Vision Of Danger Page 3

  Sometimes, when Wolf was alone in his house, he felt an ache deep inside to be that close to someone, but it soon passed. He would not subject a woman to his nightmares or the other issues he had brought back from the war. Not yet... maybe never.

  “Serious newspaper, is it? You have a children’s section!” Eden shrieked.

  Openly acknowledged as the beauty of the Sinclair clan, she was rarely one to stand silent when she believed something needed to be said. Her gray eyes were flashing as she glared at her brother. Elegant in pale blue, her black hair was swept high, and a matching bonnet was being swung back and forth furiously in her gray-gloved fingers.

  A vision of another pair of eyes filled his head, but he pushed it aside. He would not think of her again.

  “Cousins,” Wolf said, stepping into the conversation before the yelling commenced again, which invariably it would, as his volatile family rarely communicated any other way.

  “Wolf!” Cambridge Sinclair rose to shake his hand, greeting him like he had not seen him yesterday. He then leaned in to clasp Wolf’s shoulders. It was the Sinclair way; they did everything to excess. Greeted, argued, conversed, and ate. In fact, Sinclairs were people who lived life to the fullest.

  He’d been more like that once... maybe he would be again soon, he thought, remembering how alive he’d felt earlier with that woman.

  “Hello, Wolf.” Emily kissed his check softly. Blonde and slight, she was eight months pregnant, and very happy about that fact if the smile she constantly wore was any indication.

  Cam had tried to make her stay inside the house for the last few weeks of her confinement, but she’d refused, and won. The Sinclair men were jelly in the hands of the women they loved.

  “Can you believe what my sister said? A fashion section, what next?” Cam looked disgusted.

  “I’m not sure why you feel like that, Cam. After all, think about our sisters, Lilly, and Em; surely they put a great deal of time and effort into shopping.”

  Warwick’s words had everyone stopping to look at him. He was growing, and was much taller than his twin sisters now at twelve years old. There were glimpses of the man he would one day become.

  “Yes, well....” Cam was unable to finish the sentence, clearly thinking the matter over now he’d calmed down.

  “See, your sister is not a complete idiot,” Eden stated.

  “Oh now, no one said that,” Cam replied.

  No one could throw insults about like his cousins.

  “Besides, shouldn’t you be on my side, brat?” Cam lunged at his little brother, who shrieked and ran around the desk.

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, Eden.” Emily picked up the conversational reins, ignoring the mayhem going on behind her. “I think you should write the articles.”

  It was proof of just how adjusted Wolf had become to the family that he was able to follow the conversation and not the brothers play fighting.

  “Oh... me?” Eden looked surprised. “I... well, I could try.”

  “Excellent,” Emily said, all business now. “If you could get it written by the end of the week, I shall discuss with Cam where we can place it in The Trumpeter.”

  Eden opened and closed her mouth, momentarily speechless. Not a common occurrence for her. “That’s two days away!”

  “Well, you did bring it up, so if you want this fashion section to work, then you’d better make it good,” her brother said.

  “You didn’t want it!” Eden shrieked at Cam, who now had Warwick hanging over one shoulder.

  He smiled, his special I’m-annoying-my-siblings smile.

  “If you don’t think you—”

  “Not another word.” Eden raised her hand. “I shall have it for you in two days, and not only that, it will be the best bloody article you have ever read!”

  “Are duchesses allowed to say bloody?” Cam taunted her.

  “Now, children,” Wolf interjected, tsking. That was the role he usually played when he chose to participate, the annoying, moralizing cousin.

  “Come, Warwick, there is no longer time to dally, we must get home,” Eden said, snapping the seams of her gloves as she pulled them tight. “I have a point to prove.”

  “Point? Surely not, sister. After all, we are all adults, and this is not about who can out fox the other.”

  “Like bloody hell it’s not,” the duchess muttered, sailing out the door with her little brother on her heels. In his hand was the cake Wolf had handed him.

  Cam snorted, urging Emily into the chair behind his desk. “Lord, I love Sinclairs. Now, hand one of those over here. My wife needs sustenance, Wolf.”

  “I will be the size of a house if you keep this up,” Emily said, taking the treat and running her finger over the sugar.

  “A small outbuilding only, my love,” Cam said, biting into his offering.

  “So will you actually publish her article if it’s any good?” Wolf asked.

  “Oh, it’ll be good, Eden would not allow it to be anything else.” Cam took his wife’s hand in his after she’d eaten the cake in four large bites. Granted it was small, but some pregnant women had wonderful appetites, Wolf had observed.

  That was another thing Sinclairs did, touched those they loved constantly. He usually found it endearing, but every now and again it left him feeling hollow.

  “Eden will have purchased every paper and read every fashion piece she can before day’s end,” Cam added. “But enough about my sister, Wolf. How was your meeting?”

  “Excellent. I have purchased some more land.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to.”

  “And yet you will never live upon said land... will you?”

  “It is not about living on the land, Cam. It is an investment. The sheep will produce wool, and I have some farming techniques I have been reading up on in the weekly farm husbandry journal I want to put in place.”

  “Is all this investing making you happy then? Fulfilling you as a wife and family would?”

  Wolf snorted. “Not everyone is cut from the same cloth as you and the others, Cam. I am happy doing as I am.” It was a lie, of course. He wasn’t happy. A bit happier, he conceded, but not completely, not yet.

  “You are actually; cut from the same cloth, I mean.” Cam’s gaze was steady.

  “Did you and Dev wake up today and decide that you had been neglecting me?” Frustrated, he glared at his cousin.

  “What did Dev say?” Cam smiled.

  “Never mind. I’ve come to look at the press, and that’s what I’m now going to do.”

  “Yes, I know you have, but I have a feeling something has transpired this morning, and not just a discussion with my brother. There is an air about you I cannot put my finger on.”

  “What? Why do you say that?”

  Wolf did not look away but he wanted to. Especially as Emily was now studying him as intently as her husband.

  “You look healthier,” Cam said.

  “Than what? I only saw you yesterday,” Wolf scoffed.

  “There’s a sparkle in your eyes that has not been there since you returned on that ship injured many months ago.”

  “I’m healing!” Wolf snapped, then cursed silently. Wolf was the calm one; he rarely, if ever, snapped. But that was twice today already.

  “Yes, there is that.” Cam kissed his wife’s fingers before going around the desk to stand before Wolf. He sniffed Wolf’s clothes. Cam’s heightened sense was smell, and he could detect anything with just a sniff. He often reminded Wolf of a dog.

  “Since when do you bathe in mutton fat and wood ash?”

  “What?”

  Cam didn’t speak, just folded his arms and kept his eyes on Wolf.

  “There are plenty of people who can’t afford expensive soap like you, cousin.”

  “That I know, but you can. No.” Cam leaned closer and sniffed again. “You’ve held someone close to you who bathed recently in soft soap containing mutton fat and wood ash, but there is also a hin
t of mint. Plus there is another scent, and it’s decidedly feminine.”

  “You cannot tell that,” Wolf scoffed, and realized as soon as the words left his mouth that he’d given himself away.

  “Talk,” Cam said, unmoving.

  “I have nothing to tell.” He’d had the hardest and meanest men in charge of him in the army for a while before he ran his own battalion, and they hadn’t been able to get him to talk like his cousins could.

  “Who is she?”

  “This is ridiculous, there is no she!”

  “Don’t get all stuffy with me, cousin, it doesn’t work like it does on others. Now tell me, who she is?”

  “There is no she,” Wolf gritted out again. “I simply ran into a woman while rescuing her.”

  Cam went still, a rarity for this man. Wolf heard Emily move, and in seconds she was at her husband’s side.

  “You rescued someone?”

  “Yes, and it happens all the time,” he added. “People rescue other people, I mean.”

  “Details.” Cam rotated a finger for Wolf to continue.

  “I have little time for this, Cam. I need to look at that press, and then I have another investment to view.”

  “Close the door, love, and get out the thumbscrews. Wolf is hiding something.”

  “There’s nothing to tell!”

  “Then why won’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Tell.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Wolf muttered. “I rescued a woman in Totts Street. I then coaxed a cat off the roof of the lodging house she lives in to stop her from risking her neck once more.”

  “You saved her and her cat? My hero,” Cam said. “But seriously, she’s not a Raven, is she?”

  “Very amusing, and no she is not, as she’s Scottish,” Wolf said, not returning his cousin’s smile.

  “I’m sure Ravens can be Scottish, although that evil man is not likely to have wanted his blood tainted with anything but pure English, so it’s likely you’re right.”

  That evil man being the late Duke of Raven, and Emily’s father.

  “I know I’m right.”

  “Stop teasing him. You very well know that not every person Sinclairs save is a Raven.” Emily patted Wolf’s hand. “Nor who they wed, I am sure.”

  “But lately, with us, it’s true, so she could be.”

  Cam always had to have the last word.

  “Do you wish for me to look at the printing press or not!” Wolf snapped. “We are wasting time.”

  “You are awfully touchy today, Wolf. It is not like you to raise your voice.”

  “I’m going to break your nose shortly if you don’t desist,” Wolf snarled. “Forgive me, Em.”

  Think nothing of it,” she said, smiling her gentle smile.

  “You could try, but we both know you may be bigger than me, but I’m more agile.”

  “You,” Wolf pointed a finger at him, “are bloody infuriating sometimes.”

  Cam’s smile was wide. “I think of it as my finest trait. And of course I want you to look at the press. Your services are free, others are not,” Cam said.

  “Charming.”

  “But seriously, Wolf, are you sure she is not a Raven?”

  “I am not answering that foolish question on the grounds that you’re an idiot.”

  “Harsh but true,” Cam agreed.

  You could not insult the man.

  “We have been giving the matter of your idleness some thought, Wolf, and as you have a way with machinery, perhaps you should come in here regularly to look over the press. It has been temperamental of late.”

  “Idleness?”

  “You are in danger of becoming lazy.”

  He was being teased; he knew it, Cam knew it, but still he reacted.

  “I have never been lazy a day in my life, Sinclair. Unlike you. I have several investments and businesses I am involved with, one of which I’m standing in!”

  “All true, but your welfare is important to us, and I believe it is time, cousin, for you to find another pathway.”

  “And you’ve decided this, have you?”

  “We have decided.”

  “The family has spoken?”

  “Exactly. We know you are busy, but think this could really interest you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “A proposition that we believe will be something you will relish.”

  “And again I’ll say I’m listening.”

  “Not now.” Cam gave Wolf a knowing smile that he wanted to wipe from his face. “We shall discuss it later with the others. Right now you go on and get our press running sweetly.”

  “I am not a puppet, Cam.”

  The humor left his cousin’s face. “I know that, and also that you commanded many men in the army, Wolf. You have succeeded at everything you’ve touched since returning from the war, but I don’t believe anything you do is truly a passion.”

  It wasn’t.

  “Lately I feel you are ready for that. Ready to step out of the shadows and live life again as you once did.”

  Wolf stayed silent.

  “You are there with us, but so serious and…” Cam rotated a finger as he tried to find the right words.

  “Absent emotionally?”

  “Well done, darling, that’s perfect.”

  It was. Em’s words were entirely accurate. He sometimes felt like he was just going through the motions of living, and yet he’d never realized his cousins were aware of that.

  “I have simply grown up. I’m more like Dev than you,” Wolf defended himself.

  “You are, but even he can have fun.” Cam gripped his shoulder. “Now go and fix things.”

  His head felt all over the place as he left Cam and Em. Wolf usually avoided emotion where possible, not always easy in a family like his, and yet today he’d had a barrage of it.

  “Tomorrow your life will return to normal,” he vowed. Perhaps not entirely normal, Wolf thought, walking down the stairs. Change wasn’t a bad thing, if he was ready for it, but he would be the one to navigate the steps of that change, not his cousins... or some random woman with sunset-colored hair and kissable lips that he would never see again!

  Chapter 4

  Rose Abernethy had spent the morning working in the tea shop after the disturbing incident with the man she’d called stuffy.

  It was funny how she hadn’t given those men who’d wanted her money much thought, but that large, disturbing man who had saved her she’d thought of a great deal.

  She’d watched him and his magnificent black horse until he left her sight. Animal and man had seemed as if they were an extension of each other, moving with fluid ease.

  He’d saved her without a second’s hesitation. Rushed in to confront both men with no care for himself. Shivering at the memory, Rose allowed herself to acknowledge she’d been a fool to behave as she had.

  He’d been right, even now she could be going through some unimaginable horror, and for that she owed him her gratitude.

  Perhaps the combination of fear and her reaction to that man had contributed to her behavior after the incident. Rose often reacted that way when scared or cornered; she came out fighting. Plus, there was that feeling inside her when he’d touched her. The awareness had made her want to turn and burrow into his chest. Safe haven, she’d thought.

  Rose had learned after her aunt’s death that there was no such thing, and she should trust only herself—and lately her new friend, Kitty.

  Handsome was not the right word for him, because if she was honest his face was so much more than that. So many sharp angles and planes. Dark shadows beneath his bright green eyes suggested he had not slept well. His eyes had been piercing in their intensity, and Rose felt he could read her every thought, right down to the secret desires she alone knew.

  Very unusual. How had he known to follow her down that narrow opening? Others had not bothered as she ran by shrieking at the man who had stolen from her, so why him? Especially as he had obvi
ously been on horseback, and some distance away. Rose knew this because she had not encountered him, and surely she would have remembered the horse, Apollo, if not the man who rode him.

  Was he a gentleman, or perhaps a wealthy merchant? Whatever he was, there was little doubting the quality of the clothing he wore and the horse he rode. There was also no doubting his standing in life was far above hers. He’d had enough money to hand out coins to those children. Much as she’d wished she could, Rose could not afford such extravagance.

  “Miss Abernethy, I have not received your money this week.”

  Biting back a tired sigh, Rose turned to face the woman standing on the doorstep of her lodgings. After arriving in London two months ago with a few meagre possessions, this had been the only place she could afford. Small, damp, and cold, even in summer, it was very different from the home she’d lived in with her aunt in Scotland.

  “I have the money here, Mrs. Putt.”

  Rose walked up the worn steps and into the front entrance of the property. Threadbare rugs and chipped wallpaper greeted her. Mrs. Putt was not a mean person; her son held that role.

  “Thank you, dear.” A thin, bony hand took the money Rose handed her. “I knew you would, and told my little Rupert as much. He has brought me a lovely shawl, Rose. What do you think?”

  It was pretty, and a lovely soft blue, and Rose, who had only known “little Rupert” briefly, but thought it was likely stolen, as the horrid man would never actually spend money on his mother.

  “It is lovely, Mrs. Putt.”

  “Hello, Rose.”

  Rupert Putt joined them. Smarmy weasel.

  “Mr. Putt.” She tried not to stiffen. Tried to keep the smile on her face as she addressed the man now standing beside his mother. He ran this lodging house with no care for those who lived under his roof. Cold, damp people were crammed into rooms that were fit for vermin only, of which there were plenty, including him. His face was in its usual arrogant snarl, and the look he ran up and down Rose’s body told her what he was thinking.