Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Elizabeth was no longer worried about how she’d manage to spend a night in a bed with James Dinsmore.
She’d have happily stripped off her clothes and slept with a cow, if only they’d stop traveling.
She was exhausted. She felt as if every bone had been rattled loose and her skirts were as sodden as if she’d been sitting atop the carriage instead of inside it.
It was all the checkpoints. There seemed to be one in every town: Ardes, St. Omer, Aires.
She’d lost count after Lilliers. National guards, local officials, grubby gangs with woolen caps, all of them armed, all of them demanding that they get out of the coach and show their papers.
She’d been terrified at first, standing in the pouring rain, watching as the men searched the coach.
She’d been frightened at the second stop.
By the third, she was nearly as calm as James appeared to be.
And by the fourth, the inspections began to blur into a miserable ritual.
And there had been the stream they’d crossed.
Swollen by the rain, it was more like a river.
Halfway across, water had begun to trickle through the cracks of the carriage door.
The trickle had quickly become a flood, and Elizabeth, kneeling on the seat, with her skirts gathered up in her arms, found herself immensely grateful James’s coach had been built with its unusually raised seats.
When she’d commented on them, James said she should thank David; the seats were among the modifications he’d designed.
She’d meant to ask him if he’d taken David on because of his design talents and his fluency in French, because otherwise the man seemed less than skilled as a coachman.
But then the coach had lurched, she’d grabbed the door handle to keep her balance, and she’d forgotten.
The berlin slowed. “Please, Lord, I promise to repent of every last sin, if only that’s the inn and not another checkpoint.”
“Every last sin? I’m afraid we haven’t got that much time. We’ll need to be off early in the morning.”
Elizabeth hadn’t thought she’d spoken loudly enough for him to hear, but she found she didn’t care. “James, is this it? Is this the inn?”
He smiled at the excitement in her voice. “Yes, indeed, Citizeness Dinsmore, this is where we shall be stopping for the night.”
She arranged her sodden hat on her head and smoothed her skirts.
They were stopping. Finally stopping. And there would be a warm fire, and warm food, and warm sheets.
Perhaps even warm water with which to wash.
She leaned forward expectantly. The carriage door swung open.
She saw Marcus holding a lantern. Beyond him, across a muddy yard, she could see a low building with plaster-daubed walls and a tiled roof. It looked like heaven.
The problem with living in a tunnel that was once part of an underground plumbing system is that while it keeps the rain off one’s head, it doesn’t keep it from running in a steady stream beneath one’s feet.
Amaury de Joley braced his back against one side of the tunnel and stretched his legs across to the other.
It was uncomfortable, but it kept his shoes dry.
He wondered where the Englishmen were. They were to meet him in two weeks’ time; that was what the note in the tree stump had said.
Amaury didn’t know the identities of the Englishmen, any more than he knew the identity of the individual who was helping him hide in the tunnel, or the individual who left rocks on the stump to let him know there was a letter or a bit of food hidden inside.
It was better this way. There’d be no one to betray if he was discovered and tortured.
But it made him feel oddly abandoned. écoeurant, mawkishness, he chided himself.
It was simply that he was unaccustomed to being alone.
He’d been a courtier. Most of his life he’d been attended by servants or surrounded by companions.
Even his private moments had been shared, with his wife, or his mistresses, or his daughter, Marguerite.
Marguerite, with her dark eyes and dark curls, so like her mother’s, and the funny little overbite that made her plump mouth look like she was pouting.
But she didn’t pout, not his daughter; when she didn’t get her way she’d laugh or simply change the subject.
He imagined her sitting in some well-appointed salon in Paris, engaged in witty banter, probably about art—Marguerite imagined herself an artist. In his mind’s eye, he saw the candles guttering down into pools of wax as the food grew cold on the plates.
At the thought of food, his stomach gurgled nearly as loudly as the water running beneath his outstretched legs.
It had been two days since there was food in the stump, three since his last visit to the old woman’s chicken coop.
As soon as the rain stopped and the ground dried enough so it wouldn’t leave a record of his tracks, he’d risk another trip.
Amaury thought of the rows of hens on their nests, imagining them roasted with potatoes on rows of plates…
James Dinsmore looked down upon the sleeping form of Elizabeth Harcrest. While he’d been downstairs talking with Marcus, David, and Andre, she’d cleaned up and climbed in.
Made herself comfortable. She was lying on her stomach, face buried in the pillows, hands fisted in the sheets, which were drawn tightly around her chin.
A light spluttering sound issued from her, a sound that, had he not been a gentleman, he might have considered a snore.
She’d taken most of the pillows, he noticed, and more than her share of the covers.
And while she might claim to favor the right side of the bed, tonight she was sleeping dead center.
He ought to wake her. He was damn tired, too.
And yet, he found himself oddly reluctant to do so.
It had been rough traveling today, and there’d be more of the same tomorrow.
She’d foisted herself on their company, he reminded himself; she should be grateful she wasn’t sleeping on the floor or on the tables in the common room, with the rest of the company.
He reached out to shake her, but his hand stayed.
She’d stood the traveling well. She hadn’t complained about the roads, or the rain, or the food.
She hadn’t swooned, or wept, or made a goose of herself at the sight of the rough gendarmes and their weapons.
In fact, her presence at their frequent stops had actually been rather helpful—not that he’d ever tell her.
Quite a number of the guards had spent more time inspecting her face and figure than their coach and papers.
James didn’t think there was much chance the false panels in the sides of the coach where they’d hidden their cache of counterfeit assignats or the panels behind the seats where they’d stored old clothes, wigs, jars of hair dye, and pots of face paint would be discovered.
Still, it didn’t hurt to have her as a distraction.
“Elizabeth,” he said softly, hoping the insistence in his voice would encourage her to move.
The spluttering stopped.
He waited.
She mumbled something incomprehensible, pulled the covers tighter, and burrowed her face more deeply into the pillows.
He glanced about the room. None of the furniture looked as inviting as the bed.
And besides, every available piece seemed to be draped with an article of Elizabeth’s damp clothing.
A particularly charming bit of lace nonsense was draped over the arm of a straight-backed chair.
He’d just have to pick her up and move her over.
Pushing back the lace sleeves of his nightshirt, he leaned over the bed, drew back the covers, swept back the tangles of chestnut curls, and slipped his hands around her rib cage just under her arms. It wasn’t a good enough grip—he slid his hands farther underneath her and encountered breasts.
Soft, warm breasts that filled his hands, the nipples pebbling ever so slightly against his palm.
His groin tightened in response. He cursed under his breath.
He was supposed to be looking out for Elizabeth Harcrest, not taking advantage of her in her sleep.
Reluctantly, he slid his hands out from under the tantalizing weight that filled them.
He drew the covers farther down. She was wearing a voluminous nightshirt.
Not at all what he expected, particularly in view of the expensive examples of unmentionables that adorned the room.
He’d always secretly believed a man never really knew a woman until he’d slept with her.
Although in Elizabeth’s case, James wasn’t sure he’d ever really know her. Which was probably for the best.
Still, he was tired, too. And it was his damned bed.
James studied her draped form, trying to make out the indentations of her waist. Nothing too dangerous there, he told himself as he reached for her.
He lifted. Her bottom came up against his stomach.
He could feel her thighs against his belly.
The urge to pull her closer and down was nearly overwhelming. He released her.
James pulled the covers back up over Elizabeth; she mumbled something about the hour being too early and, besides, she’d already practiced.
He didn’t have the foggiest notion what she was talking about, but he thought Moreham shouldn’t allow her to practice anything. She was far too dangerous as it was.