Before the Fire Page 7

  Kane inclined her head in gratitude, then picked up the kitten and purred sweet words of comfort to him. “It’s alright, little one, I shall fix you up in no time at all.”

  Intrigued by the wholesomeness and sense of peace that always surrounded Kane, Lady Julia regarded her son’s intended for a long moment before venturing a quick look around them. She eyed their surroundings warily. “We really should be going, dearest. It’s hard to say what kind of men one might run into in an alley of this sort.”

  Distracted, Kane glanced over to the dowager countess and wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”

  Before Lady Julia could respond to her inquiry, two burly, fowl smelling thugs stepped out of the shadows and directly into the paths of the women. “Good heavens,” the dowager countess muttered as she drew her hand up to cover her heart.

  Kane handed the kitten over to Lady Julia, then eyed her adversaries up and down. The dowager countess accepted the filthy creature without thinking, clutching it to her body like a talisman.

  As innately as Kane had known that George was no enemy from the moment he had first blushed at her, so too did she realize from the leers of these ogres that they were indeed the enemy. She mentally shrugged, not upset by that realization in the slightest. “Greetings, fellow humanoids. What business do you have with me and the dowager countess?”

  The two thugs exchanged perplexed glances, then shrugged off the wench’s foreign words as irrelevant. The biggest of the men, and the most foul smelling Kane absently noted, stepped forward and grinned. “Ye have much we be wantin’ miss, yet will we settle for whatever gold ye have on yer person.”

  Luckily, he spoke slowly, so she had no trouble deciphering his meaning. “I have much gold on my person,” Kane admitted, even as Lady Julia gasped her disapproval of the admission, “yet I will give you none of it.”

  The big man beamed with delight, his toothless face showing his excitement at her words. He bowed to Kane mockingly, removing the cap from his head. “I will be honored to remove the gold fer ye, milady.”

  Kane placed her hands on her hips, indignant at his suggestion. “Try and die.”

  Lady Julia’s eyelashes fluttered open as she stared wide-eyed and mouth agape at her soon-to-be daughter-in-law—even if the chit didn’t know her status yet—who she was beginning to fear was as crazy as a ward of Bedlam. “Dearest Kane,” she muttered as her heartbeat accelerated rapidly. “Give them the damn money and let us go home.”

  Kane took a moment to glower at the dowager before pointing out the obvious. She waved her hand toward the would-be assailants and frowned. “They wish to steal from us.”

  “I know that!” Lady Julia chided with an impressive combination of righteous indignation mixed with noble exasperation. “We’ve plenty of money. Just give them our purse!”

  “Me thinks ye should listen to the old woman,” the smaller man smiled wickedly through his rotting teeth. “T'would save the deuce of ye much trouble.”

  “Aye,” the bigger of the two seconded, “’twill save ye a visit to yon graveyard.”

  Lady Julia visibly gulped, unable to move, unable to breathe.

  A moment later the thugs bared their blades and circled the two women like birds of prey swooping down for the kill. Lady Julia clutched the kitten tighter against her, preparing to offer up her last prayers to the saints above. But before she could think better of it, she watched with rounded eyes as Kane issued a war cry from the depths of her throat and charged.

  “Hiiii yaaa!”

  Lady Julia backed herself up against the alley wall and watched in shock—and morbid fascination—as the angel-faced beauty called Kane kicked both of her legs up to either side of her person and knocked the blades from the thugs hands.

  The dowager countess drew her free hand up to her throat and gurgled unbecomingly while she gasped in disbelief. Kane was now flipping her person into the air and knocking both men to the ground with a rounded back kick. If she’d had a full bladder, she was certain she would have emptied it.

  The defeated thugs stared open-mouthed at their would-be victim who had turned into their attacker, then fled in retreat into the shadows. Kane brushed the dirt off of her gown, then turned to face the dowager countess. She beamed a brilliant smile at her friend, pleased that they were still in one piece, money intact. “Shall we go now?”

  Lady Julia muttered something imperceptibly, then gave in to an act she’d never before dallied with but now felt overcome by. She swooned.

  Kane rushed to her side, catching her before she fell to the dirty ground. And such was how the Earl of Blackmore found his mother and his intended not even thirty seconds later.

  Chapter 8

  “Good heavens! What on earth has happened to mother?”

  “George!” Kane beamed, profoundly happy to see him. “She’s surprisingly heavy for one so small. Can you lift her please?”

  Kane grinned in feminine appreciation as the earl hoisted his mother into his arms as though she was weightless. He was nothing at all like those flabby weaklings who had thought to rob her and the dowager countess. Her earl was strapping and powerful, a force to be reckoned with. Even she, with all her training, doubted her ability to bring the gigantic lord down.

  George tucked his mother into the fold of his arm as he watched Kane pick up a filthy creature and coo to it. “What happened here, Kane? Why has my mother fainted?”

  Kane shrugged, seemingly not worried. “I cannot say. Perhaps she was frightened by those humanoid men who tried to rob us.”

  “What?”

  Kane’s eyes rounded into blue saucers at the sound of George’s temper. She’d never heard him surly before. “Why are you angry? I defused the situation. You have lost no gold.”

  “I could care less for the gold! You could have been killed, young lady!”

  Kane frowned. If her data injection served her correctly, “young lady” was a term used when speaking to a small girl child. Did George believe her a weakling? She raised her chin defiantly into the air and strutted past the fuming earl. “My kitten and I shall retire to the coach. I will see you later, young man!”

  George’s face turned ten shades of crimson, so angered he was. “You will get back here this instant,” he commanded through set teeth.

  Kane paid him no heed whatsoever until she made her way to the edge of the alley. She then turned around, stuck out her tongue, and gave him what he would later find out was referred to as the raspberries.

  And then she was gone.

  The vein at George’s temple ticked ferociously as he considered the value of putting the impertinent little chit over his knee. No one had ever before dared to dismiss the Earl of Blackmore with such an obscenity. No one had dared dismiss him period.

  George admitted to himself that he preferred it that way.

  * * * * *

  “I’m thinking it would be for the best if you didn’t tell George what I did. He’s already mad enough at me because of the uh…incident. If he knew that I was the one that attacked them, he’d lecture me forever.” Kane paced before Lady Julia’s bed, a worried expression writ across her face.

  The dowager countess giggled from her bed, back to her old and formidably mischievous self once again. “As if he’d believe me. Heavens but where did you acquire such a skill?”

  Kane shrugged, uncertain as to how she should answer. She’d never planned on letting anyone here witness her proficiency in the deadly body arts. “It’s a rough place, Houston.”

  Lady Julia nodded, placated. “I should love for you to teach me that flipping thing. And even a punch or two.” The dowager countess raised her dainty fists into the air and laughed. “Va-voom!” she yelled as she punched her balled hands into the air.

  The door opened before Kane could comment, silencing her at once. George held her gaze, but said nothing as he strode into the room with a basket in hand.

  “What’s that?” Kane asked, pointing.

  “It was our pi
cnic,” he scolded in return, glowering.

  She winced. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, biting down on her lip and shifting her gaze.

  “And what pray tell are you sorry for?” the earl inquired. “For placing yourself in harm’s way? For bestowing upon my person a case of what you deemed the raspberries? Or for forgetting our lunch, the same lunch I set aside all appointments scheduled today to attend? Do enlighten me.”

  Lady Julia rolled her eyes heavenward, praying to the saints for patience. “George, we have had a trying day and you are making it that much worse. Poor Kane did naught to warrant the arrival of the ruffians. True,” she added, raising her hand to silence her son’s imminent protests, “she did venture into the alley in search of the kitten she spotted, but is it such a crime to have a tender heart?”

  George shifted on his big feet, feeling every inch the ogre Kane must now think him to be. He was already properly chastised, but his mother was far from letting him off the hook. “Kane isn’t familiar with the way of things here in England. You cannot fault her for being a trifle naïve.”

  George glanced over to Kane and grimaced, seeing how unusually forlorn she appeared. He was about to apologize when she rushed over to his side and removed the basket from his hand, placing it on the ground. “I hate the way it makes me feel when we fight,” she beseeched him, grabbing both of his hands in a gesture of feminine appeasement. “I know now I should never have gone into the alley. Or blown you the raspberries. Or forgotten of our picnic. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, George?”

  The earl sighed deeply, feeling sorely vexed with himself. “Of course I can, darling. I did not mean to upset you. I was just so very worried for you. I—” He shrugged. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Kane.”

  Oh how I wish I could stay with you forever, George.

  “Thank-you for caring so much, my lord. I shall make an effort to keep out of harm’s way if it pleases you.”

  George inclined his head politely, then smiled. “Enough of that.” He released Kane’s hands and reached down for the basket. “Let us not make waste of the delicious fare that Michel has painstakingly prepared.” He winked at his intended, then grinned at his mother. “Since neither of us will leave your side until you are fully recovered, madam, let us picnic in your bedchamber.”

  “Nonsense, George. You and Kane go on and—”

  The earl raised his hand, silencing her. “Not a word, madam.”

  “George is right,” Kane insisted with a nod of her head. “We will not leave you alone this afternoon. The earl and I will have many more days to picnic together, won’t we, my lord?”

  Every day for the rest of our lives if I have any say, my sweet.

  “Of course, Kane.”

  The threesome picnicked together in the dowager countess’s apartments for almost three solid hours. They talked and ate and laughed, and Kane couldn’t remember ever feeling more content or more at home.

  The dowager countess told stories about George stretching all the way back into his childhood, amusing Kane to no end. George was equally wicked, relaying hilarious antidotes of the notorious Lady Julia’s exploits in English society. Kane sat back, petting the kitten she’d cleaned, mended, fed, and affectionately named “Sir Scruffy”, listening to George tell his amusing tales and wondering silently if she’d ever get her fill of doing such.

  She studied him intently, taking in every mannerism, every characteristic, and every detail. Kane drank from his image like a parched desert camel would drink from a cool, liquid stream.

  She enjoyed the way he scowled as he told a story about him besting a childhood rival. She relished the manner in which his green eyes sparkled when he recalled an amusing tale about a cow that had tried to stampede him and his father. She hungered to kiss his lips when they swelled wryly from laughter after he’d told of an obnoxiously hilarious incident at university involving him and a cohort.

  Being with the earl made Kane long to be with him always. It made her course with desire over the idea of filing for permanent companionship with him. It made her long to rent a synthetic womb with him for a child their cells created together, to grow old at his side and love him until they’d both claimed their last breath.

  Kane stiffened as something she suspected had the makings of teardrops formed in her icy blue eyes. She closed her eyelids briefly, commanding the moisture at bay, then opened them again and regarded George.

  She was in love with him. She would no longer bother to deny it.

  Chapter 9

  Kane meandered through the fragrant grassy paths in search of her purpose for being here. The kabitross plant.

  She wandered next to babbling brooks, murky ponds, and clear-blue streams that contained the plumpest, yummiest looking fish she’d ever seen. She happened upon villages where smithies hammered out metals that they were fashioning into shoes for horses. She chatted with women, young and old alike, who were working the fields, churning butter, and fashioning roots into soaps. She trailed through meadows, heavily laden with forms of plant life and flowers she’d never imagined.

  It was fascinating. Completely, utterly, and totally beguiling. Yet she couldn’t find even one trace of the wispy-headed kabitross plant she so desperately sought. Sore and exhausted, Kane plopped down onto a flat-topped rock next to a stream and dejectedly considered her next move. This was hopeless.

  She had done what no man or woman, to the best of Linder’s knowledge, had ever done before her—she had traveled through time. Kane had ventured six and a half hundred years into the past to find a cure for the disease that was killing off humanoid peoples in three known solar systems in her own time.

  She would go home defeated. She would go home a failure. Egis would die. Linder would never have faith in her again.

  No! She couldn’t give up. Her people were counting on her. But what was she to do?

  The kabitross was supposed to be growing in the vicinity of Blackmore. It wasn’t. With a sad and heavy heart, Kane conceded that she was going to have to move on and search other locales for it. There was no other choice. She thought wistfully of the earl, dreading their eventual parting of company.

  George had come to mean so much to Kane in so little time. In the past week they had spent countless hours together eating, laughing, and conversing. George had taken her all over the estate where she had vigilantly kept an eye out for the kabitross plant while they enjoyed each other’s company.

  They took long, moonlit walks together through the Blackmore gardens. They strolled the hillside hand-in-hand chatting for hours about their hopes and dreams for the future. They even went riding together, George having gifted her with a beautiful black mare from his stables.

  And they kissed. Oh how they kissed! Each night before they retired to separate chambers within the domicile, George would pull Kane into a loving embrace that invariably ended as a passionate kiss. He would tell her of her beauty, speak to her of how wonderful she made him feel, how alive he was on the inside.

  George’s words were strange to her and yet she understood them. Kane felt the very same way. George was her first thought when she awoke each morning and the last dream she had each night. He was warm and wonderful, strong and brave. Furthermore, she was certain she loved him. And now she had to leave him.

  “’Tis a shame indeed when one so beautiful looks so weary.”

  Kane’s heart pounded joyously at the familiar voice. “George,” she breathed out, happy to see him despite her melancholy mood.

  George dismounted from Socrates and led him over to the stream to drink. Satisfied that his mount could see to his own needs, he strolled towards Kane and sat down next to her on the flat rock. He looked handsome today in his riding clothes, masculine and elegant at the same time. “Kane? You’ve tears in your eyes. Whatever is the matter, my sweet?”

  “Oh George,” she whispered, struggling to regain her composure. “George.” She threw herself into his arms, feeling every inch the idiot for
behaving so weakly, yet not able to keep herself from doing otherwise.

  “What is it, sweet?” he asked, genuinely upset for her. “What has made you cry? Tell me and I will fix it.” He ran his long, masculine fingers through her golden locks, smoothing tendrils of it away from her face. He raised her chin to meet his gaze. “Tell me.”

  “I have to leave Blackmore,” she whispered.

  George’s hand fell from Kane’s chin and plummeted to the ground, along with his stomach. “What?” he asked in a daze.

  Kane withdrew from the earl’s embrace and quickly brushed her tears away. She fumbled nervously with a lacy ruffle from the gown Lady Julia had commissioned a seamstress to sew for her, unable to meet George’s stare. “The plant I search for is not in your lands. I must depart Blackmore immediately and search elsewhere.” She took a deep breath and at last met his gaze. “Time is running out and I cannot let myself forget why it is I am here.”

  “I see.”

  George rose to his feet and turned away from Kane. He stood immobile for long minutes, staring at the stream, but seeing or saying nothing. When she could endure the silence no more, she hesitantly inquired as to what he was thinking. “George?”

  The earl turned around to face Kane again. He looked different. Vastly different. His powerfully masculine and ominously calm face sent shivers down her spine. The warm, caring man was gone. In his place was a cold stone statue, a man who would not be hurt by what he perceived to be her desertion of him. “Good riddance to you then, Mistress Edmonds.”

  She sucked in her breath, hurt beyond reason by his callous words. George ignored her anguish, calling to Socrates as he walked stoically from the stream. “George!” Kane yelled, running behind him. “George please, let me explain! I don’t want to leave you! I have to!”