If He's Wild Read Online Free PDF

not to be such a coward. Iago needed a steady, calm presence and a willing ear right now. He needed someone he could speak to openly, honestly, without fearing that listener would run screaming into the night. That need for someone who could understand, who could accept such gifts without scorn or fear, was one thing that kept the Vaughns and Wherlockes so united as a clan. Sometimes each other were all they had.
    She felt an old pain stir and beat it down. It was not her fault her mother had fled, she told herself for what had to be the millionth time, and wondered if that desertion was something she would never fully get over. Her father had tried to hide his heritage, and, though doubtful of his success, the rest of the family had dutifully played along. A small child did not know how to hide such things, however. The look upon her mother’s face when she had heard of a neighbor’s death, a death that had occurred exactly how, when, and where Alethea had told her it would only two days earlier, still had the power to break Alethea’s heart fourteen years later. Her mother had feared her then, just as she would soon fear her eldest son. When Gethin’s gift had appeared, Henrietta Vaughn had not waited to see what, if any, gifts her other two sons might have, but thrust her still nursing youngest son into his father’s arms and walked away. Her father had never really recovered from the desertion, either.
    Forcing aside those sad memories, Alethea noticed that Iago’s color was a little improved and asked, “Lady Bartleby’s house is not clean?”
    “Oh, no, not as ours is,” replied Iago. “Nothing horrifying or dangerous, however. I often see the others at such events. I swear, I think the music and the crowd draw them.”
    “Yes, I think it would me if I were lingering about some place.”
    “You will not pass for many, many years and will have no regrets or unfinished business. You will not linger.”
    That sounded very much like a command, so Alethea nodded. “It was not a normal sighting that made you get so upset, was it?”
    “No.” Iago shuddered and tossed back the last of his drink.
    “If you would rather not speak of it,” she began.
    “I would rather forget it all, if that were even possible. I cannot. It is all tied up with the reason you have come to London, I think.”
    “Madame Claudette, who smells strongly of roses?”
    “And death,” whispered Iago.
    Alethea shivered. “She is to die soon? Not before the next full moon, surely? I still believe she is there when he dies.”
    “No. It was not her death I saw, though retribution for her crimes must be drawing nigh.” Iago shook his head slowly. “I fear I have just discovered a new twist to my gift. Madame tows about a rather large group of the others. Enraged ones, ones who want revenge, justice. She seems completely oblivious to them,” he said in wonder.
    “Ones whose deaths she has caused, do you think?”
    Iago frowned in thought. “Mayhap, mayhap not. She is an émigré, one who fled the horrific bloodbath that has become the Revolution. These may just be sad souls who died when she was near them. Mayhap she was caught in some frenzied massacre but survived.”
    “Then you would have seen such sad souls before. You know several men who were soldiers, who were in battle. They would have been near death, abrupt and brutal death. Yet you say you have never seen the like of this before.”
    “No, I have not, not truly. Certainly not of this ilk. Not this writhing mass of fury and hate. One or two sad, confused souls. Knew who they were, too, for had heard the tale of the boyhood friend or beloved comrade dying in his arms. Even saw a Frenchman, but he was just as sad and confused as the others.”
    “Because it was war, a death in battle, soldier against soldier, not murder or deceit or treachery. And they died quickly, without even knowing who fired the fatal shot or swung the sword that cut them down.”
    “Oh, bloody