Lisa Kleypas - Seduce Me At Sunrise

"I'm trying to help." The skirts of Win's riding habit rustled stiffly as she hurried into the vardo. One of her hands was ungloved, and she was holding something in it. She didn't spare a glance for the rom phuro, she was so intent on reaching Kev. "Here. Here." She was breathing hard from riding to the camp at a breakneck pace, her cheeks flushed.

"What is it?" Kev murmured, gently taking the object from her, his free hand coming to rub her back. He looked down at a small vial filled with powder.

"The antidote," she said. "Give it to him quickly."

"How do you know it's the right medicine?"

"I made Dr. Harrow tell me."

"He might have been lying."

"No. I'm sure he wasn't, because at that moment he was nearly on f-I mean, he was under duress."

Kev's fingers closed around the vial. There wasn't much choice. They could wait until they consulted a trustworthy doctor, but from the look of it, Cam didn't have much time to spare. And doing nothing was not an option, either.

Kev proceeded to dissolve ten grains in a small quantity of water, reasoning that it was better to start with a weak solution rather than overdose Cam with yet another poison. He eased Cam to a sitting position, supporting him against his chest. Delirious and unsteady, Cam made a protesting noise as the movement sent new pain through his cramping muscles.

Although Kev couldn't see Cam's face, he saw Win's compassionate expression as she reached out to grip Cam 's jaw. She rubbed the frozen muscles and pried his mouth open. After tilting the liquid from a spoon into his mouth, she massaged his cheeks and throat, coaxing him to swallow. Cam downed the medicine and shuddered, and rested heavily against Kev.

"Thank you," Win whispered, stroking back Cam 's damp hair, flattening her palm against the side of his cold face. "You'll be better now. Lie easy, and let it take effect." Kev thought she had never looked as lovely as she did at that moment, her face soft with tender gravity. After a few minutes Win said quietly, "His color is improving."

And so was his breathing, the jagged rhythm lengthening and slowing. Kev felt Cam 's body relax, the clenched muscles softening as the active principles of the digitalis were neutralized.

Cam stirred as if he were waking from a long sleep. "Amelia," he said in an opium-slurred voice.

Win took one of his hands in hers. "She's quite well, and waiting for you at home, dear."

"Home," he repeated with an exhausted nod.

Kev lowered Cam carefully to the berth and looked over him in sharp assessment. The masklike pallor was vanishing second by second, healthy color returning to his face. The rapidity of the transformation was no less than astonishing.

The amber eyes cracked open, and Cam focused on Kev. "Merripen," Cam said in a tone so lucid that Kev was overcome with relief.

"Yes, phralT

"Am I dead?"

"No."

"I must be."

"Why?" Kev asked, amused.

"Because…" Cam paused to moisten his dry lips. "Because you're smiling… and I just saw my cousin Noah over there."

The rom phuro came forward and knelt beside the berth. "Hello, Camlo," he murmured.

Cam regarded him with puzzled wonder. "Noah. You're older."

His cousin chuckled. "Indeed. The last time I saw you, you barely came up to my chest. And now you look as if you could be nearly a head taller than me."

"You never came back for me."

Kev broke in tautly. "And you never told him he had a brother."

Noah's smile turned regretful as he regarded them both. "I couldn't do either of those things. For your own protection." His gaze swerved in Kev's direction. "We were told you were dead, Kev. I'm glad to find out we were wrong. How did you survive? Where have you been living?"

Kev scowled at him. "Never mind about that. Rohan has spent years looking for you. Looking for answers. You tell him the truth now, about why he was sent away from the tribe, and what that cursed tattoo means. And don't leave anything out."

Noah looked mildly taken aback by Kev's autocratic manner. As the leader of the vitsa, Noah wasn't used to taking orders from anyone.

"He's always like this," Cam told Noah. "You get used to it."

Reaching beneath the berth, Noah pulled out a wooden box and began to rummage through its contents.

"What do you know about our Irish blood?" Kev demanded. "What was our father's name?"

"There is much I don't know," Noah admitted. Finding what he had evidently been looking for, he pulled it from the box and looked at Cam. "But our grandmother told me as much as she could on her deathbed. And she gave me this-"

He raised a tarnished silver knife.

In a lightning-swift reflex, Kev seized his cousin's wrist in a crushing grip. Win gave a startled cry, while Cam tried unsuccessfully to lift up on his elbows.

Noah stared hard into Kev's eyes. "Peace, Cousin. I would never harm Camlo." He let his hand open. "Take it from me. It belongs to you; it was your father's. His name was Brian Cole."

Kev took the knife and slowly released Noah's wrist. He stared at the object, a boot knife with a double-edged fixed blade approximately four inches long. The handle was silver, with engraving on the bolsters. It looked old and costly. But what amazed Kev was the engraving on the flat of the handle… a perfect stylized symbol of the Irish pooka.

He showed it to Cam, who stopped breathing for a moment.

"You are Cameron and Kevin Cole," Noah said. That horse symbol was the mark of your family.… It was in their crest. When we separated the two of you, it was decided to put the mark on both of you. Not only to identify you, but also as an appeal to the second son of Moshto, to preserve and protect you."

"Who is Moshto?" Win asked softly.

"A Romany deity," Kev said, hearing his own dazed voice as if it belonged to someone else. "The god of all things good."

"I looked…" Cam began, still staring at the knife, and shook his head as if the effort to explain was too much.

Kev spoke for him. "My brother hired heraldic experts and researchers to go through books of Irish family crests, and they never found this symbol."

"I believe the Coles removed the pooka from the crest about three hundred years ago, when the English king declared himself the head of the Church of Ireland. The pooka was a pagan symbol. No doubt they thought it might threaten their standing in the reformed Church. But the Coles still had a fondness for it. I remember your father wore a big silver ring engraved with the pooka."

Glancing at his brother, Kev sensed that Cam felt just as he did, that it was like having been in a closed room all his life and suddenly having a door opened.

"Your father, Brian," Noah continued, "was the son of Lord Cavan, an Irish representative peer in the British House of Lords. Brian was his only heir. But your father made a mistake-he fell in love with a Romany girl named Sonya. Quite beautiful. He married her in defiance of his family, and hers. They lived away from everyone long enough for Sonya to have two sons. She died in her childbed when Cam was born."

"I always thought my mother died having me," Kev said softly. "I never knew about a younger brother."

"It was after the second son that she went to God." Noah looked pensive. "I was old enough to remember the day Cole brought the two of you to our grandmother. He told Mami it had been a misery trying to live in both worlds, and he wanted to go back where he belonged. So he left his children with the tribe and never returned."

"Why did you separate us?" Cam asked, still looking exhausted but far more like his usual self.

Noah stood in an easy movement and went to the corner near the stove. As he replied, he made tea with deft assurance, measuring out dried leaves into a little pot of steaming water. "After a few years, your father remarried. And then other vitsas told us that some gadjos had come looking for the boys, offering money for information and doing violence when the Rom wouldn't tell them anything. We realized your father wanted to get rid of his half-breed sons, who were the legitimate heirs to the title. He had a new wife, who would bear him white children."