“No worries, love.” Jamie navigated around another corner. “I have just the place for you to stash it. You go off, have your wash and supper, and fetch it in the morning.”
“You mean you’ll take it to your flat?” Evie asked worriedly. “I can hardly visit you to fetch it there.” She’d be labeled fast if she entered a gentleman’s establishment, even on an errand.
“Not my flat,” Jamie reassured her. “It isn’t far.”
“That’s a mercy.” Evie watched another walker pass, a man hurrying home out of the rain. “Else we might not arrive until the sun rises.”
“Very droll, McKnight. Enjoy the ride. This is one of the finest electric cars in the world.”
The seat was indeed comfortable, in spite of the chill, the inside of the car paneled in polished marquetry. If Evie weren’t so concerned about hiding the alabastron and sneaking herself back into Hayden’s house, she might have found the going pleasant.
Jamie wound through smaller streets, bypassing Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, which were full of wagons and carriages. In a still narrower lane, he glided the car to a halt in front of a gate hung between high stone walls.
“What is this place?” Evie asked uneasily. She saw no one in the inky darkness except a few furtive shadows that flitted around a corner at the far end of the street.
“My cousin’s lock-up.” Jamie slid out of the car into rain that had started to pelt down again. “You drive it inside while I man the gate.”
Evie popped out of the back door. “Drive? I can’t drive a motorcar.”
“There’s nothing to it.” Jamie held the door until Evie nervously slid into the driver’s seat. “You push the tiller forward, like so, and it goes.” His large, gloved hand covered hers and wrapped it around the vertical lever. “A nudge is all you need. Wait ’til I have the gate open.”
Jamie shut the door and hastened to unlock a massive padlock and swing the gate wide. He’d halted the car so it was exactly out of range of the long gate, showing he’d done this many times.
He stepped inside the shelter of the cavernous interior and waved her in.
Evie gulped as she gingerly pressed the lever forward. It glided on its shaft, the handle still warm from Jamie’s grip.
She jumped in excitement as the car moved forward. She was driving!
Jamie sprang back as she brushed past him, narrowly missing one of the gate posts, but then she was inside, the rain mercifully left behind. Jamie hadn’t instructed Evie on how to stop the car, but when she pulled the lever back toward her, the car halted.
Jamie closed the gate, shutting them in, then lit a lantern to push away the darkness. He reached in through the car’s window and touched a switch, and the motorcar’s lights went black.
Evie sprang out when he withdrew, her heart racing. “That was glorious. How wonderful.” What an exhilarating freedom to guide a vehicle with just a touch.
Jamie grinned at her. He was achingly handsome when he smiled. His hair was plastered to his face, his kilt clinging to a honed and muscular body.
Evie grinned back at him, excitement streaming through her. “We’ve done it.” She gave a little hop, not caring how childish she looked.
Jamie caught her hands and swung her around, joining her dance of victory.
They’d found the alabastron and spirited it away, and here they were, triumphant, in a place far from home, where no one knew where Evie was.
It was like being tipsy from champagne, fizzing bubbles making her laugh. Jamie laughed with her, his rumbling voice merging with hers.
Evie spun until she was dizzy, then she found herself with her back to the cool fender of the bottle-green car, Jamie’s warmth against her.
A well of happiness Evie had never experienced surged up to heat her body. Jamie’s weight against her licked fire through her veins, which soared to blazing when his arms closed around her and his mouth came down on hers.
Chapter 13
Jamie tasted Evie’s gasp of surprise, then she was rising to him, seizing fistfuls of his coat, kissing him fully in return.
Her lips were hot, ripe, welcoming him. Jamie shoved his hand through her wet hair, tilting her to him, their mouths fusing, each seeking the other. Jamie’s heart pumped rapidly, filling him with the wildness that only came with danger.
Evie was dangerous. With her dark blue eyes, her flyaway black hair, and her smile that made him breathless, she sparked something in him that had never flared before. Even the way she called him Mackenzie, as though they were still fellow students, filled him with joy. Teasing, familiar, comfortable.
His teeth scraped her lip, but she didn’t pull away. Jamie firmed her against him with his arm around her waist, her body beneath the layers of clothing igniting desires that seared his blood.
She was desperate for loving, for affection, for passion. Jamie tasted it in her, felt it in her grasping hands.
Abruptly Evie wrenched her mouth from his, but she clung to him, eyes enormous, breath coming fast. They stared at each other a long moment, then Evie launched herself at Jamie again, kissing his face, his chin, the side of his neck.
Jamie let her feast, then he caught her, lifting her face to his once more. He kissed her lips then licked her cheek, teeth and tongue moving to her throat.
She tasted of salt and need and the distinctive fragrance of Evie. Jamie had never forgotten it, he realized now, in all the years he’d made light of his brief encounter with her.
Evie’s breath scalded his face, her skin hot beneath his lips. It was cold in the lock-up, rain drumming on the high windows, but the air burned between the two of them.
Evie’s fists thumped into Jamie’s chest. Jamie felt the change in her, the awakening from her daze, reality rushing at them once more.
Jamie ended the kiss, and they held each other’s gaze. Fires swam in Evie’s eyes as well as sorrow, anger, regret, and vast confusion.
They still had hold of each other. Jamie couldn’t relax his grip to step away, and neither, it seemed, could she.
“This …” Evie’s whisper was a croak. “This is wrong.”
It wasn’t wrong. It was right, the rightest Jamie had felt in his life. He’d roamed the world, seeking satisfaction and never quite finding it. Now he knew why.
Because it had been here, in the rainy and dank land of England, waiting for him. The world had shoved him and Evie together once before. Jamie had not understood, and walked away.
It was shoving them together again, and this time, he refused to ignore their fate.
Jamie touched her cheek. “He is wrong for you.” His Mackenzie origins came through his voice, any Englishness pounded into him by an endless line of tutors vanishing. “Can you nae see that?”
Evie shook her head the slightest bit. “Does it matter?”
“Of course, it matters.” Jamie’s anger at Atherton surged. “Ye want to be tied to a tedious fool the rest of your life, who abandons you when ye need him, who leaves ye to the mercy of a man like me?”
A swallow moved in Evie’s throat. “I have my reasons, and I don’t have much choice. I’m not clever or rich or talented, like ladies who become scholars or artists or …”
She threw open her hands, which meant she let go of Jamie. It was cold without her touch.