Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

“Are you sure you won’t wait out here for me?” Ethan asked hopefully. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Every time you’ve asked that,” Garrett said with exquisite patience, “I’ve said no. Why do you keep doing it?”

“I thought it might wear down your resistance.”

“No, it’s making me more stubborn.”

“I’ll have to remember that in the future,” Ethan said dryly, adjusting the brim of his hat lower over his eyes. He had visited the terrace only three times in his entire acquaintance with Jenkyn. With any luck, the servants wouldn’t look closely enough to recognize him.

“Here,” Garrett said, reached up with a white handkerchief. She tucked it into the front of his collar, creating a bulge similar to Gamble’s goiter. Her green eyes met his, and she caressed his cheek with gentle fingers. “It will be all right,” she whispered.

With a mixture of astonishment and annoyance, Ethan realized he was visibly nervous. His body felt like a collection of separate mechanisms, none of them quite synchronized with the others. He took a measured breath, released it slowly, and turned Garrett to face away from him. Carefully he grasped her wrist and twisted her arm behind her back to make it appear as if he were forcing her to accompany him.

“Should I curse and struggle as we go through the house, until you subdue me?” Garrett suggested, warming to the role.

Ethan had to grin at her enthusiasm. “No, acushla, there’s no need to take it that far.” Pressing a gentle kiss behind her ear, he murmured, “But I’ll subdue you later, if you like.” Feeling the little shiver that ran through her, he smiled and rubbed his thumb into the soft hollow of her palm.

In the next moment, he made his expression inscrutable and knocked on the door.

They were shown inside by a tall and wiry butler, with thick Prussian brows and hair that was brindled in shades of steel and white. Ethan kept his face low. “Tell Jenkyn I have the delivery he wanted,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes, Mr. Gamble. He’s been expecting you.” The butler didn’t spare one glance for Garrett as he led them through the house. The interior had been designed with an abundance of curved forms: oval niches, circular ceiling recesses and apses, and sinuous hallways. Ethan found the serpentine layout disconcerting, preferring the neatness of right angles and corners and edges.

They crossed a circular anteroom to a private suite. The butler showed them into a gentleman’s room lined with rich dark paper, gold trim and millwork, with thick crimson carpeting underfoot. Heads of exotic animals had been mounted on the wall: a lioness, a cheetah, a white wolf, and other carnivora. A fire had been lit in the heart, flames springing and writhing as they consumed crackling splits of oak. The air was as hot as blood.

The butler departed, closing the door behind him.

Ethan’s heart thumped uncomfortably as he saw Jenkyn sitting by the fireplace, a sheaf of papers in hand.

“Gamble,” Jenkyn said without looking up from the pages. “Bring your guest over here, and deliver your report.”

Ethan caressed Garrett’s wrist surreptitiously before releasing it. “The job didn’t go exactly as planned,” he replied curtly, tugging the handkerchief out of his collar.

Jenkyn’s head jerked up. He fixed Ethan with an unblinking gaze, his eyes dilated to black surrounded by bleach-white.

Something vicious and ugly stirred inside Ethan as they stared at each other. For a few appalling seconds, he felt suspended in some mad place between murder and weeping. The place where he’d been shot seemed to throb. He fought the temptation to cover it with a protective hand.

Jenkyn was the first to speak. “Gamble was so certain he’d be the last man standing.”

“I didn’t kill Gamble,” Ethan said flatly.

That seemed to surprise Jenkyn nearly as much as the sight of Ethan having returned from the dead. Remaining in his chair, the spymaster withdrew a cigar from a stand on a nearby table. “I wish you had,” he said. “Gamble’s of no use to me if he hasn’t managed to dispatch you after two attempts.” His tone was cold, but there was a visible tremor in his fingers as he lit the cigar.

Ethan realized that neither of them were entirely in control. Garrett, by contrast, was self-possessed and almost relaxed, wandering slowly around the room to investigate shelves and cabinetry and paintings. Since she was a mere woman, Jenkyn paid little attention to her, keeping his focus on Ethan.

“What is the nature of your connection to the Ravenels?” Jenkyn asked. “Why did they decide to harbor you?”

So he didn’t know. Ethan was inwardly amazed to discover there were some secrets beyond Jenkyn’s reach. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Never tell me that,” Jenkyn snapped, reverting to their usual dynamic. “If I ask a question, it matters.”

“I beg your pardon,” Ethan said softly. “I meant to say ‘none of your business.’”

An incredulous look came over Jenkyn’s face.

“While I was recuperating,” Ethan continued, “I had a chance to finish reading Hamlet. You wanted me to tell you what reflection I saw in it. That’s why I’m here.” He paused as he saw the flicker of interest in the older man’s gaze. The astonishing realization came to him that Jenkyn did care about him in some undefinable way, and yet he’d tried to have him killed regardless. “You said in a fallen world, Hamlet realized there’s no good or bad, no right or wrong . . . everything is just a matter of opinion. Facts and rules are useless. Truth isn’t important.” Ethan hesitated. “There’s a kind of freedom in that, isn’t there? It lets you do or say whatever you want to achieve your goals.”

“Yes,” Jenkyn said, the reflected firelight dancing in his copper eyes as he gazed steadily at Ethan. His face had softened. “That’s what I hoped you would understand.”

“But it’s not freedom for everyone,” Ethan said. “It’s only freedom for you. It means you can sacrifice anyone for your benefit. You can justify killing innocent people, even children, by saying it’s for the greater good. I can’t do that. I believe in facts, and the rule of law. I believe something a wise woman told me not long ago: every life is worth saving.”

The light seemed to die out of Jenkyn’s eyes. He reached for a match and heated the clipped end of the cigar binding, taking refuge in the ritual. “You’re a naïve fool,” he said bitterly. “You have no idea what I would have done for you. The power you could have had. I would have brought you along with me, and taught you to see the world as it really is. But you’d rather betray me, after all I’ve given you. After I created you. Like any simpleminded peasant, you’d rather cling to your illusions.”

“Morals,” Ethan corrected gently. “A man of high position should know the difference. You shouldn’t be in government, Jenkyn. No man who changes his morals as easily as he does his clothes should have power over other people’s lives.” A sense of peace and lightness came over him, as if he’d been untethered, cut loose from a burden he’d carried for years. He glanced at Garrett, who appeared to be browsing over objects arranged on the mantelpiece, and he felt a surge of intense tenderness mingled with desire. All he wanted was to take her away from here, and find a bed somewhere, anywhere. Not in passion . . . at least, not yet . . . He longed just to hold her safe in his arms, and sleep.