His Sinful Touch. Candace Camp

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      Alex met Con’s employee, Tom Quick, coming down the stairs. Tom, a few years older than Alex, had been plucked from the streets by their older brother, Reed, whose pocket he had unsuccessfully tried to pick. Instead of prosecuting the lad, Reed had clothed and fed him and sent him to school. Quick hadn’t taken much to schooling, but he had been a loyal worker for the Moreland family ever since, at first running errands for Reed and then, ultimately, becoming the mainstay of their older sister Olivia’s investigative agency. Con had acquired his services, along with the business, from Olivia a few years ago.

      The blond man grinned in his cocky way, a distinct warning that something was up. Alex eyed him warily. “Is Con upstairs?”

      “Oh, indeed,” Tom answered with a chuckle. “He’s there.”

      “What has he done?” Alex asked with some foreboding. Perhaps it was Con, after all, that had given him this feeling.

      “You’ll see,” the other man said airily and trotted past him.

      Alex took the stairs two at a time and walked past the closed door of his own office to the last door on the corridor. A discreet brass sign on the wall beside the door announced that it was Moreland Investigative Agency.

      He opened the door and stopped short at the sight of his brother, his jaw dropping. Normally seeing Con was much like looking into a mirror. Con’s black hair was a bit longer and shaggier, and he had taken to wearing a mustache. But, all in all, it was the same angular face with the same squarish chin and straight black brows, the same sharp green eyes, the same firm mouth always ready to break into a smile. Their height and build, the way they stood and walked, were all so alike that even their mother had been known to mistake one for the other from the back.

      But today...Con’s hair was pomaded and slicked back away from his face. His mustache had been waxed into long sharp points and twisted up at the ends into absurd curlicues. He was strangely larger through the chest and middle and even slightly taller, and his body was encased in a suit of eye-popping yellow-and-brown plaid. On the desk beside him were a bowler hat of matching brown and a shiny black cane with a lion’s head for a knob.

      Con laughed at his brother’s stunned expression and struck a pose. “What do you think?”

      “I think you’ve turned into a bloody Bedlamite, that’s what I think.” Alex laughed. “What in the world are you doing? I thought you were going to Cornwall to infiltrate that lot that says the world’s going to end next month.”

      Olivia had opened an agency to investigate the wave of spiritualists and mediums in the past decade who had swindled gullible and grief-stricken people with tales of contacting their deceased loved ones in the afterlife. After she met her husband in the course of one of these investigations, her agency had had a rather sporadic existence, with Tom Quick doing most of the work. The agency had turned to a number of other investigative procedures, such as finding missing persons, uncovering financial frauds and investigating the backgrounds of possible employees or spouses.

      When Con bought the agency from her, he continued the sort of detective work that Quick was justifiably known for, but he also delighted in returning to the investigation of otherworldly phenomena, going beyond Olivia’s field of fraudulent mediums and their séances to reports of hauntings and mythical beasts and even, as in his newest case, a quasi-religious group proclaiming the end of the world.

      “That is where I’m going,” Con told him.

      “I don’t think you’re apt to blend in very well in that costume.”

      “Ah, but you see—” Con wiggled his eyebrows “—I’ve found that looking outlandish is an excellent way to go unrecognized. All people will remember is this ridiculous mustache and obnoxious suit. When I get rid of them, no one will recognize me.”

      “How did you make yourself look so thick?” Alex poked his finger into his twin’s chest and found it pillowy soft.

      “Padded vest,” Con told him proudly. “I have lifts in my shoes, as well. I would have liked to make myself shorter, but that’s a trifle difficult.”

      “I daresay. I hope you realize you look like an utter fool.”

      “I know.” Con grinned. “Watch this.” He picked up his cane and, giving a sharp twist to the head, pulled the gold knob from the cane, revealing a slender knife extending from it.

      “A hidden stiletto.” Alex’s eyes lit up. Alex might be somewhat more staid than Con, but he was not immune to the lure of secret daggers.

      “Cunning, isn’t it?” Con handed the weapon to his brother. “And though you wouldn’t think so, it provides a good grip. I found it in the attic a couple of months ago.”

      “At Broughton House?” Alex turned it over in his hand, examining it.

      “Yes, I was up there with the Littles.”

      Alex knew he referred to their sister Kyria’s twins, Allison and Jason, who, since Constantine and Alexander had been given the nickname the Greats, were often referred to as the Littles.

      “It was Jason who found it, but Allie discovered the secret to opening it—she’s a bloodthirsty little thing, have you noticed? I had a devil of a time persuading her she couldn’t keep it.”

      “Well, you know her father.” Alex shrugged. “Next she’ll be brandishing a pistol.”

      “Terrifying thought.”

      “Do you expect trouble at this place you’re going? Will you need a dagger?”

      “Not really.” Con sighed. “I’m relatively sure he’s swindling his believers—easy to persuade someone to hand over all their worldly goods when they think they’ll be transported up to heaven in a few months. But I haven’t seen any sign that he’s gotten physical. Still, I like to be prepared.”

      Alex grinned as he handed back the knife. “Especially if it involves a clever trick.”

      “Of course.” Con fitted the weapon back into its slot. “Care to come with me?”

      Alex felt a twinge of longing. He and Con had shared many an adventure. It was only the past few years, when Alex had been studying at the Architectural Association and then practicing in his field, that Alex had stayed behind more and more, helping out only now and then with Con’s investigations.

      “No,” he said reluctantly. “Better not. I have work to do on the plans for Blackburn’s country house. And I have... I don’t know, I just have a feeling I should be here.”

      “What do you mean?” Con set aside the cane and fixed his searching gaze on his twin. “Is something wrong?”

      “No... Maybe. I don’t know.” Alex grimaced.

      “You had a premonition?”

      “Not exactly. I’m not like Anna. I don’t see what’s going to happen.” Alex folded his arms. He never liked talking about his “gift,” as Con saw it—or his “curse,” as Alex was more likely to consider it. “I’ve been very out of sorts since I woke up. Restless. It’s probably nothing, just some residue from a dream.”

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