Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways #1)(56)

"Not this time." Rohan watched her steadily. "Your brother is beyond helping anyone, including himself. Your sisters are too young, except for Winnifred. And now even Merripen is bedridden."

"I'll take care of them. I don't need help." She reached for a length of toweling draped at the foot of the bed, and folded it neatly. "You're leaving for London in the morning, aren't you? You should probably take your own advice and go to bed."

The light eyes turned flinty. "Damn it, why do you have to be so stubborn?"

"I'm not being stubborn. It's just that I don't want anything from you. And you deserve to find the freedom you've been deprived of for so long."

"Are you concerned about my freedom, or are you terrified of admitting you need someone?"

He was right—but she would rather have died than admit it. "I don't need anyone, least of all you."

His voice was no less blistering for being soft. "You don't know how easy it would be to prove you wrong." He began to reach for her, checked the movement, and looked at her as if he wanted to throttle her, kiss her, or both.

"Maybe next lifetime," she whispered, somehow managing a crooked smile. "Please go. Please, Cam."

She waited until he had left the room, and her shoulders sagged with relief.

Needing to escape the smothering confines of the house, Cam went outside. The night threaded weak moonlight through a weft of infinite darkness. He wandered to the ironstone wall that edged a bluff overlooking the river. Hoisting himself easily to the top of the wall, he sat with his feet dangling over the edge, and listened to the water and the night sounds. Smoke hung in the air, mingling with the scents of earth and forest.

Cam tried to sort through a tangle of emotions. He had never known jealousy before, but when he had seen Amelia and Christopher Frost embracing earlier, Cam had experienced a violent urge to strangle the bastard. Every instinct raged that Amelia was his, his alone to protect and comfort. But he had no rights to her.

If Frost decided to pursue her, it was best that Cam not interfere. Amelia would be better off with her own kind, rather than a half-bred Roma. Cam would be better off, too. Good God, was he actually contemplating spending the rest of his life as a gadjo, bound in domesticity?

He should leave Hampshire, he thought. Amelia would make her own decision about Frost, and Cam would follow his destiny. No compromises or sacrifices on either side. He would never be anything more to Amelia than a brief, vaguely remembered episode in her life.

Lowering his head, he scrubbed his hands through his unruly hair. His chest ached in the way it always had when he yearned for freedom. But for the first time, he wondered if he was right about what he wanted. Because it didn't seem as if the pain would be cured when he left. In fact, it threatened to become a good deal worse.

The future spread before him in a great lifeless void. Thousands of nights without Amelia. He would hold and make love to other women, but none of them would ever be the one he truly wanted. He thought of Amelia living as a spinster. Or worse, reconciling with Frost, perhaps marrying him, but always living with the knowledge that Frost had betrayed her once and might again. She deserved so much more than that. She deserved passionate, heart-scalding, overwhelming, consuming love. She deserved?Oh, hell. He was thinking too much. Just like a gadjo.

He forced himself to face the truth. The fact was, Amelia was his, whether he stayed or left, whether they walked the same path or not. They could live on opposite sides of the world, and she would still be his.

The Roma half of him had seen that from the beginning.

And it was that side of himself he would listen to.

Amelia's bed was soft and luxurious, but it might as well have been made of bare wood planks. She rolled, turned, sprawled, but she could find no comfortable position for her aching body, and no peace for her tortured brain.

The room was still and stuffy, the air turning thicker by the minute. Craving a breath of clear, cold air, she slipped from the bed, went to the window, and pushed it open. A gasp of relief escaped her as a light breeze swept over her. She closed her sore eyes, used her knuckles to rub her wet lashes.

It was strange, but with all the problems she faced, the thing that kept her from sleeping was the question of whether or not Christopher Frost had ever really loved her. She had wanted to think so, even after he had abandoned her. She had told herself that love was a luxury for most people, that Christopher's career was a difficult one, and he had been faced with an impossible choice. He had done what he'd thought best at the tune. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to expect him to choose her and damn the consequences.

To be desired above all else, to be wanted, needed, coveted?that would never happen to her.

The door opened in a well-oiled arc. She saw the shadows change, felt a presence in the room. Turning with a start, she saw Cam Rohan standing just inside the door. Her heart began to drum with furious force. He looked like something from a dream, a dark enigmatic ghost.

He approached her slowly. The closer he came, the more it seemed everything around her was unraveling, falling away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.

Cam's breathing wasn't quite steady. Neither was hers. After a long pause, he finally spoke. "The Rom believe you should take the road that calls to you, and never turn back. Because you never know what adventures await." He reached for her slowly, giving her every opportunity to object. Through the cottony gauze of her nightgown, he touched the curve of her hips. He brought her close, into his hard weight.