She stirred first, resting her palm against his hard chest to count the rapid beats of his heart. “I want to make you something.”
“Oh? What shall you make me?”
“A greatcoat perhaps. Something to keep you warm in London. But I do not know where to send it.” She didn’t need to know. The temptation to seek him out would ruin her, break her plans into a million tiny pieces.
“You are a tailor too? My, is there anything my Lucy can’t do?” His fingertips trailed down her shoulder.
Resist him, shut up her passions and impulses. She should.
But perhaps this weakness would be a gem she could always hold close to her heart and not a coal to burn her. “I enjoy modifying clothing more than making it. I would find you a blue greatcoat, as deep navy as the sky before sunrise. I’d put in a blue silk lining the color of your eyes. And opals for buttons.”
“You’ll make a dandy of me?” He threaded her hands with his and squeezed.
“You’re already a dandy of the soul, I can tell.”
He chuckled and pulled her so close the line between him and her blurred a bit, just enough for hearts to beat together and souls to leap in greeting. He whispered in her ear. “My beautiful Lucy, strong and brave. I’ll wear whatever you give me. I’ll be your stable hand and your footman, and better than all those your?—”
The cottage door crashed open.
Wide eyes, fumbling hands. Bodices righted, skirts lowered. Fall buttons closed and manly shafts shoved back to where they’d come from.
Fear coursed through her, embarrassment too.
“Keats, where the hell are you?” Mr. Sacks rummaged unseen in the main room, and then a light flared on. “There’s trouble at the house.”
“Trouble,” Lucy whispered, the word like ice on her tongue.
Keats slammed to his feet, helping her up as well and tucking his shirt in. He found a waistcoat slung across a chair in the corner and slipped it on. As he stepped through the door, he hissed, “Stay here.”
“This is all your fault,” Mr. Sacks said from the other room.
“Shh,” Keats hissed. Then the cottage door opened and crashed closed once more, and she was alone.
She waited only long enough to straighten her cloak and hear the heavy stomp of boots lead away from the cottage. Then she left, following them toward the house and whatever trouble had come to call.
Eight
If any man possessed a blade for a tongue, it was Mr. Sacks. As soon as Keats set foot out the door until they reached the threshold of Hawthorne House, he cursed not only Keats but himself for allowing Keats to stay on.
He whirled in the doorway, slinging out his arms to block the entrance. “You swore you’d keep the secret. Swore you only wanted to see your sister safe.” He seemed to have ground his teeth down in the short distance between the cottage and the house. If he knew what Keats had been doing before he’d slammed through that door, he’d likely snap Keats’s neck. Not a single question asked.
Keats held his hands up. “I am entirely ignorant of your meaning. Are you mad? I wouldnever—” The words clogged his throat, emotion, too, because hehad. Griff. “Damn me. I told him to stay away.”
Sacks dropped his arms and shook his head. “I knew it! You feather-brained nodcock!”
A wail from inside. They ran—up the stairs, down a hall, up more stairs to a long, narrow hallway lined with even narrower doors. Few sconces lit the space, and the shadows helddominion, hiding a tableau at the very end. A woman, her arms rigid at her sides, and two bloody giants toying with a mouse.
Not a mouse. Griff.
Hands pushed Keats roughly aside, and Mr. and Mrs. Beckett stormed down the hall. Doors eased open, revealing curious faces. The women. Curious? Scared?
“Back to bed!” Mrs. Beckett roared.
The doors snapped shut.
Mr. Beckett pushed up the sleeves of his banyan, revealing muscle-corded forearms. “What in hell is happening out here?”
The figure in skirts stepped out of the shadows, and Keats’s heart clenched.
