Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Where did you find a horse?”
She had never known Joseph to ride, and this was the first question that seemed safe as Inez guided them across the square to the stables that lodged the neighborhood horses and occasional carriage of a patron.
Visitors to Dark Lane ranged from every social class and background, and no one with solid coin and good manners was turned away.
“The Blue Posts,” Joseph answered, naming the pub that stood at the end of George Court, on the busier Rupert Street.
The pub took its name from the ubiquitous blue posts where a traveler could hire a sedan chair, but the place also kept a horse or two for hire.
“Myers let me borrow one of his Norfolk Trotters, but I must be back with it quickly lest I lose him custom.”
Inez regarded the tall horse with its deep chest and short legs, made for covering distance. “I did not know you rode.”
“Up with you.” He set his hands to her waist and swung her into the air as easily as she lifted her bag. He was strong for a man whose typical labor was hefting nothing heavier than a book.
His was not a practiced move, and there was some fumbling as he helped her find her seat in the flat saddle. She was all the more pleased with this bit of clumsiness; his was not a rehearsed charm. He did not sweep ladies away upon horseback with regularity.
She let her legs dangle on either side, the way she as a child had ridden the Garrano pony their neighbor in Portugal used to take to market. Only when Joseph fit his foot into the stirrup and swung up behind her did she recall that ladies rose with both legs to one side.
“Every English gentleman’s son can ride, and every baronet’s grandson,” he said.
Joseph reached on either side of her to take the reins, and Inez sucked in her breath as his body fitted around hers.
Her bottom was cradled against his groin, the front of his thighs snugging the backs of hers.
His shoulder brushed her back as he shook out the ribbons. He was so large and warm and solid.
Her head felt light, as if the air were not moving properly upward, though no fingers were obstructing her windpipe this time.
“But where was I to stable a horse in Oxford, and on my income?” he said as he nudged the animal out of doors. “Or in London, for that matter, when it would cost more to house an animal than it would to keep a roof over my head.”
There was no rancor in his tone, no scolding. No impatience that he’d had to come fetch her, nor anger that she’d left him. No cutting inflection noting her ignorance about him and his life.
“My thanks,” he said to the boy who had tended the horse, and tossed the lad a silver coin as they stepped out onto the square.
She, Inez da Costa Shirodkar, being led out on a horse as if she were a fine lady, and worth the rescue.
“You came for me. Did you know I was in trouble?”
“Amaranthe did. She came to the house soon after you left.”
All the melting going on about inside Inez seized to a stop as if she were a candle snuffed out. He hadn’t come for her of his own volition. He’d obeyed the directive of his sister.
“And where are you taking me now?” She forced out the words.
“As I said. Home.”
He turned the horse onto Bishopgate Street, heading away from Dark Lane, and she wondered if she would ever see this place again. If she dared come back.
Her throat still felt as if she were choking. Could she return to George Court with him and go about their business as if nothing had changed?
She’d kissed him. She could not pretend everything was as it had been.
“Are you going to tell me?”
His voice was low, falling into her ear and raising a shiver.
The press of his chest was there against her back, through the thick leather and twill padding of her stays.
Joseph didn’t wear padding in his coats the way some men did to give themselves a proper silhouette.
His coats and waistcoats were wool tabby or broadcloth, inexpensive fabrics but cut well.
And they smelled of him, of cassia and rosewood oil, as she knew from the stolen moments she rubbed his garments across her cheek when they came downstairs for cleaning.
“Tell you what?” she breathed. His scent filled her head, along with base notes of musk, his own scent beneath the cologne.
He steered them deftly through the traffic on the street, carts and carriages and chairs and pedestrians, as if riding came naturally to him.
The horse had a smooth gait, brisk and even, yet each rolling stride tucked her more closely to him. But not close enough.
“Why you left.”
She tried casting her mind back to the substance of their argument, the high-handedness, that particular steely tone as he demanded she explain her comings and goings. He deserved that, didn’t he, as her employer?
But she couldn’t go back to bringing him trays when he never lifted his head from his studies, just cleared a corner of his desk and muttered a thanks, then didn’t notice when she came later to take away the crumbs.
She couldn’t bear bringing dishes to set on the small folding table where he took the dinner Mrs. Frost had made for him, alone with his book and his candle, and no companion.
She hated seeing him dine alone almost as much as she hated the many nights he was away dining at Hunsdon House or at some entertainment where he was invited by the duke and duchess.
The house lay empty and hollow on those nights until he returned, the fixed smile on his mouth relaxing as soon as he was in his own domain, among his books and studies.
It hurt too much to have only scraps of him.
A few remarks when she brought him a cup of warm milk or cider on those late nights, to calm him before sleep, sharing a brief exchange of words as he told her about his evening and she soaked up every bit of knowledge she could about the life he led outside those walls.
It would tear her heart to brush his coats free of the scent of smoke and chicory after he went to the coffeehouse to meet and argue with his friends.
She would disappear, dusting rooms that felt soulless without him when he was away working with his pupils, or looking for work.
She could not go back to being a servant. To being furniture in his life.
“I would have thought you more interested in why Lord Wigsby was trying to kill me.”
“My next question.”
He closed his arm around her as a sudden stop from a wagon in front of them made their horse draw up, and the temperamental Shire horse in the heavy harness turned and snapped at their Trotter, who sidestepped quickly.
Joseph had the reflexes of an active man, though she had only ever known him to live in his head.
What else did she not know about him, after living with him all this time?
“It is as I said.”
She gripped his forearm, holding his leather glove to her middle, not entirely for fear that she might fall from the horse. A deep, steady heat spread through her from the press of his arm.
“I helped his daughter elope, and he was angry.”
“Angry enough to kill? If she shamed him so much, I should think he’d try throttling her. Though I don’t approve of the measure,” he added as she twisted her head to look up at him.
A mistake. His head was close, the angle of his jaw in line with her lips, close enough to press in a kiss.
“He—the groom—was a penniless rogue, with more debts than prospects, but enough charm to beguile my lady and every other lass he met.” Including Inez, who would have caved to Priscilla’s pleading even without the honeyed promises of her elegant beau. It had seemed the truest of love.
“And he can’t have hoped for financial support from Wigsby, for the man disowned his daughter on the spot, once he discovered her theft.”
“So the source of his ire?”
Inez swallowed. “Several priceless items—family jewels—disappeared along with his daughter.”
She couldn’t say that Priscilla had carried them away, because that was not true.
Inez had secured the jewels to deliver to Priscilla, to give her and her lover a new life together.
But when Priscilla was not at the designated meeting area, and word came that she and her new husband had made a hasty passage to France, Inez was left holding the bag of spoils.
She hadn’t dared return to Wigsby’s house to replace them, not with the theft already discovered. And she couldn’t very well take ship to France and track down the newlyweds.
So she decided to disappear. And the quiet little house in George Court, home to a vicar’s daughter and tradeswoman who rarely entertained and a vicar’s son who came and went at odd hours around the demands of his noble employer, had been safe.
Until the moment she first brought Joseph Illingworth his tea, and realized her heart, which she had thought scarred to firmness, had become soft again.
Her head must have gone soft too. All this time, while the jewels lay hidden in Priscilla’s old work bag, she’d hoped in a childish part of her mind that the whole affair would be forgotten.
When she ought to have been aware every moment that Lord Wigsby would be on the hunt.
Not for his daughter, whom he surrendered easily, but for that which had more value to him: his pride, and his riches.
“He believes you abetted her escape, and the theft?”
“So it would seem.” Inez swallowed hard and felt the iron ring around her throat, the bruising taking effect. It would be hard to eat and drink for a day or three.
But she had gone without food before, when she was younger. And she had survived other bangs and bruises.
“You will be safe in my house,” Joseph said firmly.
Inez pushed down a near-hysterical laugh. Safe from what? Not from her own foolishness, certainly. She had tried to pull herself out of that cook fire, and here she was, jumping with both legs back into it.
“His lordship won’t find you there,” Joseph said, as if he sensed she didn’t believe him.