Page 2 of The Hellion is Tamed

It was his inability to state with utter assurance that he didn’t still love her.

The next concern, reasonably significant, being his return to 1882. He didn’t think he could travel backwithouthis troublesome time traveler—and when she’d last left him ten years ago, he and Emma hadn’t been on good terms. Her leaving and never coming back, that is.

So, he couldn’t guarantee she’d escort him home. Or that he’d be able to convince her.

Of anything.

Blowing a breath through his teeth, Simon curled his hand into a fist in his trouser pocket and slapped his glass on the window ledge at his side.

If only she hadn’t grown up to be so beautiful.

An unsightly woman would have significantly assisted his cause.

Not ugly, this one. The flames a dazzling amber wash over her, bringing forth streaks of auburn in her dark hair, highlighting the gentle curve of her flushed cheek. A face carved from marble, a stubbornly gorgeous face one wouldn’t forget. Couldn’t forget. Unrelenting shadows and a raucous crowd encircled the threadbare table before which she sat, some men in rags, others in more suitable attire the likes of which Simon had only seen in aged paintings hanging on gallery walls. All stinking drunk, their curses and ominous portent charging the air, the clamor mingling abrasively with the sound of waves cuffing the Wapping docks. The bitter hint of London’s brume, familiar when nothing else about this time was, riding a velvety fog and pushing an element of despair into the room.

With a shiver, Simon glanced around in joyless uncertainty.

He’d learned to limit contact with ghosts in his time, but in the past, inhertime, they swarmed him, their eyes bloodshot, their hands grasping. What he imagined was their hot breath striking his cheek. He couldn’t provide the reprieve from misery they sought.

To save himself, he’d discovered he must, at times, care for his deliverance above theirs.

Simon straightened from his casual repose as the man seated across the table from his prey took her wrist between his meaty fingers and gave it a punishing squeeze.

Simon fingered the knife in his ragged coat pocket, taking a swift step across the uneven plank floor. The shabbiest piece of clothing he’d worn in years, a calculated effort to blend into the environs. All part of protecting the girl, and hence, protecting his family. Retrieving the damned stone. He wasn’t above killing, should anyone stand in his way.

Although he wasn’t planning to have to killher. He hadn’t spent years exploring how to travel back in time and locate the one woman who’d haunted him, only to lose her now.

Emma. He whispered her name, his voice as unbending as the blade in his hand.

Emma.

He would never let her mean anything to him again. But hewouldsave her.

“You think to twist this game of hazard, darlin’?” The ruffian wrenched Emma’s arm, which she allowed. However, Simon noted the tensing of her lips, the leach of color from her cheeks. “Ramsey don’t like bein’ tricked. Even by the gel said to be the shrewdest sharper in Tower Hamlets. Dark Queen of the East End, innit it? That be a kind name, my girl.” He leaned until his shadow fell across her, shrouding the vivid glints sparking her hair. “Some say you’re touched. Here one day, vanishin’ the next. Gallows down the way, a pirate hanged this very night, should ya be thinkin’ to toss me a crooked slant of the dice. A constable on my payroll, don’t ya’ know. He has no tolerance for mystics.” Ramsey reached, trailing his knuckle down her jaw as she winced. “Don’t frown so, gel. I reckon even queens ever so often meet their match.”

Emma inched away until her back hit the chair slats, the abused wood creaking. Lifting a chipped glass to her lips, she tossed back the contents, then wrenched her arm from her captor’s hold with a ferocity Simon had been expecting to see…but was a little afraid to.

Giving a jaunty salute with the glass that made Simon’s stomach clench, she laughed. A sensual vibration that lifted the hair on the nape of his neck. The first sound he’d ever heard from her, as she’d been silent in his dreams. Trapped in a soundless world during her visits to his time, they’d only communicated with their gazes. He remembered the feelings she’d aroused in him as he’d watched her lips, stained from mulled wine, curl in a knowing smirk any man would be compelled to destroy with a kiss.

What would she taste like?Simon wondered in absolute insanity.

What would this impossible woman he’d once thought of as histastelike?

Ramsey leaned back in his chair, hard-edged and without humor. Flinging the dice across the table, he gestured with a fierce jab of the smoldering cheroot in his hand. “You goin’ to get this game rollin’ or wot? Lots with a bit of blunt jus’ waiting, gel. For the queen. My lady, she’s waitin’, too. Her naughty bits prefer a full pocket, if you catch my meanin. Swivin’s always better when things are full.”

Emma tilted her glass into the candlelight, lifted one shoulder in a languid shrug as she gazed through it. “Handsome swell such as yerself? Full pocket, empty pocket. What’s the difference?”

“That an invitation?” Ramsey asked and pressed his barrel belly into the pitted wood, rocking the table on its spindly legs. “I heard tell the queen never extends ‘em. Not to nobody. Touches no knobs, no sir.”

Emma took the dice in hand, pursed her lips and blew across them. Not an answer to the question of how many knobs she touched, but a challenge, moving her a step closer to catastrophe, which she seemed to wildly welcome.

Simon opened his knife with a deft move and tucked it in his sleeve, crossing the room until he stood within reach two paces behind her.

Because she was careless. Encouraging notice—when he’d learned to hide. At some point, everyone with a supernatural talent learned to hide in the shadows. Control the situation—every situation—by beingincontrol. The preternaturally gifted didn’t have the benefit of attracting attention.

How had she survived this long if she’dnotlearned this?

When he could see she hadn’t.