“It was over quickly - and you received nothing in return.”
He kissed her then, and she could taste herself on his tongue. “I wanted to see you come apart for me, dragonfly.” He lifted her hand and pressed it to the front of his trousers. They were wet and the grin he tossed her was smug. “I received what I wanted in return. I’ll receive it again when I remember how you looked when you finally let me give you what you needed.”
“That’s all it took for you to spend as well?” She asked in astonishment.
“Only with you. It was a near thing in the wardrobe today. The alchemy you wield is a dangerous thing to my self-control.”
Now Jess was the one who felt like preening. She considered her mission an unmitigated success. She’d wanted to assert a sort of dominance over him, because she’d loved the feel of the power sluicing through her veins in the wardrobe.
“I like the thought of my alchemy rendering you senseless and chaotic.”
His chuckle held a bitter edge. “More fool I for letting you find the chinks in my armor,” he said as he took her hand and pulled her toward the settee in the center of the room. He collapsed onto it, and dragged her onto his lap.
She resisted at first, wrapping her hands around his biceps and straining away. He grinned and shook his head.
“The hour grows late and I need to avoid discovery.”
“A quarter of an hour more will arouse no suspicions.”
“Only for a moment.” Jess was relenting because she’d never in her life felt so untethered and without a compass.
He settled his hands around her waist and she leaned in, until her head was nestled in the crook between his shoulder and neck. She pressed her face to the skin there and inhaled the scent of sulfur and leather that always seemed to cling to him.
“Tell me about the mines,” she murmured.
His chest rose and fell in a deep sigh, and she sensed his reluctance.
“I try not to think about the mines and all they took from me.”
“You’ve revealed virtually nothing about whence you came and why you settled in Heathsted.”
He tipped his head and rested it against the tufted back of the sofa. “Caris and I settled here because our sister Gwyn wed a man from hereabouts. Simon Cuthbert. When he got the gold bug, she followed him to California, and left Davy and Ella in our keeping.”
“Why would she leave her children behind?”
“They didn’t know what awaited them in America, and she promised to send for them once they were settled. Her letters have become more and more infrequent, and the most recent one…” He blew out another sigh and closed his eyes.
“The most recent one?” Jess prompted.
“She finally told us she’d decided to leave Davy and Ella here - and asked if I’d become their permanent guardian.”
“You seem conflicted about her decision.”
His eyes flickered open and his gaze centered on hers. “I understand her reasons, and I love them. I’m not hesitating because of that. My sisters and I lost our father when we were too young to remember him, and our mother and our eldest brother to a mine explosion when I was barely fourteen. To willingly give up the keeping of those dearest to you? I cannot fathom it.”
In that moment Jess finally acknowledged to herself that Cadoc Morgan was far more complex and intriguing than she’d first thought. “That’s why you stepped in to raise your sisters? Even though you were nearly as young?”
His expression closed. “There was no one else to do it. I did what I had to because Ma wouldn’t have wanted us separated. And my elder brother Griffin would have found a way to haunt me to the end of my days.”
She laid her head against his chest. “I was barely five when our mother died. Arie is truly the only mother I’ve ever known. Our father fell apart after the funeral, and it was up to her to keep us in shoes and food. Even after he roused himself from the pit of drunkenness, he sought comfort elsewhere. We recently found out we have a gaggle of half sisters we knew nothing of.”
“My old man loved the bottle far too much as well. To the detriment of everything else in his life. Including his family. I think Mam was relieved when one of the dray carts mowed him down as he was stumbling home.”
“And what of your brother Griffin? Do you think he was relieved?”
“I think he was relieved, but sorry too. Da was the one who taught all of us to sing. And he used to write all of the things he used to compete in the Eisteddfod.”
“What is the Eisteddfod?” The word mangled itself on her tongue.
