not sit well with you,’ he said.
‘Nor you, I suspect.’
‘Your suspicion would be well founded. We will work most effectively if we collaborate, but the final decision will be mine. Those are the rules of engagement I agreed with The Procurer.’
‘Then those are the rules we will abide by.’
‘I am relieved to hear you say so. Have you always worked for her? Since coming to London, I mean? You never did tell me what your plans were, though you told me you had some.’ Cameron held up his hands. ‘I know, I know, no questions.’ He sighed. ‘Look, this situation might be familiar territory for you, charging to someone’s aid, taking control, doing whatever it is you do, but I feel as if I’ve walked into someone else’s dream. Or nightmare, more like.’
‘Thank you kindly for the compliment.’
‘You know what I mean, Kirstin.’
She could tell him it was the same for her, but it was hardly what The Procurer would call a salient fact. Instead, she finally allowed herself, for just a fleeting second, to touch his hand. ‘You realise the odds suggest that, even if we find the girls, they may not be unscathed.’
Cameron flinched. ‘You take a very grim view of the situation.’
‘I find that it is better to err on the side of pessimism.’
‘Sparing yourself the possibility of disappointment? So you prefer to stack the odds? Isn’t it against your mathematical principles to do so?’
This time it was she who flinched. That Cameron had recognised her was not really surprising. That he recalled anything at all of their conversation though—now, that was unsettling. She didn’t want him to remember her, unguarded, confiding, such an aberration of her character before and since. As to her mathematical principles, she had discovered for herself that life was no respecter of those. ‘It is not a question of disappointment, rather one of preparing to deal with the worst,’ Kirstin said.
Cameron slumped back on the sofa, looking quite exhausted. His eyelids fluttered closed. His lashes were coal black, shorter than hers, but thicker. Though he had shaved this morning, there was already a bluish shadow on his chin. A lick of hair stood up from his brow, marring the smooth perfection of his crop and in doing so managing to make the perfection of his countenance even more breathtaking. In repose, his lips looked sculpted. They had been soft, the first time he’d kissed her. Gentle. Persuasive. She had tried other kisses since, but none compared with the memory of his, so she’d stopped trying. At her age and in her circumstances she ought to be past wanting any kisses. Looking at Cameron’s mouth, those perfectly moulded lips, Kirstin found to her horror that she was wrong.
She looked away hastily as he opened his eyes. ‘You are understandably weary. We will continue this conversation later, when I am settled in my own suite.’ She made to get to her feet, but he was too quick for her, grabbing her wrist.
‘I am tired, and the many dire possibilities regarding what fate befell Philippa and Jeannie, her maid, are grim indeed. I’ve contemplated them, Kirstin, trust me. But life has a way of defying the odds. I will find them. I have to find them, because failure is not an option. So we will keep searching until we do. Those are my terms. Under The Procurer’s rules, you are obliged to adhere to them. Go away, unpack, think about it. And if you aren’t willing to make that commitment, then you can pack up again and go.’
* * *
Cameron closed the door on Kirstin, and immediately rang the bell. He needed strong coffee, and a good deal of it. If ever there was a time for ordered thoughts, calm thinking, it was now, and his head was all over the place. Retreating to his bedchamber, he splashed cold water over his face, automatically smoothing back the cow’s lick in his hair. His face gazed back at him in the mirror as he rubbed himself dry with a towel. He looked a good five years older than his thirty-five years, thanks to the tribulations of the last week, while Kirstin seemed hardly to have aged at all since he’d first met her.
A knock on the door heralded his much needed coffee. He sat down to inhale the first cup in one scalding gulp and immediately poured another, the perfect antidote to the flowery water that passed for tea in this hotel. Though Kirstin had seemed to enjoy it, and by the way she’d oh-so-delicately sniffed the leaves, it would seem she considered herself a bit of a connoisseur. What age would she be now? Thirty-one, -two? It didn’t seem possible, but he clearly remembered her telling him the night they met that she was twenty-five.
She had changed. She had not aged, precisely, there were no lines marring the perfection of her skin, but there was something about her, an edge to her that hadn’t been there before. Experience, he supposed—though what kind? She was not married. It could not possibly be for want of being asked. More likely her very obvious desire to do no one’s bidding but her own had kept her single. Bloody hell, but she was as prickly as a hedgehog. It would take a brave man to get anywhere near her. She’d been very different that night. Excited, anxious, elated, frightened in turn. In extremis.
As had he been, for very different reasons—emotionally battered, the hopes which had been so recently raised, quite devastated. He’d barely had a chance to come to terms with what he’d read in that letter, only to be told that there could be no coming to terms, no answers to his questions. Not ever. The future had taken on a bleakness he’d not known since childhood. Kirstin had been like a beacon of light, smiling at him across the coach. He couldn’t exactly credit her for turning his thinking around, but she’d been a respite that night, and her enthusiasm, her desire to embrace her future—yes, some of that had rubbed off on him. He’d used the memory of their moment out of time as a talisman in the months that followed. It had sustained him through some dark times.
What would she say if he told her so? She’d be too dumbfounded to say anything, most likely. They had quite literally been ships that passed in the night. She had made it very clear this afternoon that she didn’t want to remember anything about it. Yet still she had come here, at The Procurer’s behest, knowing she’d be meeting him. Was she simply indifferent, intent upon doing a job for which she would be handsomely rewarded? She was expensively garbed. She had done well for herself, which wasn’t surprising. He’d never met any woman, before or since, quite like her. She was exactly what he needed. What’s more, he was confident that she’d do exactly what she promised, everything in her power to help him. If she chose to stay.
Cameron cursed. He shouldn’t have issued her with an ultimatum, it was guaranteed to rile a woman like her, so reluctant to take orders from anyone! Yet he’d been right to say what he did, and he had the right, it was written into his contract with The Procurer. If he must have an accomplice, and he was long past the stage where he refused to acknowledge he did, then his accomplice must be wholeheartedly committed to finding Philippa and her maid. Whatever state they found them in, they would find them.
He poured himself the treacly residue of the coffee. There was a plate of biscuits on the tray. He bit into one, screwed up his face, coughing as he forced it down. Coconut. He couldn’t think of a flavour he detested more, though he must be in a minority, judging by the small fortune he’d made importing the dried version of it in the last year. If they were using it here for the biscuits, it must be getting even more popular. He made a mental note to ask his agent to organise another shipment, then he retrieved his leather-bound notebook from the stack of business papers and set his mind to reviewing his notes. Every little detail mattered, Kirstin had said. When she returned, when she accepted his terms, as she must do, for he could not fail at this first hurdle, then he would be as well-prepared as it was possible to be. Unlike all those years ago.
December
