“Very well, Mr. Cruikshank,” Lindsay said smoothly, concealing his frustration. “I’ll give the matter my consideration.”
––––––––
LINDSAY WAS SCOWLINGwhen he left the house a few minutes later.
He was annoyed at the outcome of his discussion with Hector Cruikshank. The man had not even been willing to discuss matters. The only way to make progress would be to return, cap in hand, with an increase to his already too generous offer.
Marguerite would not be impressed with his bargaining skills.
Still, he thought, as he set off walking up the empty New Town street, he had a little time on his side. Cruikshank would have the letters in his possession for the next two weeks. Lindsay could give some thought to his next move.
As for tonight, it was early still and he found himself wondering whether Drew Nicol had returned home after storming out of Cruikshank’s house, or if he’d gone somewhere else, perhaps to a tavern—though he didn’t strike Lindsay as a particularly sociable fellow.
He should leave Nicol well alone, but somehow he found himself lifting his nose and searching the air for Nicol’s flinty scent.
Nothing. Not a trace.
Hardly surprising given that Nicol had left Cruikshank’s house two hours before. Idly, Lindsay considered his next move. If he shifted now, his wolf would easily find and track Nicol’s scent. Lindsay discarded the thought almost immediately. He was not about to leave a heap of distinctive evening clothes lying around at this hour. Besides, there was a very good chance Nicol would simply be in the most obvious place—at home.
Not that Lindsay had any intention of visiting him there. No, he was going straight back to his rooms.
He walked briskly back to town, but when he reached the High Street, instead of turning left towards the Canongate, he turned right and began making his way up to the Lawnmarket and Brodie’s Close.
He was merely curious, he told himself. That was all. He wanted to check whether Nicol had indeed gone straight home. Once his curiosity had been satisfied, he would go back to Locke Court.
By the time, he was within fifty yards of Brodie’s Close, he had the thread of Nicol’s scent, and when he turned down the narrow alleyway and made his way up to the front door of the tenement building Nicol had entered the previous night, the man’s scent was strong enough that Lindsay knew he had passed this spot recently.
Excitement roiled within him. And desire, and need. And a strange, wild joy.
Christ.
Lindsay stepped back from the door, retreating several paces. He should go. He really should. But he stood there, looking at the tenement. It was tall and thin with small, shuttered windows. It looked like the sort of building with reasonably well-to-do tenants. They’d be assiduous in locking up securely at night. Stepping forward again, he tried the door—just to check—and confirmed it was firmly locked.
He counted the windows. The shutters, he saw, were all quite stoutly made of heavy oak with iron fixings. Difficult to force—though not for a wolf. Not that he intended to do any such thing. It was only that Nicol’s scent was teasing at him, stirring him again. Agitating him. It made him want to tear down every obstacle between them.
He wanted, desired,neededto see Nicol, and as much as that need dismayed him, it excited him too, filling him with a clamouring aliveness that invigorated his aimless soul. It was not easy to live so many years, to have no sense of when one would cease to exist. As the decades of his life had passed, Lindsay had discovered that the passions that sustained an ordinary human life were not enough for a wolf. From time to time, he would descend into a state Marguerite calledl’ennui—an emptiness, entirely without appetite. Tempting to call it boredom, except that word did no justice to the weary despair that overcame him when he was in its grip.
He’d been teetering on the edge of that chasm this last year or two, but now Drew Nicol had entered his life, his scent like a silver fish glinting in a murky stream, drawing Lindsay’s jaded eye. Pricking his dulled senses.
It felt good to be excited again.
It felt good to want. To ache for something again. To ache forsomeoneas never before.
The need churned in him now, so hard he felt the wolf gnawing at his humanity with impatient teeth and claws, howling to be free. He knew he must leave before he did something very foolish, yet still he paced agitatedly in front of the tenement, mind racing, fists curling and uncurling, breath coming hard and fast.
When an upstairs shutter opened and a head leaned out, he was surprised. As unsettled as he was, he knew he had, nonetheless, been silent. What could have alerted someone to his presence?
“Who’s there?”
Nicol.
That was Nicol’s voice. Firm and forbidding.
Lindsay stilled and looked up—it was four full floors up to those open shutters and the shadowed head above him.
“Is that you, Somervi—?” Nicol broke off without completing Lindsay’s name but Lindsay knew that was what he’d been about to say. Yet there was no way he could have seen Lindsay down here, was there? Probably not even his outline.
So why had he spoken Lindsay’s name?
