“Evan,” she said, shoving a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “We’re out of time. If they escape your village and turn this over to their handlers—”
“Let me rephrase,” he interrupted. “While you slept the afternoon away, I found the cure.” He no longer felt as if a spotted jaguar hunted him in the night. Once again the future held promise of happiness.
“A cure!” She rushed to the table, but its surface was clear. “What is it? What worked?”
“Copper,” he answered, pointing to the aetheroscope upon his desk. “Take a look.” As she bent over to peer into the aetheroscope, he explained. “You were right to suggest chemicals. Blue vitriol added to a khu-neh-ari preparation optimized for maximum naphthoquinone content. Neither works alone, but together, the copper multiplies the effect of the ointment.”
She straightened. A wide smile lit up her face, her eyes. “This means we can treat the fairy well.”
“Not quite.” He waved a hand at his shelves. “I’ve not a fully-stocked pharmacy here,” he reminded her. “Just a small bottle of copper sulfate. We’ll need to make more.”
“Simple enough. A couple copper farthings, some sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, a little electricity courtesy of a strong battery…”
“Exactly. For now, the resulting preparation is rather watery, more of a tonic than an ointment, but there’s more.” He lifted the eyedropper. “Watch.”
Holding out his hand, blue but for one small spot, he touched another drop of the solution to the skin on the back of his hand. Piyali stared intently, her eyes widening as a second circle of blue color began to fade, slowly returning to a more normal, flesh-colored shade.
“A biopsy,” she demanded, breathless. “We need unambiguous confirmation. Have you performed one?”
“Not yet.” He handed her a scalpel.
Piyali took a deep, calming breath, performed the procedure and inserted the slide into the aetheroscope. A moment later she pressed a hand to her heart and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Cured,” she announced, then flung her arms about his neck, hugging him tight.
His—their—entire future, saved.
He wrapped his arms about her waist, ignoring the various attachments of her stiff leather corset that jutted into his skin. “With the entire fairy well infested, we’ll need more of it than I have on hand in this bottle, but I’ve copper and acid and the khu-neh-ari liana grows quickly… with a touch of effort, we should be able to generate enough for our needs without traveling to Cardiff.” He slid his hands lower, spreading his fingers wide over the curve of her backside. Her soft breasts pressing against his chest made it impossible to concentrate. “Perhaps, before we set to work, we could celebrate.”
Chapter 10
“Oh, is there something in particular you’d like to do?” Piyali kissed the rough edge of his jaw in encouragement. Now was not the time to speak of their future, but instead to celebrate that they once again had one, one that they would share together. Applying her fingers to the buttons of his shirt, she spread the coarse linen wide and hummed in appreciation as she ran her palms over the strong muscles and crisp hairs that lay beneath.
“As if you need to ask.” He unfasted the metal buckles of her corset and stripped away the leather barrier that encircled her waist. Sliding his hands beneath the hem of her choli, he skimmed his palms over her rib cage before pulling the garment down her arms and dropping it to the floor. “I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you, about us.”
She stood still as he caught a loose strand of her hair between his fingertips and drew its silky length forward across her shoulder. The backs of his fingers caressed the curve of her breast and her nipple tightened under his appreciative gaze. Then something in his eyes shifted. “I should have written sooner. The time we’ve lost…”
Brushing the pad of her thumb across his lips, she said, “I should have sent another skeet pigeon. And another. Until an entire flock pecked at your windows and compelled a reply. Forgive me?”
“Always.”
Catching his lips with hers, she poured every ounce of her love into her kiss. Barriers crumbled between them, but Piyali refused to allow the tears that pricked at her eyes to ruin the pure joy of this moment. She held still as he pushed her away, tugging the string free from the end of her braid. He ran his fingers through her hair until it fell in loose waves, covering her shoulders and cascading down her back.
Only then did she step forward to peel back the collar of his shirt and press her lips to the soft skin of his neck where his pulse throbbed and tendrils of blue skin glimmered. “I’ve a request,” she said, her voice once again light and teasing.
“Anything.” His hands encircled her waist, urging her closer until the hard column of his shaft pressed against her stomach.
“A final request of sorts.”
Worried eyes lifted to hers. “Final?”
“A final… performance for your hand.” Her face burned at the erotic image that rose to mind. “I want to see it—or not—as it moves over my skin.” Watching and not seeing, as if surrendering to a sensual dream.
His answering laugh was a low rumble. “Look down, then. Watch.”
She lowered her gaze as his work-roughened left hand—in all its iridescent beauty—slid upward over her ribs to lift the weight of her breast in his palm. Something scraped the tip of her nipple—his fingernail—but she saw almost nothing. Everything was pure sensation. The roll of her flesh between his invisible thumb and forefinger. A delicious pinch sending a jolt of heat through her core.
“Evan!” she cried out as heat flooded her center, and her hips bucked against his. Then his mouth descended upon her other breast, sucking its tip deep into wet heat. “More,” she demanded.
His hands left her breasts and cupped her buttocks. In one smooth motion, Evan lifted her into the air and strode across the room. Her backside landed upon the scarred, wooden table. He yanked the slippers from her feet and dragged off her skirt. “Not once did I ever imagine you spread like a feast upon my table.” His eyes glinted darkly as they raked down her body. “But now that you’re there…” He spread her knees apart, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Don’t forget to watch.”
An unseen hand swept across her thigh, his finger slipping along her wetness, gently circling her nub. “Aether,” she whispered, falling back onto her hands and arching her back when he plunged an invisible finger inside. In. Then out. And in. Her eyes fluttered shut.
“You’re forgetting to look,” he said, dark laughter in his voice. She forced her eyes open. The pressure inside her increased—a second finger joining the first—and then the base of his hand pressed hard against her mound.
Her hips bucked. Enough. Clawing at his waistband, she unfastened his trousers and shoved them down over his hips. “I want you inside me.”
“So soon?” he asked. “I thought—”
“Now.” Encircling his thick, hard length with her fingers, she drew forth a groan.
The pressure from his fingers slid away. A moment passed as he dug into his pocket, then a paper wrapper tore, and he covered himself. Rough hands dragged her hips to the edge of the wooden table. She lowered herself backward onto her elbows and wrapped her legs around his bare backside, urging him closer.
The head of his cock notched against her center. He gripped her hips and took her with one powerful thrust of his hips. Yes. That. That was the pressure she craved. Filled, stretched. Claimed by the man she loved.
“God, you’re perfect.” He retreated, then surged forward again. Over and over.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted him closer. Needed him. She caught the free edges of his shirt and dragged him down on top of her. The crisp hairs of his chest rasped against her nipples, sending a tremor across her skin. The table beneath her grated against the floorboards, shifting with each passionate thrust, a potent expression of desire.
“Yes, Evan,” she cried. “Don’t stop.” She lifted her knee
s higher, tipping her pelvis and twining her legs about his thighs to pull him deeper.
He grasped her hips, increasing the angle of his thrusts to rub harder against her center. His hot mouth fell against her neck, a gentle bite that left her mewling.
“Piyali,” he rasped. “Come for me.”
Her nails dug into his backside as a desperate tension built inside her and at last burst free. “Evan!” She cried out as tremors rolled over her, muscles clenching around increasingly frenzied thrusts. With a yell, he stiffened, driving himself into her one last time.
Sense returned slowly. Slowly, lazily, she opened her eyes and smiled. “How many feet did we travel?”
Laughing, he stabbed his fingers into her hair and gave her a long kiss before straightening. “Three?” Lifting her into his arms, he carried her upstairs to his bed, laying her upon its soft surface. “Tables might have their points, but beds…” He climbed in beside her, and she draped an arm across his chest, resting her head on his shoulder. His fingers trailed through her hair and she let her mind drift away as he murmured into her hair. “Once we eradicate this parasite, the Queen’s agents never need know about any of this.”
On the edge of sleep, his words shattered her euphoria. “What?” She bolted upright, clutching the sheet to her chest. “You still think there’s no need to inform Mr. Black?”
“Exactly that,” Evan replied.
“It’s too late to hide what happened. Besides, he has ways of making people talk. When I bring them in, the Parkers will tell him everything. As will Tegan and her family. I’d look like a fool.” Her career would never recover. How could he ask this of her? She climbed from the bed, wrapping the sheet about her. “Impossible.”
“Why?” he countered, missing her warmth, even though the blaze of her narrow-eyed stare threatened to incinerate him. “Without the parasite, there’s no risk of further infection. Once we treat the pool…” He trailed off, knowing they were at an impasse.
“Not so. Even after it’s treated, the contaminated well water will need to be monitored on a regular basis to be certain the parasite does not take on a cyst form. Some unicellular organisms can survive months in cold water in such a state. To do that, my laboratory will need to know what to look for and how to identify the particular organism involved. I’ve no choice. Mr. Black must be informed.”
She was right. Even if she agreed to hide the events of the past few days, Mr. Black would learn of them during an interrogation of the Parkers. He asked her to jeopardize both her career as a Queen’s agent and the laboratory she’d been granted at Lister University. Not something he had the right to do.
“No.” Piyali sliced a hand through the air. “I’ll have no part in concealing this.” She shot down the stairs.
The sheet from his bed made a soft swoosh as its loose end trailed downward. He yanked on a pair of trousers, grabbed a clean shirt and followed. “If we can wipe it out entirely, it won’t fall into the wrong hands,” he entreated.
Already she was half-dressed and pulling on her slippers. “Better to make a full report in the event that someone—hostile or friendly—encounters this infection again.”
“Government has a way of abusing scientific advances,” he countered, buttoning his shirt then reaching for his boots.
“True.” She buckled her corset about her waist. “But who’s to say the Russians haven’t already been informed of this blue frog and the effects of its bite? Or whether or not they take the Parkers’ reports seriously? Even if they don’t have a sample yet, they’re going to know where to send their people to look. Tracking your movements through Brazil can’t possibly be that difficult. We take the frog into custody and record the cure. Better to be prepared, than to be caught unawares.”
Evan pressed his lips together. They would never agree. Though he didn’t relish the task, better for the blue frog to die, than to fall into the hands of Lister’s research scientists. Not that that would stop herpetologists from hunting out more of its kind in Brazil. Perhaps he could simply soak the creature in the cure and deny this entire incident? He grabbed the flask of copper and khu-neh-ari extract. Pouring a generous amount into the palm of his hand, he began to rub the solution over his arm.
Piyali lifted an empty, lidded jar and strode into his greenhouse.
“Leave the creature here,” he objected, following in her wake. “You can’t possibly apprehend two Russian agents and keep the frog safe at the same time.”
“If I leave it here, will you guarantee the frog won’t disappear for good?” she asked, her expression growing suspicious.
Guilty intentions made him glance away. He’d make no such promises.
“I didn’t think so.” She bent before the terrarium squinting through the glass, searching for a hint of the frog. Unable to locate it, she heaved a sigh. “Can you see it?”
“Rather the point of being invisible, isn’t it?” The greenhouse door was closed, secured with the 3XR CinchBolt. Still, he too stared through the glass. Not with the intent of handing it over but worried the frog had somehow escaped once again despite the heavy pharmacology textbook he’d placed on the terrarium’s lid. He saw nothing blue. Nor was there a telltale pink and silver shimmer. Not even a frog-shaped blob reflecting the green of the terrarium’s plant life. A cold tendril of fear wrapped around his spine.
“Stand back.” If anyone was going to be bitten again, it was going to be him. Setting aside the textbook and shifting the lid, Evan reached inside. He felt nothing. When was the last time he thought to look for the frog? Yesterday. Before he plucked Sarah from Seren’s Well. “What exactly did Mrs. Parker claim she’d taken?”
A faint knocking began at his cottage door, one that grew more frantic by the moment.
“A plant cutting. But she also said, ‘I have it.’ Do you think she meant the frog?” Piyali clamped a hand across her mouth, her eyes wide. “That’s why she was unavailable last night to attend her daughter. If they’ve been watching you—us—then they know our every move. Mrs. Parker must have stolen the frog while we dealt with the aftermath of the fairy well altercation.”
A trained agent would able to pick his lock. It was a probable scenario. His heart crashed into his ribs, then took off at a breakneck speed. “Yes.” Sweat gathered at his temples. “I’ve no intention of handing over this frog to the Crown so they might seek out more of its kind. But I won’t have the Russians run away with it either, and I’m ninety-nine percent certain it’s not in this terrarium. They must have it already.”
A face pressed up against the window of the greenhouse wall. Sarah. She slapped her palm repeatedly against the glass, shaking the metal frame. “Help!” she yelled. Tears streamed down her face. “You have to help me!”
Evan darted to the greenhouse door, unlocking and yanking it open. “What is it?”
Sarah fell into his arms, sobbing against his chest.
“Beginning to be a bit of a pattern, all these girls throwing themselves at you.” Piyali’s lips twisted as she reached out and pried Sarah free, steering her by the shoulders into the cottage. “Come sit. Mr. Tredegar has a new treatment to apply, a guaranteed cure. Your ankle will be fine.” She pushed Sarah into a chair. “In the meantime, I have questions.” She reached for Sarah’s foot.
For months, the flirting had been relentless. Sarah and Tegan were too self-involved to realize his heart was sworn elsewhere. But Sarah wasn’t one to cry crocodile tears. “It’s not her ankle,” he said with gut-twisting certainty.
“It’s my mother,” she keened, dragging in great gulps of air. “He killed her.”
“Excuse me?” Piyali’s hands froze on Sarah’s stocking. “Explain.”
“My father,” Sarah cried, dashing away tears that would not stop falling. “They were fighting. It was awful. Worse than usual.” Large glistening eyes blinked up at Piyali. Gasping for air, she struggled to control her breath enough to speak. “My mother was yelling about you being more than just a doctor. About how
they were going to be locked away and tortured. She grabbed the teakettle from the kitchen range, shaking it at him and said something in a strange, foreign language. I’ve never seen my father look so angry. He raised his fist and struck her.” A fresh deluge of tears poured down her cheeks. “Her head hit the corner of the table.” A rattling gasp. “Blood. There was so much blood. And she didn’t move. Father yelled at me to ready the steam cart, but I ran here instead.”
“He needs to be stopped.” Piyali’s hand landed on her TTX pistol. She tugged it free, checking its readiness, before returning it to her holster.
“First we treat her ankle,” Evan ordered as he lifted the bottle of copper and khu-neh-ari extract. The situation was escalating out of control. He wouldn’t have this infection leaving his village. In any form. “It will only take a minute.”
Piyali threw him a narrow-eyed glance, but yanked down Sarah’s stocking and unwrapped the bandage about her ankle to reveal a glittering laceration. He soaked a cotton ball with the copper-liana tonic, then swabbed the liquid along the length of the suture. Corking the bottle, he shoved it into his pocket and yanked Sarah to her feet. “Grab the gauze,” he ordered Piyali. “We’ll bandage her later.”
After running from the cottage to a nearby shed, Piyali jumped into the passenger’s seat as he heaved Sarah into the bed of the wagon. Furiously, he cranked the vehicle to life.
“Hang on!” he yelled. Then, leaping into the driver’s seat, he jerked the break free and rammed the driveshaft into full forward. The crank wagon took off like a shot, its wheels clattering over the many stones that studded the packed-earth lane that led down the hill and into the village.
Chapter 11
Her teeth nearly rattling out of their sockets, Piyali clutched the edge of her seat while Evan took the corner onto the main street on two wheels. There, in front of The White Hare stood a steam cart, puffing as it idled with Mr. Parker at its side. He took one look at their approaching vehicle and flung the valise he held into the cart before climbing behind the wheel.
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