Chapter Eight
Ava woke with a start when the coach came to a halt. Blinking, she sat up and stretched, her vision obscured by the veil over her face and the fact that the light was dim due to clouds.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Newcastle. There’s a storm brewing. We will stop here for the night and continue on tomorrow.” Lannister opened the door and jumped out, offering a hand to help her alight.
“But surely if we’re this close, we can press on,” she protested.
“Look at those clouds!” Lannister nodded to the sky. “They are green! I’m not continuing in that. The roads will be impassable in minutes with a downpour like that. Besides, I’m hungry, aren’t you?”
Dinner does sound enticing. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Perhaps if the storm clears we can continue on later.
She let him help her down and into the inn, where he bespoke two bedchambers, dinner, and the private parlor for their use.
The story he gave was the same they had used for the entire journey: He was escorting his sister home.
Since they were both blond and blue-eyed, and since for the most part, Ava kept her face veiled in public, they had seemingly got away with it so far.
The impending storm had lowered the temperature and her hands and feet were cold.
It was good to cozy up to a warm fire and remove the tiresome veil.
She also removed her cloak and sat on the settle before the fire, letting its heat permeate her bones.
She had gotten colder than she realized in the curricle.
Rey removed his coat, gloves, and hat and poured two glasses of red wine from the bottle provided by the landlord. He joined her on the settle and offered a toast. “To your success, my dear.”
She toasted with a smile, her heart skipping. The closer they got to their goal, the more anxious she became. What if Jerome doesn’t want to see me? He would be so angry, and he would likely take that out on Rey, which wasn’t fair. Perhaps I should go on by myself?
Dinner arrived, and they sat down to eat.
Ava realized how hungry she was with the first bite, despite her worry over Jerome’s reaction to her imminent arrival unannounced on his doorstep.
She pushed away the thoughts. She had already worried herself silly over it.
Whatever would be, would be. She must accept that.
But in her heart, she just knew she and Jerome were right for each other. Somehow it will work out.
Instead, she turned her thoughts to something she had been thinking about for a while.
Now was probably the last opportunity she would get to ask.
Putting down her fork, she reached for her glass of wine and looked at her dinner companion over the rim.
He was cutting into the steak on his plate and not looking at her.
“What do you think of Miss Deborah Watson?” she asked.
Her apparent non sequitur, just as he had raised his glass to drink, caught him in mid-swallow.
He choked, causing him to fall into a coughing fit, which made his face red and his eyes and nose stream.
Alarmed, Ava poured him some water, which he took once he could breathe again.
When he had restored himself to equilibrium, he tried to go on with his meal without responding, but Ava, on the scent, wouldn’t let it go. “I think she likes you.”
“Lots of women like me,” he said indifferently, not meeting her eyes.
Ava narrowed her gaze at him. “You like her too.”
He leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow, his glass once more in his hand. “I like women. All women, Ava. What are you trying to say?”
“I think there is something between you,” she said with a quizzical smile. She sipped her wine. “She blushes whenever you speak to her, I’ve noticed. And you—”
He crossed his arms and regarded her with an overly cynical smile. “I flirt with women all the time. I flirt with you, for God’s sake.”
“You banter with me because we’re friends. And yes, you do flirt with women. Other women. But not Miss Watson.”
He shook his head with a smile, “Your romantic nature is getting the better of you, Ava.”
She frowned. “It’s not. I know I’m right. But you won’t confide in me. Why?”
He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and looked at the light through the ruby liquid in his glass. “All right,” he said at last. “But if you breathe a word of this to anyone, and I mean anyone, I’ll murder you in your bed.”
She reached out a hand and covered his where it rested on the table. “I won’t,” she said softly. “You have my word.”
He regarded her steadily for a minute, as if trying to decide what to say. “Two years ago, I met Sarah Watson, when your brother was very ineptly trying to court her.”
Ava giggled. “Rob did make an idiot of himself, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.” He frowned at the tablecloth. “I recognized in Sarah a quality—” He swallowed. “A quality I admired greatly. I fell a bit in love with her.” He said it softly and his gaze drifted to somewhere and something that wasn’t in the here and now.
Ava watched and waited. His face had softened from its usual cynicism.
Bringing himself back to the present, he cleared his throat. “I knew she wasn’t for me. She loved your pompous ass of a brother. And in any case, I was no more worthy of her than he was. Less, in fact, by a long way; although I’d not admit that to his face.” His mouth quirked up in one corner.
“And then, God damn it, in the little season after their wedding, I met her sister.” He stopped and swallowed.
His eyes looked glassy he’d gone there again, back in time.
She knew he wasn’t seeing the wall in front of him.
Something in his face made her drop her fork.
It clattered on her plate and jerked him back to the room.
“Suffice it to say that I am no more worthy of Miss Deborah Watson than I was of her sister.”
“You have made no move to secure her affections?”
“Good God, no!”
“Why not?” protested Ava, clasping his hand.
He looked at her with a kind of helpless agony. “Because she is an angel, and I am the devil. I have nothing to offer her. Nothing.”
Ava shook her head and said softly, “That isn’t true.”
“It is,” he said quietly and with such conviction Ava was silenced. She squeezed his hand and stifled a yawn.
“Finish your dinner and go to bed,” he said roughly. “You’re all done in, and it won’t do for you to arrive on Ravenshaw’s doorstep looking like a death’s head.”
She slapped him playfully. “How unflattering.”
He smiled, took her hand, and kissed it.
“If Ravenshaw has any sense, he’ll marry you in a heartbeat,” he said.
They resumed their meal and Rey sent her to bed, just as a loud crack of thunder rent the air, accompanied by a brilliant flash of lightning and followed by the teeming sound of rain on the roof and pavement.
Wind rattled the widows and lashed the rain against the panes.
“We arrived just in time,” he said with satisfaction, settling into an armchair with a glass of whisky. “Sleep well, my sweet. We will leave early in the morning when this has cleared. I’ll have you safely to Ravenshaw before ten o’clock!”
She kissed his cheek. “I can’t thank you enough, you know. I really am grateful. You’re the best of good friends, Rey.”
“Nonsense!” he said roughly. “Get your beauty sleep,” echoing what he had said earlier. “You want to look your best for him tomorrow, don’t you?”
She smiled and left him, climbing the stairs to her room, carrying her cloak and veil.
*
Rey settled into his chair, his booted feet stretched to the fire, whisky in hand, and reached for the book he was reading: Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
But for a few moments he sat staring into the fire, his mind absorbed by the topic of Miss Deborah Watson.
The usual sweet heartache he experienced when he thought of her engulfed him.
He had hoped that it would lessen with time, but the opposite seemed to be true.
And she was as far beyond his reach as she had ever been.
He had told no one, until Ava dragged it out of him, how he felt.
And he was by no means sure that telling her was a good thing.
Not because he didn’t trust her not to tattle—she had given her word, and he believed her—but because saying it out loud made it just that bit more real and painful.
He rubbed his chest absently. It hurt, damn it!
He swallowed the ache in his throat and swirled the glass of whisky.
Well, he couldn’t have his happily ever after, but Ava could.
He lifted the glass in silent toast and swallowed.
The fiery liquid soothed his tight throat and spread a warm glow through his stomach.
He reached for his book and opened to the page he was up to, determined to push the thoughts and feelings back where they belonged: under lock and key.
Absorbed in the book, he read for several hours, half aware of the pouring rain, and glad to be warm and dry.
Close to midnight, the sounds of an arrival made him look up from his book.
Poor devils, arriving in this downpour! He returned to his book and had just turned another page when the door to the parlor was flung open and a voice he had been dreading hearing said menacingly, “Where the bloody hell is she, you blackguard? By God, I’ll kill you! ”
Rey looked around at the Duke of Troubridge, who stood in the doorway fuming. His hat and coat were liberally sprinkled with raindrops, but it was obvious he had traveled by coach, for he wasn’t soaked to the skin.