The Rebellious Rake (The Notorious Nightingales #4)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“ Y ou want to live here?” Ramsey asked the infuriatingly beautiful Miss Thomas. “In London?”

“There is little for me now in Willow Hill. Why not here? It is close to my cousins, who are the only people I know in London. The residents of Crabbett Close may be a little odd?—”

“Little?”

“A lot odd, but they are kind and generous. I think the question should be why would I not want to live here?”

She wore a thick coat in the same deep red as her bonnet, with black braiding marching down the front and around the cuffs. A gray scarf was wrapped around her neck. Her cheeks were pink, and she looked like a lush sugarplum he wanted to bite into.

Sweet, Ram thought. The brandy she’d consumed had made her eyes glassy. Clearly Flora was not someone who drank often. But frustratingly he was no closer as to what was really bothering her.

“What are you hiding inside that head of yours? ”

She didn’t look at him as he spoke, just up at the building.

“If you need help and have no wish to elicit your brother’s or your cousins’, then allow me to assist you, Flora. You helped when I most needed it, after all.”

“I would ask them if I needed help.” She gave him a haughty look over her shoulder and then walked toward the front door. Grabbing the knob, she turned it, and the door swung open.

Ram watched her disappear inside and knew that what she hadn’t said was “I would not ask you before them for help.” On a loud sigh, he followed.

The house smelled like it had been closed up for some time. That musty smell of old scents that were steeped in the carpets and walls left behind by those who had once lived here.

The entranceway had a set of stairs heading up to the next floor and a room off to the right and the left. He trod up the tattered-edged floor runner. It was in a room to the left that he found Flora again. She was walking across it, counting.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve always wanted a piano. I think this could be a nice room for it, especially in the warmer months.”

Ram found himself a bit annoyed at her words; after all, it was him that Alex had brought to look at the house, even though he had declared vehemently that he had no wish to buy it.

She was pacing back across the room now.

“Do you play?”

“I would hardly want to purchase a piano if I did not.”

Which, if he’d thought about it, was obvious. Her snooty tone increased his irritation; he loathed appearing foolish in front of anyone .

“Why did you leave Mr. Huntington’s warehouse at a run after speaking with me?” Flora asked suddenly.

“I thought I saw someone watching me.” There was no point in lying; after all, she was the woman who had saved his life last night.

She stopped and looked at him. “Oh dear, really?”

“He left before I could reach him.”

“Perhaps you were mistaken?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t think so, do you?”

“I don’t know, Flora, but after last night, you can hardly blame me for wondering.” Ram knew his tone was testy and could do nothing about it. He felt testy. “Why were you and your brother arguing?”

“We always argue,” she said, dismissing his question. Ram hated it when she dismissed him like that. In fact, it was fair to say Miss Flora Thomas brought out all his worst traits at the same time.

“Have you always known about what you can do? Like the Nightingales, I mean?” he said, attempting to change the conversation to something that would not irritate him and have her answering with some waspish reply.

“It’s a very nice room,” she said, looking around her. “And yes, I knew something was different about both Charles and me. My sister, Madeline, is a sturdy soul and would not allow herself to believe she was capable of any kind of clairvoyance, even though we’re sure she has an uncanny ability to find things like Leo.”

“Your mother?” Ram asked.

Flora nodded. “But again, that was not something she wanted to discuss, so she ignored it. But her uncanny knack to know when we were doing something we shouldn’t led Charles and me to deduce she may be like him.”

“He has the ability to hear things?” Ram was curious and always had been about the abilities of his friends. Even more so now with Flora. In fact, everything about this woman intrigued him far more than it should.

“He can hear his name being called from a great distance sometimes. Messages come to him when no one is around. That kind of thing,” she said, as if it were commonplace.

“You said something to me in that sewer about your father being a disappointment, or along those lines, Flora. Is that what is bothering you?”

“I don’t believe that is any business of yours, Mr. Hellion, and surely after what I endured down there with you, I could be quite shaken from the experience. You can allow me that much at least?”

“Possibly, but I don’t believe that is all that is bothering you. So I am asking you to tell me.” If he had not known it was Flora he’d held down there in that sewer, Ram could be convinced it was another woman. She’d come completely undone; she’d been vulnerable and allowed him to protect her. Looking at that raised chin and frosty expression, he doubted she’d ever let him hold her again. The hell of it was he wanted to.

Flora had felt perfect inside his arms, just as the top of her head had been the perfect place for him to put his chin. He hated that he knew her scent now. The subtle fragrance that tended to linger in the air long after she’d left the room. Lemon and cinnamon, plus something else he’d never been able to identify.

“No. We mean little to each other, and I doubt we could even loosely be termed friends, so stop the inquisition. I shall speak with my cousins, as clearly they are worried enough to have mentioned their concerns to you. Why they would, I’m unsure,” she muttered.

“So there is something else wrong?”

She made a sound like a pot expelling steam, and he thought it was probably a sound she’d made many times when debating things with her siblings over the years.

“Be quiet,” Flora then muttered.

Ram felt more of his foul humor slide away as he watched her study the room and did the same. There was a bookshelf, fireplace, and—as it was still furnished—two chairs placed with a small table between them before the window. The furniture had scrapes and nicks but looked sturdy enough. The entire place had a tired feel, like it was attempting to rally and yet the effort was too much.

Looking out the window, Ram saw the park and watched Alex dive at Chester, who was seated a few feet away with bread dangling from his mouth. Soggy bread, one would think, by now. The dog waited until Alex was a mere foot away and dodged. He then loped away with Ram’s now-clean shaggy gray hound on his heels. Clearly they had become friends.

If I lived here, they could play together daily.

“I’m not living here,” he muttered.

Flora’s eyes shot to his. “I believe we’ve already established that, and also that I may be interested in living here with my brother,” she said. Her tone, if possible, had become snootier.

“What else do your abilities allow you to do?”

She looked up at him, one brow arched delicately. Not delicately. Damn the woman—everything she did was bloody alluring.

“Another personal question, Mr. Hellion? I think this inquisition is over, and never will we speak to each other in such a way again.”

The brandy had not affected her ability to be cutting, it seemed. She then brushed by him and out the door. Ram followed.

The walls were a faded brown, and the floor rugs worn around the edges. He let his eyes study the wooden paneling and then travel to the roof, which was peeling and chipped.

The sound of Flora stomping up the stairs made Ram’s lips twitch, and suddenly he wasn’t angry anymore but curious. The woman intrigued him far too much. He took the stairs up and watched the swish of her lilac-and-emerald skirts peeking out from beneath her coat, and then she disappeared with a final glimpse of the heels of her small leather boots.

Ram rarely followed anyone, but he was following her. He’d been an only child, so he’d not had to consider a sibling and spent a lot of time alone, as his parents were socializing and of the opinion their son should be raised by servants. He had played with others, but they were not siblings or cousins. Gray had been in his life for a while, but after they’d left for India he’d not seen him again until Ram and his mother had returned to England.

He’d always forged his own path. And yet here I am following her.

“Oh!”

At Flora’s shriek, Ram ran down the hall and through a door. He found her seated at a huge harp.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, her tone awed. Her long, slender fingers then started to pluck the strings.

“My heart nearly stopped at your shriek,” Ram said.

“Forgive me, but look, it is a lovely old harp, Ramsey.” Her voice held awe rather than the cold tone she usually reserved for him.

Ram couldn’t move. It felt like someone had his heart in a viselike grip as he saw Flora’s cool expression slide into one of joy. In the last two days, she’d shown him fear, anger, and now pure delight.

A small, secretive smile played across her lips as she stroked the strings like a lover would caress skin. Ram felt a stab of something that he’d like to think was indigestion, but as it was in the heart region, he couldn’t be sure. Shaking himself out of the shock and the need to stay there and watch Flora play that harp, he deliberately turned his back on her and studied the room—or tried to.

His pulse raced, and his chest was tight. Emotion coursed through him at an uncomfortable speed. Closing his eyes, he inhaled and held the breath and then released it. The soft, haunting music swept over him as he did it twice more and felt no calmer.

“It’s a wonderful room. I think the piano should go in here, right next to the harp,” Flora said from behind him. Thankfully it appeared her fixation with the instrument had eased. “I shall pace this room now, but it is clearly big enough.”

She came into his line of vision, taking long strides across the room. When she turned and repeated the process, he grabbed her as she reached him.

“You”—he pulled her into his body—“are excessively annoying.”

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Her eyes held his as he tilted her chin at just the right angle. She didn’t fight him; in fact, Ram thought she leaned closer.

“Dicing with something I should not,” he whispered, lowering his head.