FastSaying

Cam … would you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Could you find some of that plant Merripen gave to Win and Leo for the scarlet fever?”
He drew back and looked at her. “Deadly nightshade? That wouldn’t work for this, sweetheart.”
“But it’s a fever.”
“Caused by a septic wound. You have to treat the source of the fever.” His hand went to the back of her neck, soothing the tautly strung muscles. He stared at a distant point on the floor, appearing to think something over. His tangled lashes made shadows over his hazel eyes. “Let’s go have a look at him.”
“Do you think you could help him?” Poppy asked, springing to her feet.
“Either that, or my efforts will finish him off quickly. Which, at this point, he may not mind.” Lifting Amelia from his lap, Cam set her carefully on her feet, and they proceeded up the stairs. His hand remained at the small of her back, a light but steady support she desperately needed.
As they approached Merripen’s room, it occurred to Amelia that Win might still be inside. “Wait,” she said, hastening forward. “Let me go first.”
Cam stayed beside the door.
Entering the room with caution, Amelia saw that Merripen was alone in the bed. She opened the door wider and gestured for Cam and Poppy to enter.
Becoming aware of intruders in the room, Merripen lurched to his side and squinted at them. As soon as he caught sight of Cam, his face contracted in a surly grimace.
“Bugger off,” he croaked.
Cam smiled pleasantly. “Were you this charming with the doctor? I’ll bet he was falling all over himself to help you.”
“Get away from me.”
“This may surprise you,” Cam said, “but there’s a long list of things I’d prefer to look at rather than your rotting carcass. For your family’s sake, however, I’m willing. Turn over.”
Merripen eased his front to the mattress and said something in Romany that sounded extremely foul.
“You, too,” Cam said equably.

Lisa Kleypas

Related Quotes

Well?” Amelia demanded, clearly unaware of the turn of his thoughts. Which was a good thing, as they likely would have sent her screaming from the room. “Have you discovered anything about my brother’s whereabouts?”
“I have.”
“And?”
“Lord Ramsay visited earlier this evening, lost some money at the hazard table—”
“Thank God he’s alive,” Amelia exclaimed.
“—and apparently decided to console himself by visiting a nearby brothel.”
“Brothel?” She shot Merripen an exasperated glance. “I swear it, Merripen, he’ll die at my hands tonight.” She looked back at Cam. “How much did he lose at the hazard table?”
“Approximately five hundred pounds.”
The pretty blue eyes widened in outrage. “He’ll die slowly at my hands. Which brothel?”
“Bradshaw’s.”
Amelia reached for her bonnet. “Come, Merripen. We’re going there to collect him.”
Both Merripen and Cam replied at the same time. “No.”
“I want to see for myself if he’s all right,” she said calmly. “I very much doubt he is.” She gave Merripen a frosty stare. “I’m not returning home without Leo.”
Half amused, half alarmed by her force of will, Cam asked Merripen, “Am I dealing with stubbornness, idiocy, or some combination of the two?”
Amelia replied before Merripen had the opportunity. “Stubbornness, on my part. The idiocy may be attributed entirely to my brother.” She settled the bonnet on her head and tied its ribbons beneath her chin.
— Lisa Kleypas
ameliacamhaha
A footman knocked at the door, the sound echoing through the entrance hall.
The sisters looked at each other uneasily. “We can’t answer it,” Amelia said. “We’re in our nightclothes.”
A maid came into the entrance hall. Setting down a pail of coal, she wiped her hands on her apron and hastened to the door. Unlocking the massive portal, she tugged it open and bobbed a curtsy.
“Come away,” Amelia muttered, urging Poppy back to the stairs with her. But as she glanced back over her shoulder to see who had come, the sight of a man’s tall, dark form struck sparks inside her. She stopped with her foot on the first step, staring and staring, until a pair of amber eyes looked in her direction.
Cam.
He looked disheveled and disreputable, like an outlaw on the run. A smile came to his lips, while he stared at her intently. “It seems I can’t stay away from you,” he said.
She rushed to him without thinking, almost stumbling in her haste. “Cam—”
He caught her up with a low laugh.
— Lisa Kleypas
cam-and-amelia
Browsing among the stalls, the sisters feasted on hand-sized pork pies, leek pasties, apples and pears, and to the girls’ delight, “gingerbread husbands.” The gingerbread had been pressed into wooden man-shaped molds, baked and gilded. The baker at the stall assured them that every unmarried maiden must eat a gingerbread husband for luck, if she wanted to catch the real thing someday.
A laughing mock argument sprang up between Amelia and the baker as she flatly refused one for herself, saying she had no wish to marry.
“But of course you do!” the baker declared with a sly grin. “It’s what every woman hopes for.”
Amelia smiled and passed the gingerbread men to her sisters. “How much for three, sir?”
“A farthing each.” He attempted to hand her a fourth. “And this for no charge. It would be a sad waste for a lovely blue-eyed lady to go without a husband.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Amelia protested. “Thank you, but I don’t—”
A new voice came from behind her. “She’ll take it.”
Discomfiture and pleasure seethed low in her body, and Amelia saw a dark masculine hand reaching out, dropping a silver piece into the baker’s upturned palm.
Hearing her sisters’ giggling exclamations, Amelia turned and looked up into a pair of bright hazel eyes.
“You need the luck,” Cam Rohan said, pushing the gingerbread husband into her reluctant hands. “Have some.”
She obeyed, deliberately biting off the head, and he laughed.
— Lisa Kleypas
cam-and-ameliagingerbread
Rohan’s head lifted. His eyes glowed as if brimstone were contained within the dark-rimmed irises. He spoke slowly, as if he were collecting words like fallen leaves. “This is probably a bad idea.”
Amelia nodded shakily. “Yes, Mr. Rohan.”
His fingertips teased a fresh surge of color to the surface of her cheeks. “My name is Cam.”
“I can’t call you that.”
“Why not?”
“You know why,” came her unsteady reproach. A long breath was neatly rifted as she felt his mouth descend to her cheek, exploring the rosy skin. “What does it mean?”
“My name? It’s the Romany word for ‘sun.’”
Amelia could scarcely think. “As in … the offspring of a father, or in the sky?”
“Sky.” He moved to the arch of her eyebrow, kissing the outward tip. “Did you know a Gypsy has three names?”
She shook her head slowly, while his mouth slid across her forehead. He pressed a warm veil of words against her skin. “The first is a secret name a mother whispers into her child’s ear at birth. The second is a tribal name used only by other Gypsies. The third is the name we use with non-Roma.”
His scent was all around her, spare and fresh and delicious. “What is your tribal name?”
He smiled slightly, the shape of his mouth a burning motif against her cheek. “I can’t tell you. I don’t know you well enough yet.”
Yet. The tantalizing promise embedded in that word shortened her breath. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Please, we mustn’t—” But the words were lost as he bent and took her mouth hungrily.
— Lisa Kleypas
cam-and-amelianames
He dismounted and helped Amelia to the ground. At his direction, she sat on a fallen birch log while he set up a makeshift camp. She waited with her hands folded neatly in her lap, watching his every movement as he pulled a bundle of blankets from the packsaddle. In a few minutes he had made a fire in the stone-circled pit and laid out a pallet beside it.
Amelia hurried to the pile of blankets and burrowed beneath the layers of wool and quilted cotton. “Is it safe out here?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“You’re safe from everything but me.” Smiling, Cam lowered himself beside her.
— Lisa Kleypas
cam-and-ameliasafe