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lasses with my witty repartee on a daily basis, Miss Ferguson.”
    Sorcha couldn’t hold back a groan. When would she remember that Lycans could hear every mutter she made?
    Every comment she tossed out under her breath went straight to their ears. “Why do I always forget about their impeccable hearing?” she asked herself. Since she was already talking to herself like a ninny, she would probably be safe to continue. “He’s listening right now, in fact, though how he can hear me over that atrociously sized foot in my mouth, I’ve no idea. I had no idea Lycans were that astute.”
    “Pardon me, Miss Ferguson,” Lord Radbourne said, standing taller as he appeared to sober before her very eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t bandy that little fact about in such a cavalier manner. It’s a well-kept secret. One I was unaware you knew about.”
    “Oh, doona worry. I have secrets of my own that I’d no’ like ta be bandied about. The fact that ye are what ye are is no’ somethin’ I would discuss with anyone else. Ye have my word on it.”
    For some reason, she felt the need to reassure him.
    Probably because he looked so discomfited by the fact that she knew. She reached a hand up to smooth his lapel. And let it linger there as her eyes sought his. She needed him to understand that she would never, ever tell.

Chapter Four
    Alec MacQuarrie stepped out of the tavern and looked up at the night sky. He’d needed only moments of surveying the taproom to realize that an adequate dinner would not be possible tonight. At least not at The Knight’s Arms. Being a vampyre was a damned nuisance, especially when one was a gentleman beneath all the darkness.
    Life would be so much easier if he had fewer scruples, or perhaps if he had the ability to block out the feelings of the whore who was to be his meal. But to his dismay, when he took from a woman and allowed a bond to be created between them, when he sealed his mouth over her skin and drank her in, he took in too many harmful emotions along with her life-giving blood. Despair coursed through Alec in those moments, so he avoided unfamiliar chits at all costs.
    At least at his club in London, the Cyprians were accustomed to his idiosyncrasies. The women at Brysi would let him drink his fill in exchange for pleasure and coin. They no longer expected more than he was able to give, and they didn’t need to be enchanted. He hated usurping a woman’s free will, which is what he would be doing if he spent any more time inside The Knight’s Arms with his traveling companions.
    He’d lost track of the Hadley twins almost as soon as they’d entered the establishment. They’d set their sights on two pretty little wenches who seemed determined to fight over which one of them would get to tup the one with the scar. What was alluring about having been branded by a vampyre, Alec had no idea. Yet something apparently was.
    Bexley had settled at a table with local fellows involved in what appeared to be faro. Radbourne had somehow disappeared. And Alec was bored out of his mind.
    As his foot hit the top step, a gentle wind came up to brush the hair from his forehead, and along with it came the scent of apple blossoms. Apple blossoms? Why did that scent seem so familiar? He racked his brain, trying to remember where he’d last smelled that delightful aroma.
    Just thinking about it made his mouth water.
    Then he heard her giggle.
    Alec spun around quickly and looked into the darkness.
    His excellent vision didn’t let him down. He saw the back of a nearby coach that was stopped outside a tiny bookstore.
    And standing in its shadows was a lass. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, though he didn’t need to do so.
    He wouldn’t mistake Sorcha for anything. That was her scent. That was her lovely hair piled atop her head. That was her… touching Radbourne ? By God, she was! Alec was across the street in the blink of an eye. He stood behind the coach and listened, hoping to