Page 33 of The Rake is Taken
On this night, nothing elsecouldshock him.
Slowly rising, he swiped his hair from his eyes to find Humphrey lounging in the entranceway, hands in his pockets, a golden flood of gaslight spilling around him.
“Come in, then, as you look in the middle of a first-rate sulk. Unless you’d like me to come out there. We can crack each other’s teeth until your fury’s got nowhere to hide. Sometimes that makes a man feel better. Crude, but efficient.”
With a grimace, Finn crossed the yard and shouldered past Humphrey and into the cottage, never once considering the brutal offer. He’d no desire for a man Humphrey’s size to ‘crack his teeth’ when he quite liked them. Too, he already had the chip from his fall off his mare. His smile was almost as noteworthy as his eyes, and one had to protect one’s assets in an uncertain world.
The Stone Fortress was modestly furnished, rustic, and cozy, which suited the hulking man currently perusing the collection of bottles lining a rough-hewn sideboard. A fire was crackling in the hearth, but the open window allowed a bracing draft inside, opposing sensations Finn let swirl and settle. He had no fight in him at this point, even to decide between being cold or hot.
Humphrey held a bottle aloft. “I’d go with Ireland, as you look like you’ve been pulled through a keyhole. Scotland requires more soothing contemplation.”
Finn grunted and collapsed to a brocade sofa that had seen better days. He poked his finger in a hole in the faded upholstery, remembering Humphrey had moved to the cottage once Ashcroft found reasonable control over his fiery talent, and Julian no longer feared letting him reside in the main house when he visited—because the main house certainly better suited a duke. But stone walls better suited a man known to start fires.
Humphrey retreated to a chair across from him, a bruised leather piece that looked like a castoff from the servants’ quarters. He offered a glass—filled to the brim, thank God. “Go easy,” Humphrey advised, “this is the strong stuff.”
Finn winked, saluted, and drained the glass in one shot. His eyes watered, and he coughed, the whiskey burning a path from his lips to his heels, just what he needed to incinerate the vision of Victoria’s ashen face and the dark blue eyes from his dream.
A sour smile crossed Humphrey’s face, and he shoved to his feet, bringing the bottle back and pouring another draught for Finn. “One of those nights, is it? Going to have to hold your head over a rubbish bin, I’m guessing. The anticipation ofthatis killing me.”
“It’s one of those months, Rey. And never fear, I’ll puke outside in your azalea bushes. I’m a gentleman.”
Humphrey took a leisurely sip, gazing at Finn over the crystal rim. Patient, almost as patient as Julian, when Finn had little of the skill himself. Twitchy when he was a boy, full of verve and arrogance as a young man. Reckless. Even a mite demonstrative, something a lad wasn’t often allowed to be in an aristocratic household. Julian’s words sounded in his mind, about Humphrey comforting him during the night terrors, and he wondered why the hell anyone, a young man himself, would have accepted this responsibility? Why would anyone want to be surrounded by the occult and the danger it presented? Especially when you weren’t cursed yourself.
Besides a family, what was in it for the pensive man sitting across from him?
But there it was.Family. Which answered Finn’s question.
“Powerful thoughts churning through that hard head of yours.” Humphrey tapped the crystal against his temple. “Almost afraid to ask. Your smile usually provides good cover. I’m not sure what to think about this pathetic display.”
The whiskey had done its job, chasing away some of his apprehension, and Finn slid into an answering sprawl, balancing his glass on his belly. “It’s a woman.”
Finn watched Humphrey catch himself before the grin broke free, the rotter. “Which one? According to the chattering snits, more of those than you can count on both hands.”
“There’s only one, I’m afraid. The rest are immaterial.” He tipped his glass and peered into it. “Which does present a problem, one I’ve never had to deal with.”
Humphrey’s eyes widened at the admission.
“Did I mention she’s betrothed and an earl’s daughter, therefore untouchable, as well as being one of the most powerful beings in our mystical universe? Remember her?”
Humphrey took a deliberate sip. “I remember.”
“Julian’s so eager to fill pages of the chronology that I’m panicked to admit housing Lady Hamilton is becoming an issue for me and a reputational danger for her. Leave it to me to find myself captivated by the rarest find in three hundred years in our strange little world.” He finished the second whiskey and poured a third, certain both decisions were going to force him to bed down on Humphrey’s battered sofa—after, as promised, he left his dinner in the shrubs surrounding the cottage. “The kicker? She’s dreaming of someone she swears is my sister. And you know what?” Finn laughed, a serrated sound with all the buoyancy of a pillar stone. “I believe her.”
Humphrey paused, his glass arrested halfway to his lips. Finn was delighted to finally crack his composure. “Sister?Whatsister?”
Finn slid low, until his head rested on the back of the sofa. Closing his eyes, he let the world tilt. Not the heaviest of drinkers, as mind reading didn’t tolerate drunken comportment, he’d pay dearly for this indulgence. As it was, Humphrey’s thoughts were intruding, and the whiskey was making it hard to fight them off. “Tori’s been dreaming, and of course, with the number of fanciful ones I inspire, I assumed they were about me. Ro-man-tic even. Embarrassed to tell me and all that. Sounds plausible, doesn’t it? But they’re about someone with eyes exactly like mine. A woman with an accent.”
In a language that had come easily, too easily, to him when he’d first tried to speak it.
“Tori, is it?” Humphrey’s glass thumped the table, his boot heels scraping across the stone floor as he inched forward in his chair. “An accent. Interesting, as you’ve always had a knack with languages.”
Finn blinked into the amber radiance cast from the fire, the whiskey composing a delightful musical score in his skull. “Do you think it’s possible, Rey? That there’s someone out there related to me? Why wouldn’t I have dreamed of her? Been able to readhermind? Why would this woman, this stranger, be our connector?”
“How the hell do I know? All I grasped was that this summer was going to be anarchy, an itch I’ve had under my skin for weeks. The insane gods of magic stirring up our lives. Our peace interrupted.” Humphrey pointed his glass at Finn. “That’smygift, the ability to sense chaos. Let Julian record that in his book.”
“I have to find her,” Finn whispered.
“You don’t have to convince me, boy. Can’t have anyone entering our world without finding out why.” Taking a considering draught, Humphrey tilted his head. “When we found you, I was so damn reckless. Act first, think never, that sort of thing. Wasn’t unheard of, a titled bloke dropping a byblow in a slum, a place no one would ever connect them. So, I broke into the orphanage even though you were by then living in that shack—maybe a month after we rescued you—tore the place up looking for records, papers, something to tell us who you were. There was nothing, but I always wondered. You were filthy, covered in insect bites and bruises, a layer of dirt on your skin it took five baths to wash off, but the moment we cleaned you up, you looked like a little prince. Sounded like one once the cockney slipped away. You came from somewhere, that’s all I knew. Because I’d come from the gutter, never anyplace but, and I recognized the difference right off. Julian’s creation about you being from his side of the world may not be far from the truth.”