The Earl Who Played With Fire by Sara Ramsey

Author:Sara Ramsey [Ramsey, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Yes.

The “yes” was on her lips, waiting there for him. It had hovered on her lips for years, waiting for him to ask the only question she’d ever wanted to hear. It leapt to attention, ready to burst forth, ready at last for the moment she’d dreamed of.

Despite it all, she still loved him. Even after weeks spent planning to steal from him, she loved him. She loved his humor, and his strength, and the way he held a conversation with her as an equal. She loved his body, too, and the way it would feel next to hers, even if she tried to confine herself to rational considerations of what might make a man into a good husband.

But her rational mind kept her mouth in check. She covered her lips with her hand, keeping the “yes” pent up until she could force it back from the brink. “How long would you have me wait?” she finally asked.

His shoulders slumped. “That is why I should not have asked you. I may never break the curse. Much as I would like to claim otherwise.”

“Can I wish for it to be broken?” she asked.

Alex laughed — a quick, disbelieving sound, as though he had not hoped for humor from her. “I thought of that. But whatever power is behind this curse may decide that the easiest way to break the curse is to kill me. It has too much of a sense of humor to let me live.”

“Not the most useful dagger, is it?”

“No.”

The thought of a useful dagger distracted her, niggling at some bit of memory that she hadn’t unearthed in years. “Does anyone else know of it?”

“Only Thorington. But it must have a long provenance. I’ve tracked rumors of something similar through ancient stories and correspondence.”

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“It was in a box of Egyptian artifacts that Thorington’s father had won playing hazard. Only luck the man had — but it wasn’t so lucky, as it turned out. I bought it from Thorington to give him some pocket money, then we tried the dagger one night when we were in our cups.”

She considered, but even though it sounded familiar, she couldn’t place the reference. “I may have heard of this from someone else, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it might be.”

“I shall continue looking regardless of what you choose to do.”

She felt she should answer his earlier question. And yet…what answer was there to give? She wanted to tell him she would wait for him. But could she spend an entire lifetime living her shadowed, solitary existence while he tilted at windmills and fought an enemy no one could see?

What if he never found a cure? What if…what if he was mad, and there was no curse, let alone a cure? And what if her whole life passed her by, living in silence with her unfulfilled, aching heart?

That wasn’t her only consideration, though. She had tricked him with her forgery. He

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