Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways #2)(79)

"Have whatever's left in the pot," Merripen muttered. "I'm more awake than I care to be."

Cam nodded and went to the French doors. But he paused at the threshold, and smoothed the hair at the back of his neck, and spoke quietly. "The worst part about loving someone, Merripen, is that there will always be things you can't protect her from. Things beyond your control. You finally realize there is something worse than dying… and that is having something happen to her. You have to live with that fear always. But you have to take the bad part, if you want the good part."

Kev looked at him bleakly. "What's the good part?"

A smile touched Cam 's lips. "All the rest of it is the good part," he said, and went inside.

"I've been warned on pain of death not to say anything," was Leo's first comment as he joined Merripen in one of the east wing rooms. There were two plasterers in the corner, measuring and marking on the walls, and another was repairing scaffolding that would support a man close to the ceiling.

"Good advice," Kev said. "You should take it."

"I never take advice, good or bad. That would only encourage more of it."

Despite Kev's brooding thoughts, he felt an unwilling smile tug at his lips. He gestured to a nearby bucket filled with light gray ooze. "Why don't you pick up a stick and stir the lumps out of that?"

"What is it?"

"A lime plaster and hairy clay mix."

"Hairy clay. Lovely." But Leo obediently picked up a discarded stick and began to poke around in the bucket of plaster. "The women are gone for the morning," he remarked. "They went to Stony Cross Manor to visit Lady Westcliff. Beatrix warned me to be on the lookout for her ferret, which seems to be missing. And Miss Marks stayed here." A reflective pause. "An odd little creature, wouldn't you say?"

"The ferret or Miss Marks?" Kev carefully positioned a strip of wood on the wall and nailed it in place.

"Marks. I've been wondering… Is she a misandrist, or does she hate everyone in general?"

"What is a misandrist?"

"A man-hater."

"She doesn't hate men. She's always been pleasant to me and Rohan."

Leo looked genuinely puzzled. "Then… she merely hates me?"

"It would seem so."

"But she has no reason!"

"What about your being arrogant and dismissive?"

"That's part of my aristocratic charm," Leo protested.

"It would appear your aristocratic charm is lost on Miss Marks." Kev arched a brow as he saw Leo's scowl. "Why should it matter? You have no personal interest in her, do you?"

"Of course not," Leo said indignantly. "I'd sooner climb into bed with Bea's pet hedgehog. Imagine those pointy little elbows and knees. All those sharp angles. A man could do fatal harm to himself, tangling with Marks.…" He stirred the plaster with new vigor, evidently preoccupied with the myriad dangers in bedding the governess.

A bit too preoccupied, Kev thought.

It was a shame, Cam mused as he walked through a green meadow with his hands tucked in his pockets, that being part of a close-knit family meant one could never enjoy his own good fortune when someone else was having problems.

There was much for Cam to take pleasure in at the moment… the benediction of sunshine on the spring-roughened landscape, and all the waking, droning, vibrant activity of plants pushing from the damp earth. The promising tang of smoke from a Romany campfire floated on a breeze. Perhaps today he might finally find someone from his old tribe. On a day like this, anything seemed possible.

He had a beautiful wife who was carrying his child. He loved Amelia more than life. And he had so much to lose. But Cam wouldn't let fear cripple him, or prevent him from loving her with all his soul. Fear… He slowed his pace, perplexed by the sudden rapid escalation of his heartbeat. As if he'd been running for miles without stopping. Glancing across the field, he saw that the grass was unnaturally green.

The thump of his heart became painful, as if someone were kicking him repeatedly. Bewildered, Cam tensed like a man held at knifepoint, putting a hand to his chest. Jesus, the sun was bright, boring through his eyes until they watered. He blotted the moisture with his sleeve, and was abruptly surprised to find himself on the ground, on his knees.

He waited for the pain to subside, for his heart to slow as it surely must, but it only got worse. He struggled to breathe, tried to stand. His body would not obey. A slow boneless collapse, the green grass stabbing harshly into his cheek. More pain, and more, his heart threatening to explode from the extraordinary force of its beats.

Cam realized with a kind of wonder that he was dying. He couldn't think why it was happening, or how, only that no one would take care of Amelia and she needed him, he couldn't leave her. Someone had to watch over her; she needed someone to rub her feet when she was tired. So tired. He couldn't lift his head or arm, or move his legs, but muscles in his body were jumping independently, tremors jerking him like a puppet on strings. Amelia. I don't want to go away from you. God, don't let me die; it's too soon. And yet the pain kept pouring over him, drowning him, smothering every breath and heartbeat.

Amelia. He wanted to say her name, and he couldn't. It was an unfathomable cruelty that he couldn't leave the world with those last precious syllables on his lips.