Page 9

B eneath Alistair’s watchful gaze, the familiar terrain slid by. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made the journey staring out the window. Usually, he read. Occasionally, he slept. But this time, all his books were packed away, and he had made a private vow not to fall asleep in Miss C.’s presence again.

Another mishap like the one this morning and it would take more than a box of crayons to make amends. If he weren’t careful, he would have to do the honorable thing— though at least then, he thought with a private laugh, I would finally learn her name . She would have to sign it in the parish register.

No, no. He mustn’t joke about it, even to himself. Marriage was no laughing matter.

And marriage to this woman was a mistake he could not afford to make.

She had spent the last two hours sketching, silent but for the occasional scritch-scritch of her pencil across paper, the quiet sound rising above the rattle of the carriage. When they had stepped inside the pub to settle their bill before leaving, the proprietor had been standing at the bar, grumbling over his bookkeeping. She had, with surprising deftness, talked him into giving her the stub of a pencil he’d had tucked behind his ear. “So I can draw and you don’t have to ruin another handkerchief,” she’d explained to Alistair.

He couldn’t see enough of the paper to identify the subject of her picture. He wasn’t even certain he wished to know. After all, he was more than aware of both her capabilities and her propensities. And he couldn’t decide even now whether the box of crayons and an hour in the church had disposed her to forgive him for his bad behavior. Her gaze, whenever she looked at him, was always a little too sharp for comfort.

“Have you a knife?” she demanded without looking up.

“I beg your pardon?”

“A knife—a penknife,” she added by way of explanation, a slight twist of annoyance to the words. “This pencil is dull.”

“Not on my person, no. Sorry.”

She flicked a cool glance toward him, sighed, and touched the tip of the lead to her tongue.

He’d lost his mind, clearly. She was the cartoonist who had made his life a mockery and a misery. Yet he’d agreed to bring her to Rylemoor to instruct his sisters—in art! He’d even bought her paper and charcoals.

And he found the sight of her wetting a pencil—whetting her weapon, more like—somehow arousing.

“We’ll be stopping to change horses before long.” She had resumed sketching and gave no indication that she heard him. “I would’ve mentioned it before, but I didn’t want to disturb your work.” Scritch-scritch . “It’s the inn where I usually stop. A pleasant enough spot. We would have stayed there last night but for the unfortunate problem with the wheel.”

The pencil stopped. “They know you in this place.”

“Yes.”

“No more masquerading as Mr. and Mrs. Cooper, then.”

Was she relieved? Disappointed?

“No,” he said.

She applied one final flourish to the paper, then closed the pad and tucked the pencil somehow into her profusion of coppery curls. “I hope there’s food.”

“The best steak and ale pie I’ve had anywhere, as a matter of fact.” At the mention of it, his stomach rumbled in anticipation.

A smirk ghosted across her lips.

Somewhat to his surprise, she had left him out of her sketch of the churchyard. Then again, it had been done in another style to what he was accustomed to seeing from her, and her usual depiction of him would have been quite out of place. But now that she had had the opportunity to observe him closely, he could only imagine the ridiculous figure he was going to make in her next cartoon.

Well, by the time the next issue of the Magazine for Misses saw print, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“We’ll eat quickly,” he cautioned, “then push on to make up for lost time. With any luck, we can be at Rylemoor tomorrow night, only a little later than expected.”

“You are eager to be home.”

Eagerness, he almost said, is beside the point .

It was time for things to return to normal.

He was not na?ve enough to imagine that there would be no further frustrations on this journey. But from this point forward, he would be recognized as Ryland; his role would be clear. No more assumed name or presumed bridegroom. One more night on the road, in a suitable inn this time, with a room and a bed of his own, and then he would be back at Rylemoor. His life would return to its predictable patterns. Its typical troubles.

Namely:

Five unwed sisters.

A crumbling estate.

And insufficient funds to take care of either, to say nothing of both.

Problems that did not—could not—involve the woman who had, inadvertently or otherwise, made them more difficult to solve.

No, Miss C. would not be disturbing the predictable patterns of his life for much longer. Already, she was mostly recovered from the effects of her fall; her bruises were beginning to change color and would soon start to fade. She seemed already to be growing tired of playing the patient, and his sisters would soon cure her of any desire to be a teacher. She would continue on to whatever her destination had been and leave him in peace.

Or what passed for it, anyway.

“At the moment,” he said, realizing he had been looking at her and that she was waiting for him to speak, “I’m eager to stretch my legs.”

When the carriage stopped, he did not wait for the steps to be lowered but opened the door and leaped to the ground. While she busied herself with raising the hood of her new mantle, he spoke to the hostler to urge haste and moved about as if to ease the fatigue of his muscles. At last he helped her down, much as he would’ve if she had been one of his sisters, and preceded her into the inn.

“My lord.” The proprietor approached and bowed. “How good to see you again. A room for tonight?”

“Much obliged, Meachum, but no. Just two pies, a pint, and a pot of tea for the lady.”

“Very good, sir.” He gestured them toward a table in the bustling dining room. If he found their traveling arrangements unusual, he was savvy enough to say nothing of it. “The ladies Haythorne were in fine spirits when they stopped the day before yesterday.”

“And when are they not?” Alistair joked, his attention somewhat distracted by the way Miss C. was craning her neck to peer about the room. She had not lowered her hood. “But I thank you for the report. This is their new teacher, Miss Coo—”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” she spoke across him and curtsied.

Even after they were seated, she kept her head covered. His face must have reflected some surprise at that, for she explained, otherwise unprompted, “I find it chilly in here, don’t you?”

He didn’t demur, though it was surely warmer inside than it had been in the carriage. But perhaps she was tired of the way her bruised cheek tended to attract notice.

“This is a market town,” he offered after a few moments of awkward silence. “If there’s anything you require for your stay at Rylemoor, now would be the best time to acquire it.”

She was busy working loose the fingers of the glove on her uninjured hand. He considered offering his help, but after that morning, the assistance he’d given in the shop, it might seem as if he were rather too eager to touch her. “There’s nothing I can think of, my lord,” she said, once she had succeeded. She did not remove the other glove, which disguised her bandaged wrist. “I assume your sisters have paper and pencils available?” she countered.

He nodded.

“Then that will be more than sufficient to begin.”

“ More than sufficient?” he echoed skeptically. “I should think paper and pencil the bare minimum of requirements.”

“A work of art does not begin with the act of applying paint to canvas, my lord. One must first understand the principles of composition.”

“Learning to see , as it were.”

Her expression was in shadow, but he knew from the way the firelight caught her eyes that she had shot him a look. “Precisely. I find it useful to begin by examining the techniques used by other artists, to consider the choices they have made. Rylemoor Abbey has, I hope, some paintings we can study for the purpose? From my understanding, it would be unusual if such a large and ancient estate did not.”

Did Rylemoor Abbey have paintings? Alistair set his teeth together to contain a bitter laugh. “More than sufficient,” he told her, making his best effort to disguise those clipped words as a little joke. Never had he been so glad to see a servant approach. A lad wearing a coarse apron placed a pot of tea and cup and saucer in front of Miss C. “What happened there?” As Alistair reached up to accept his pint, he nodded at a nearby pile of kindling, the remains of a broken chair. Both the boy and Miss C. turned to look. “Not a fight over the last steak and ale pie, I hope?”

“No, m’lord.” The lad grinned as he tucked his now empty tray beneath his arm. “’ Twas a fight over summat else.”

Alistair paused with his mug halfway to his lips. He’d never known this unassuming posting inn to attract the sort of customers who brawled. Had his sisters been in danger?

“A fight over what?” he demanded.

“A fight over how much oak it takes to hold up a mountain,” he answered with a laugh. “Some oaf come in, lookin’ to find someone. Insisted this was the spot. Swore he’d sit right here and wait. And ’e mighta done it, too, if the chair hadn’t broke. Fell apart right beneath him, it did. After that, he skulked off.”

Alistair laughed along with him, but the spout of the teapot rattled against the edge of Miss C.’s cup, as if she didn’t see the humor in the story. “My goodness. Looking for whom?”

“Dunno, ma’am. But Cook says he had the eye of a fellow whose girl had run off and left ’im.”

Her gaze swung once more to what remained of the chair. Alistair could see no more than the tip of her nose past the edge of her hood. “If he was given to such displays of stubbornness and petulance, who could blame her?” she observed coolly.

The boy left, returning a few moments later with the pies. At first, Miss C. poked at hers with her fork, as if she had no appetite. But after a moment—hardly time for the pie to cool—she squared her shoulders and made efficient work of finishing her meal, which kept her mouth far too busy for further conversation. Given the direction of their previous exchange, he wasn’t sorry.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sounds of eating, she laid her fork aside, then drained her teacup. “Ready when you are, my lord,” she said, returning the empty cup to its saucer with a decisive clink . Her hood had remained in place throughout her hasty meal, but he could see now that she looked pale.

“Are you in any discomfort? Should I fetch the laudanum from my valise?”

“No.” The answer was too swift to be entirely believable. “If you’ll be a few moments longer, I’ll wait for you in the coach.” She snatched up her glove from the table and rose. “My lord.”

She had not been in the habit of my lord -ing him until now, but evidently she had taken her cue from the servants in this place. It established a certain distance between them, to be sure.

He didn’t like it.

With her injured hand clasping the mantle closed, she was gone before he could get to his feet. In a hurry for the necessary, he supposed—she had drunk a whole pot of tea. He quickly finished his food, paid the bill, and met her in the carriage before five minutes had passed.

“Is something amiss?”

Her hood was pushed down around her shoulders again, and she had already resumed sketching. “Not at all.” The taut set of her lips hinted that she was not being entirely honest. “You said it would be a quick stop. I did not wish to be the cause of any delay.”

He could not restrain a slight huff of something like amusement at her sudden consideration for his traveling plans. Swinging into the seat opposite her, he tapped on the ceiling. The coach rolled into motion. In short order and in spite of his earlier determination, the combination of an early morning, a full belly, and the soft sounds of her pencil lulled him into a gentle doze.

“Did she say what sort of danger?”

The question jerked him back to full alertness. “Did who—what?”

“The one you wrote to about me. The one who told you I was in danger?”

“Lady Stalbridge?”

“Did she say what sort of danger I’m meant to be in?” With each word, she tapped the end of her pencil against the paper, a sign more of nervousness than impatience, he thought. “Might I, for instance, have someone following me?”

He pushed himself more upright. “She didn’t specify, no.” But now he understood Miss C.’s sudden pallor in the inn. “He’s not searching for you , if that’s what you’re thinking—the man who broke the chair.”

“How do you know?” she demanded.

Fright masquerading as anger, he told himself. But nevertheless, it prodded uncomfortably at his certainty.

Perhaps she really didn’t remember anything about her life before two days ago. Or perhaps her memory was fragmented, and she was struggling and failing to place the jagged pieces back together.

Or perhaps she remembered everything perfectly, right down to a phantom pursuer, and that was why she had been so determined to get away.

He dragged a hand through his hair. “I don’t. But it strikes me as unlikely.”

“Unlikely that I’m being followed? That I was chased from an alleyway into the street and that’s how I hit my head and nearly lost my life?” Her voice was remarkably steady. But her eyes were wide and almost desperate. “Or unlikely that the man who’s following me planned to catch up with me at the place where I would have been if not for that mishap with the carriage wheel? Unlikely that he is the sort who breaks chairs—when he’d rather be breaking necks?”

Without conscious thought, he reached across the coach and took her uninjured hand between both of his, trapping the pencil in her grip. “Miss C.,” he began, in his steadiest tone. He had some experience consoling and reassuring agitated young women. “ All of those things are unlikely. Highly unlikely.” He would not say impossible , though privately he thought the scenarios she had spun smacked of a mind that indulged too frequently in horrid novels. Thanks to five younger sisters, however, he had learned over the years that to deny another’s fears outright served only to cement them. “And you are safe. Have I not promised to protect you?”

Emotions warred in her face, relief battling with an almost innate distrust, a deep temptation to scoff.

“Until I remember,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Back in London, you told me...” The pencil trapped between their joined hands twitched. “You told me that I would have your protection until I remembered who I was.”

Good God. Had he?

No wonder she had been unwilling to tell him anything. No wonder she had reacted with alarm to his suggestion that drawing would restore her to herself.

“I haven’t any intention of abandoning you to the wolves, Miss C. If I had, I would’ve done so in London. I only meant that once your memory returned, you would no doubt wish to be returned to your family, or your friends, and would have no further need of my assistance.”

Her chin dipped jerkily in a nod of understanding, an acknowledgment of error worthy of the queen or someone similar—someone unaccustomed to admitting they were wrong. “And in the event that I have neither friends nor family?”

For a moment, he said nothing.

“I suppose, my lord, you are thinking of your gentlemanly obligation and weighing whether it can or even ought to be fulfilled for a woman like me. Consider what might become of your spotless reputation.” Her voice fairly dripped with disdain.

“I assure you, ma’am, that nothing could be further from my mind at present than my reputation.” He sounded insufferably toplofty, even to his own ears, but evidently she expected it of him; she seemed determined to view him in the worst possible light. “I was thinking of the risks—if what you say were somehow true, given that I’m taking you to my home, should I be concerned for my sisters’ safety?”

Her whole body recoiled from that question. Tugging her fingers free of his grasp, she turned her gaze toward the wide, empty landscape surrounding them as the carriage rolled on toward Rylemoor Abbey.