were lining up rifle sights. “I’ve been watching you.” At first she thought he was referring to the soiree. But then he continued, “Going wherever you please, any time of day or night. Doing a man’s work, when you should be at home with a mending basket. You’d do more good for the world that way than trying to become a man.”

“I have no desire to become a man,” Garrett said coolly. “That would be backsliding.” Feeling the iron tension in Ethan’s arm at her waist, she clamped her fingers on the hard muscle, silently willing him not to react to the other man’s baiting.

Her assessing gaze returned to Gamble’s notched standing collar, where one side was pushed outward a few millimeters more than the other. A hint of swelling was just visible at the top edge. “How long have you had that lump on your throat?” she asked.

Gamble’s eyes widened in surprise.

When it became evident that he wasn’t going to answer, Garrett said, “The location on your thyroid gland would indicate the presence of a goiter. If so, it can be remedied quite easily with iodine drops.”

Gamble regarded her with raw animosity. “Bugger off.”

Ethan gave a faint growl and started for him, but Garrett spun around and set both her palms on his chest. “No, Mr. Ransom,” she murmured. “Not the best idea.” Especially not when his coat pocket was filled with information stolen from the Home Secretary’s private safe.

Gradually the wall of muscle relaxed beneath her hands. “If he leaves the lump untreated,” Ethan asked hopefully, “how long before he chokes on it?”

“Get out,” Gamble snapped, “or you’ll choke on my fist down your gullet.”

After they left the private study, Ethan escorted Garrett down the hallway and pulled her into the space beneath the grand staircase. They stood in the shadows, where the unmoving air was cool and slightly stale. Ethan filled his gaze with her, so feminine and fine, with glimmers dancing across her dress and little crystal things sparkling in her hair.

Despite her outward delicacy, there was something remarkably sturdy about her, an unyielding toughness he admired more than she would have believed. The life she’d chosen had come with the never-ending obligation to demonstrate what a woman was and was not, and what a woman could be. People would allow her no room for mistakes or ordinary human frailty. God knew she endured it all far better than Ethan would have.