Chapter 6
Chapter Six
H is pocket watch gnawed at his bones. It told the truth—half past noon, and Rowan still had not left for Stevenage. Instead, he paced the length of the alley between Hestia and its mews.
There was no reason for him to wait. He had everything he needed. The coach was ready, Miss Hinks trussed up and sitting inside. He should have set off half an hour ago.
Yet, he paced, his coachman, Tom, watching him.
“Is there some task you've left undone in your study that keeps you here?” Tom stood some distance away from Rowan, his voice hesitant, his hat spinning in his hands. He knew as everyone watching Rowan knew—the owner of Hotel Hestia was acting odd.
Rowan never hesitated, and he was never late. He wasn't… waiting was he? For the fairy woman with a steel spine? No! No. Of course not. She had told him in direct and clear language she would not help him. He had a willing lady in the coach, prepared to pretend for a generous sum. That was all he needed.
“Miss Hinks is getting anxious,” Tom said.
Rowan had bundled the only maid who'd been brave enough to speak to him into the coach an hour ago, after having Mrs. Smith dress her in some finer clothing than she possessed, clothing he bought particularly for her, though ready-made. He’d done exactly what he needed to do because he did not need Miss Crewe.
At the back end of the alley, in the gloom and the damp, he stopped. Not because of the wall, but because of what had been painted onto it with, likely, a bit of coal. He’d noticed it his first pass down this way, and he’d noticed it every other pass as well. And each time he saw it, it bothered him more. A heart drawn a bit crooked over the grooves of brick and mortar. Above it a name, below it a name. Lovers immortalizing their hearts for all the world to see? Ha. As if coal could not be easily wiped away.
“Someone has marked up the side of the hotel,” he called. “Have it cleaned.” Whoever Nick and Sally were, he hoped their lives lasted longer than their vandalism. Because if they did not, that heart they had drawn on the wall, so full and stout despite its wobbly curves, would end up broken.
He snorted, then paced back toward the street. He made it only halfway when a voice from the hotel side door stopped him, one foot raised just above the ground.
“Let me in.” Honey and spice.
He licked his lips, an involuntary gesture attempting to catch the taste of that voice, before he crept closer, stood in the shadows just beyond the corner of the hotel, listening.
“Sorry, ma’am,” one of his footmen said. “Can't let you in.” Tall and wide, Brick was built like one and could always be relied upon to keep the entries of Hestia free from undesirables.
“And why not?” Honey and Spice demanded to know. Miss Crewe. She had come. “It is a matter of some urgency.”
“Don't matter,” the footman said. “Mr. Trent said not to let you in.”
A pause of silence, and then she said, “Mr. Trent? Who is that? I've never met him.” The spice eradicated from her voice. All honey now. “He must not have meant me. How could he when we've never met?” The little liar.
Yet he found himself smiling.
“You look like the lady he described,” Brick said. “Tiny little thing, hair like straw. Blue eyes you can't trust. ”
“His words or yours?” All spice now. Not a drop of honey.
“His words.”
“I assure you. My eyes are quite trustworthy, as is the rest of me. Now please let me in.”
“No.”
Rowan must give Brick a raise. Made of stout stuff he was. Few men could resist a sidhe outright like that. But what was happening now? Miss Crewe had no new arguments? Too much silence around that corner.
But then the shuffle of feet scattered that silence, a grunt, and then a squeal.
“Set me down, you brute!” Miss Crewe cried. “Set me down!”
Time to intervene. Rowan rounded the corner. “Put her down, Brick.”
The footman plopped Miss Crewe on her feet, and she glared up at him as she straightened her bonnet. And then, as if only just realizing they weren't alone, raked her scowl slowly over to Rowan.
“You.” She marched toward him, arm and finger outstretched, a witch ready to curse him. “Tell that brute to let me inside.”
Rowan leaned a shoulder on the wall and crossed his legs at his ankles. “I told you what would happen, Miss Crewe. I am a man of my word.”
She clasped her hands before her chest as if in prayer. “Please. There’s something I need inside.”
“You should have collected all your belongings before leaving the other day.”
“I did not know I had a belonging to collect. I know now. Let me in.”
“Tell me what it is, and I'll have Mrs. Smith retrieve it.”
“I can't.”
“Nonsense. You won't.”
“I can't ,” she insisted.
He could be stubborn, too, likely better than she could. “Tell me what it is.”
She glued her teeth together. And it made her lips pout, pretty, kissable .
“You know what you must do to gain entry to Hestia,” he said.
She unclenched her teeth and tipped her face to the sky as if to ask the heavens for advice. When she dropped her chin back toward her chest, she did so with a determined sigh. “I will do what I must.”
Some fierce emotion surged through him, the heady electricity of a victory. “Follow me. We leave now.” He led her to the coach waiting in the mews. “Tom, there's been a change of plans. Miss Crewe is going to go with me instead of Miss Hinks.”
“You already have someone?” Miss Crewe hissed. “I see no reason I must go, then.” She turned to leave, and he snapped his hand out, grabbed her by the wrist, catching her without even looking because his hand knew where hers would be, his body knew the space hers occupied in relation to his own. He held her tight to the spot, the heat of her glare on the back of his neck as the coach door opened and Miss Hinks peeked out.
“Are you sure, Mr. Trent?” the maid asked. Was that hesitation in her voice? Reluctance? Or… hope?
“I’m quite sure. Resume your usual duties.”
She hopped out of the coach as if it was on fire and bolted past Miss Crewe with a hearty, “Good luck, miss,” tossed over her shoulder.
Hope, then, not hesitation.
Hesitation held no sway over Rowan, either. He tugged Miss Crewe toward the coach.
She yanked her arm out of his hold. “I can do it myself.” And she did, climbing up into the coach and sitting in the far corner, pulling back the curtain and finding some shadow in the dark mews to occupy her attention. He sat across from her, and the coach shook as Tom sat on the bench outside and readied the horses. Soon they were rolling out of the mews and onto the London streets, headed north.
He leaned over and snapped the curtain shut. She scowled. He lifted his brows, challenging her. She must have decided she did not wish to take up the challenge because she sat, quiet and still for, according to his watch, five entire minutes before the heel of her foot began to shake. Then her fingers drummed a rhythm on the seat. Not two minutes after that, she began to bite at her bottom lip, left and right, center, the entire damn thing disappearing between her even, white teeth. Each nibble left that poor besieged lip redder than before, more swollen.
And each nibble left him harder than he should be, swollen in an area that had no business asserting itself during a coach ride with a strange woman who would pretend to be his wife. A fidgety wife with words shut up tight behind those swollen lips. Fidgeting was… useless. If he needed movement, he took it, a walk from one end of London to the other, a day at Jackson’s or Angelo’s, a tumble at Lady Circe’s. He did not contain movement; he moved . And he should not find fidgeting so amusing.
He did.
And it seemed to be contagious. He crossed his legs, shifted from one hip to the other, looked out the far window, then flicked at the curtain cover, the near one. He swung his foot at the ankle and—“Would you stop?”
She froze, then in one sharp movement after another she:
Furrowed her brow.
Pursed her lips.
Sliced a knife-sharp gaze his way.
“Stop what?” she asked, her voice low and lethal.
“Fidgeting.”
“Me? Fidgeting? Her gaze dropped to his shaking foot.
He glued it hard to the floor of the coach. “ Your fidgeting is distracting.”
“From what? Bullying a woman until she bends to your will?”
“Bullying? You will perform one task for me, then I will let you into my hotel. It’s an exchange, a deal.”
She crossed her arms and looked away. “Only once more. I refuse to enter it ever again after I get what I want.”
“And that is?”
“If I am to pretend to be your wife, I suppose we should discuss the details of the charade.”
She wouldn’t tell him what she wanted. That meant it was of a personal or even, perhaps, salacious nature. Interesting. Was she… “Are you a whore? ”
“Pardon me?” Her voice rose so high it seemed to lift her body off the seat. “A what ?”
He shrugged. “You sneak into a hotel dressed as a maid and are in no need of money. I understand that truly well-paid prostitutes are quite comfortable in—”
“I’m not!” Her face blushed berry red, and she hid it behind her palms. She mumbled something behind there he couldn’t quite hear.
“I didn’t truly think you were. You don’t have the looks for it.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. “You are full of compliments, are you not?” She huffed. “I am not surprised. I heard how you described me to the guard you positioned before the back door to keep me out. Tiny little thing. Hair like straw. Blue eyes you can't trust. How are my eyes untrustworthy? I demand to know.”
Because he didn’t know a thing about what was happening behind them. And because they made him feel… odd. Perhaps it was himself he did not trust around her blue eyes. “He needed to be able to identify you. I gave an accurate description. You are of shorter than average stature, your hair is the color of straw, and, well, the bit about the eyes.”
“ The bit about the eyes .” She wiggled her jaw side to side. “I didn’t know you meant the color of my hair is like straw. I thought you meant the overall appearance of it.”
“Silk.”
“Pardon?”
He cleared his throat. Why had he said that? “The, erm, overall appearance of your hair. Silk.”
“Ah. Well.” She tapped her finger against her thigh. “Straw is a lovely color. I suppose.”
A man yelled something foul on the street, and a horse neighed. Somewhere outside an infant howled, and the afternoon sun beat through the fog to shine, abruptly, across his face.
He sneezed.
“Bless you.”
He nodded.
“Do you have a cold?”
“No. ”
“Perhaps we should discuss the details of our arrangement now.”
“There is no arrangement. There is a single afternoon. We exit the carriage, you remain silent by my side as I convince Mr. Barlow to sell to me, we enter the coach once more, and when we return, you may enter Hestia. Once.”
“You said I could poke around as much as I like, make myself a little mouse hole.”
“You changed your mind. So did I. I can’t have odd women roaming about my hallways.”
“I only want to go the once, anyway,” she grumbled. “And I’m not odd.”
Like hell she wasn’t.
Another hell entirely—he liked it. Apparently, he was odd, too.
“And another thing,” she said, sitting taller, “your plan is rubbish. No true wife would follow her husband meekly about his business. What you describe is a servant. A wife would want to meet Mrs. Barlow and peek into all the nooks of the inn. She’d want to picture what it might look like once her husband bought it, what changes he might make, if she might convince him to do this or that or—”
“ My wife would not do that.”
“And that is perhaps why you are not yet married at your advanced age.”
“Advanced…” He grit his teeth. “I am not yet thirty.”
She leaned forward, her hands wrapping around the edges of the seat as she peered at his face. He wanted to look away from her, to save himself from the fatal depths of her blue gaze, endless like the sea in every direction. But that would be admitting defeat. And he knew how to swim. So he let her look, and he looked back.
Then she blinked and plopped against the back of the seat. “It must be the s—”
“I don’t need commentary on my appearance. It hardly matters.” She’d been about to say scar . The scar aged him, ruined him. He didn’t care.
She made a tsk sound with the tip of her tongue against her teeth. “If you weren’t so surly , you might look more your age. ”
Surly? Little liar. “You meant to say scar. You were going to say that my scar ages me.”
“Your scar?” She laughed. “Heavens no. That makes you look rather…” Damn. She was peering at him again, and he was drowning in her eyes once more, and what had he been saying about knowing how to swim? “Dashing. It has the… unfortunate effect of… making you look… dashing.” Each part of her sentence grew more hesitant than the bit before, quieter, too, so that the very last word seemed more mouthed than spoken.
Dashing. Him?
Hm.
“It doesn't scare you?” he asked because she must be lying or… trying to make him feel better. She seemed the type.
She tilted her head to the side. “Why would it?”
No pity in that gaze, and despite the untrustworthiness of her blue eyes, no lies there either. “Excellent answer.”
“Are you sure we should not discuss the details? Of our arrangement?”
“There's nothing to discuss.”
She regarded him for a long moment during which she slightly parted her mouth, and the tip of her tongue darted out and ran along the edge of her top teeth. Then those teeth disappeared behind pink lips, and she said, “Very well.” She yawned, placing a gloved hand over her mouth. “I think I'll take a little nap.” And she did, slipping almost instantaneously into a light sleep, her mouth slightly parted, tiny little snores emitting from her now and then.
She’d conceded and quite easily. Should he worry about that? She did not seem the type of woman to concede at all. But then, he was not the type of man to accept anything else. Clearly, she had recognized his superiority, recognized the wisdom of his simple plan. More than being a woman who did not back down, she must also be a woman who bowed to common sense.
Excellent.
But she may have had a point. About the details. He did not need her to speak to them, but what if Mr. Barlow or his wife asked a question of a more personal nature? What if he asked how they met? Then Rowan would be left floundering. Didn't like that. He’d have to spin a small, simple tale to answer such questions. But he did not need to wake her and let her know because he would be the only one speaking upon arrival.
He allowed himself to relax against the squabs and study her. More than her figure, he contemplated a past between them. Where had they met? And how? Not at a ball. He did not go to those. In Hyde Park? But what would have brought them together along that path?
At the hotel, perhaps? Yes, that might feed the right kind of story to Mr. Barlow. She had been traveling with her family and… then what? Why did a man decide to take a woman for his wife? Aunt Lavinia had offered several reasons of late, companionship and children first among them. Most men sought money and power through marriage. But he did not need the former and did not desire the latter. Only Mr. Barlow could give him what he wanted, and that man did not appear to have an unwed daughter of marriageable age.
Companionship left then, children, but those seemed too dangerous. What if he died or his wife died or the child died? How could you bring a child into this world and not love it, and then if anything should happen… His hand had become a fist on his thigh, and he purposely flattened it out, then shook it just a bit to loosen the muscles.
All this—nothing but a story. Nothing, certainly, to fear. All made up.
Her golden eyelashes fluttered slightly above her cheekbones. A curl had come unbound and escaped from her bonnet, and it tumbled across her temple. She wore, he realized for the first time, fine clothing—a gown of delicate muslin, a spencer with intricate braid work, stout walking boots, a new bonnet, spotless gloves. Expensive stuff.
Who was Sarah Crewe? Who was his wife? What would he tell Barlow?
The coach reached the limits of London and traveled on, and as the miles unraveled behind them, the answer unraveled easily, simply in Rowan’s mind.
He'd met her at his hotel. And to see her was to become a little more than fixated with her. He'd begun to look for her around every corner, even though he had not known her name. And the first time he'd had an opportunity to speak with her, he'd grasped it with both hands, no matter the shock it had given him. Even when she disagreed with him, he found her conversation scintillating. What other option had he but to ask for her hand in marriage? Married in a small church in London surrounded by her family (faceless) and his (the admiral and Aunt Lavinia). Roses all around, even in her hair. Did she like roses? She did not seem like a rose sort of woman, but nor did she appear a daisy. Perhaps… tulips. Yes, something without the rose’s mythos but more elegant than the simple daisy. There had been sun the day they married. And it had filled all the windows, and he had sneezed fifty times at least, but she had smiled, and so he would have sneezed fifty more.
He’d bought a townhouse, and he’d moved out of his apartments at Hestia. He used to live his life in those halls, day and night, and now he haunted their home instead. And she loved Hestia as he did, but she knew it better than he because she embraced passion more, did not fear its scorching embrace. She knew the servants’ names and all the guests, and when they ate dinner together every night, they told each other little stories, and…
Silly fancies. Not worth his time.
But he had nothing better to do for the next several hours. How many hours? He squinted as he looked out the window at fields, sky, grass. They’d traveled some ways while he’d daydreamed. The time and distance had passed quickly, and with her gentle, sleeping silence as inspiration, the tales came quickly, too. It was too easy to spin them, natural as the sun waking at the sea’s horizon. Bright yellow spilling across endless fathoms of water, which could be poured into any shape—bright and malleable.
Just like his tales.
Harmless things. Just stories. No reason not to let them eat away the distance and gaping time between here and there, between so close to his dream and actually possessing it. The Blue Sheep Inn. His only desire. But as he fluttered into sleep, that dream melted into others, into those partial truths constructed by the sounds of Miss Sarah Crewe’s soft snores.