Page 8 of His Wicked Charm

“I’m sorry.” Lilah resisted the urge to sit down as he had suggested. There was no reason to stay. She had run her errand. She shouldn’t sit down for a tête-à-tête alone with a man. Yet she lingered. “They’re on a shopping expedition?”

Con let out a crack of laughter. “No, Mother’s taken them to one of her suffragists’ dos. They’re standing vigil in front of Edmond Edmington’s house.”

“Edmond Edmington?” Lilah couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Yes, he had alliterative if unimaginative parents. Sit down, Miss Holcutt, please. Smeggars will be crushed if you don’t stay for tea and petits fours. He’s always trying to turn Mother’s meetings into parties, with little success.”

“No, I should be going. I was just—” She gestured toward the door, taking a step backward.

“Going to the bookstore. Yes, I know.” His eyes twinkled. “Come, Lilah, I won’t make any unwanted advances...not with Smeggars lurking about.”

What if they weren’t unwanted, she thought, then blushed at her wayward mind. “You would make some jest about it.”

“About what?” he asked innocently, moving closer.

“You know what.” She scowled. “What we—the other evening on the terrace.”

“Ah.” He leaned in, far too close for polite behavior. “You mean when we talked?” His eyes widened in mock shock. “Unchaperoned.”

“Yes.” Her word came out in little more than a whisper. Irritated, she cleared her throat and went on in a firm voice. “No. I mean it was more than that. We were—we almost...”

“Yes?” His eyes danced. “We almost...”

She had known he would tease her. She should not have come here. “Oh, stop it. Just leave me alone.”

“Of course.” He sighed and stepped back. It was what she wanted, yet perversely she felt let down at his easy acquiescence.

She should go now. It was silly to be so reluctant. Lilah drew a breath to say goodbye but was brought up short by a shout from upstairs. “Reed! Someone!”

“Anna!” Con ran from the room.

Lilah followed him. When she reached the bottom of the staircase, Con was already halfway up the flight to his sister-in-law, who stood still and staring, her face deathly white.

“They’ve been taken!” Anna cried. “You have to save them.”

She folded after that pronouncement, and Con grabbed her, easing her down to sit on the stairs. “Here, put your head down. Just breathe. Slowly now.”

Steps pounded down the long stretch of the gallery, and Reed burst into view, his face almost as drained of color as his wife’s. “Anna! What happened? What’s the matter?”

Reed leaped up the stairs, pulling his wife into his arms and cradling her against his chest. Con stepped back. “Reed, she was saying—I think she’s having one of her visions.”

One of her visions?

Con’s words didn’t seem to shock Reed, who only cursed and continued to stroke Anna’s back. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Everything’s fine.”

“No!” Anna pulled back. She had regained some of her color and her eyes were no longer wild, but she was clearly distressed. “You have to find them. You have to—”

“Who?” Con asked, his voice sharp. Lilah could see that his body was suddenly coiled tight as a spring. “Who is in trouble, Anna?”

“All of them!” She looked from her husband to Con and back. “The duchess. Kyria. Olivia. All of them. They’ve been kidnapped!”

CHAPTER FOUR

CON WHIRLED AND ran from the house. Lilah followed right on his heels. Signaling a hack, he ran out into the street and jumped into it before it completely stopped. Lilah climbed in after him. Con cast a glance at her, and for a moment Lilah thought he was going to protest her presence, but he only turned and called out an address to the driver.

He looked nothing like he usually did, his eyes as fierce as they were normally laughing, his mobile face stern and set, his body taut. He had undergone the same transformation two months ago when he had raced to free his twin.

Lilah wanted to ask him about Anna’s bizarre pronouncement. Anna seemed the calmest of all the Morelands, but nothing could have been madder than her staring eyes and terrifying words. Yet Con and his brother Reed, while alarmed, had not appeared surprised. Moreover, it was clear that Con believed what she said, dashing off immediately to his mother and sisters.