Page 73 of Hexbound
That wasn't it, at all. "I know you can handle yourself, but Elijah Horroway is a powerful and dangerous necromancer, and we don't know if he's allied himself with anyone else. You're not invincible, Verity. And Horroway could do things to you—horrible, horrible things—that you might never escape from."
"You almost sound as if you care," she whispered, glancing up, and Bishop wavered.
"Of course I care, Verity," he told her, his expression turning to stone again. "I'm not completely heartless. Just don't mistake compassion for something else. This... us... nothing will come of it. Nothingcancome of it." He said the words firmly, as if trying to convince her. Or perhaps it was himself who wavered.
We'll see. This man, with his heart of stone, was so fascinating to her. A temptation indeed, and sometimes she didn't know if it were just the passion that flared between them she wanted to explore, or... something more. Something like what she'd felt last night, when he held her in his arms.
Thatthought startled her.
Life in Seven Dials wasn't the sort of rosy existence where one dreamed of love. The type of relationships she'd seen existed of power exchanges between pimps and their whores, or even Murphy and his mistress, Betsy, who didn't seem to have shed any tears following his death. She couldn't think of one marriage that had been happy.
So what did this yearning inside her mean? Why did she want him to kiss her so much? It was just a kiss. Just a romp in the sheets. Wasn't it?
"Verity?" His palm settled on her waist, his thumb rasping against the material there. For a moment he looked down, as if distracted by the sensation of her dress beneath his hand. "Penny for your thoughts?"
She wasn't that brave. Verity wet her lips and glanced to the side. They were momentarily shielded from the house. "How would you care to play it then, my lord?"
A small silence.
"A little surveillance, before we think of breaking and entering. Take my arm. Consider us just out for a stroll in the gloomy afternoon."
She slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and he rested his gloved hand upon it, his beaver hat pulled low over his face. Suddenly, he wasn't some prowling assassin, but a jaunty young fellow out for a walk with his woman. Everything about his posture and stance shifted.
"You do that very well," she whispered.
"Years of practice." He shot her a glance beneath the brim of his hat. "This way. Pretend I'm saying terribly witty things, and laugh a little. The best way to go about subterfuge is to pretend you're not really hiding at all, I've found."
She patted his arm and laughed, leaning against him. "How's this?"
"Excellent. Anyone would think you’re used to covert operations."
"I did pluck the hair right from your head," she pointed out. "You didn't even notice me."
Bishop's gaze dipped briefly to her mouth. "I cannot quite figure out how. You're not the type of woman one doesn't notice."
Her heart gave a little flutter.
"Here," he murmured, pulling her into the small park across the street from the back garden of the mansion they were watching and putting his back to the house. He positioned her against a tree, watching over his shoulder. "Still feel that pull?"
"It's stronger now," she admitted, feeling the tense knot in her core jerk her toward the house. A glimpse of red caught her eyes through the French doors at the back of the house. "I think Horroway's about to come out into the garden."
Bishop reached past her to press his palm against the trunk, capturing her hand lightly in his other hand as if he were courting. "Tell me what you see."
"He's... he's...." Her brows drew together. "A woman. How does that work?"
A woman in a wheeled chair pushed herself out onto the back terrace, wearing a fetching gown of pure scarlet. Her hair was dark—or had been—but now streaks of gray marred it.
"Oh, hell," she whispered, looking down at the ring. "I haven't brought us to Horroway at all. I've bought us to the woman to whom he tried to give the ring." Verity frowned, trying totastethe ring again. "There is no other corresponding imprint."
"I'm an idiot. Of course not." Bishop cursed under his breath. "You're trying to find a man, but rumor says that Elijah Horroway is neither dead, nor alive, but caught in some state in-between. Would that affect your attempts at finding him?"
"Significantly," she said, pocketing the ring.
"Damn it." He shot a glance over his shoulder toward the house. "All of that for nothing."
"Well," she said with a sigh. "Perhaps we can go back to your map table? Track him by magic."
Bishop wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention. His gaze locked on the woman in the garden and stillness slid through him, the muscle of his arm tensing beneath her touch.
