Colin paused. He knew he was not perfect, of course, but it was rather disconcerting to hear his mother agreed. “That is true,” he said cautiously. “Then why—”
“You are too different. You have no idea how such differences will twist everything. There will be hurts and miscommunications. Society will make you miserable, and you will turn that misery in on each other.”
Well. That was a rather bleak assessment.
“Society can go hang. We can hardly feel their slights across the ocean.”
“You mean to leave her here?” his mother demanded. “To face their scorn alone? Oh, Colin. How—”
“No, mother,” he said gently. “I mean to take her with me.”
“Take…her…with…you.” She repeated the words slowly. Her brows knit in confusion. “To Egypt?”
He nodded.
“But she’s a lady,” she said in horrified tones.
“I am aware of that, Mother.”
“Egypt is hot and dangerous. It is no place for a lady.”
He felt a faint prickle of unease at her words. Her concerns were no more than he, himself, had thought. Would Claire fall ill on the difficult voyage? Or would they disembark in Alexandria only to discover that she hated the food, the sun, and the sand? It wasn’t as though she could simply snap her fingers and return to England. The journey would take at least a month or longer.
Riya had survived it. But she had not enjoyed it.
“Claire wants to go,” he said.
“Oh, she does, does she?” His mother tossed her sewing aside. Then she sighed and promptly picked it up again. “I suppose she thinks it will be a great adventure, with a hundred servants to ease her way.”
He grimaced. The marquess might very well employ a hundred servants, but it would not be possible to take more than two or three with them—far fewer than what Claire was used to. A lady’s maid would be required, of course, as Claire could not dress or undress without assistance. Her English clothing did not provide the same ease as Riya’s sari had.
Good God.
Was he actually contemplating taking a voyage with a lady who could not even dress herself? It was madness.
He closed his eyes to shield himself against the confusing thoughts pummeling his brain. It would be all right. It had to be all right. Claire might be inexperienced in the world outside of her small corner of England, but so had he been when he jumped aboard his first ship.
“It will be fine,” he said.
Perhaps if he repeated that enough, it would be true.
It took less than half an hour to pack up his mother’s meager belongings and prepare for the short jaunt back to Bath.
“I’ll return in a month, at most,” his mother told the other women who lived in the cottage.
Colin frowned at that. He had no intention of his mother returning to a two-roomed house shared amongst four women. When they were settled in the carriage, he said as much.
“Wouldn’t you like a cottage in the country? Perhaps even a small farm. We could hire a man or two to help.”
“A farm?” Her eyes widened. “No, I would not like that. I like Bristol. The city suits me, and my friends are here. A farm would be very different from what I’m used to. I’m of an age where I don’t enjoy change.”
But he liked to think of his mother living on an acre or two of rolling green hills. Perhaps her neighbor would be the village pastor, rather than the woman who did the washing, as it was in Bristol.
It could happen. He had a month to change her mind.
He turned the conversation again to Claire. He loved his mother. It was important to him that she understand he wasn’t being foolish marrying Claire, despite her lofty bloodlines.
“It was Claire who discovered where the treasure was hidden,” he said.
“She is an intelligent lady, I have no doubt.” His mother watched the countryside go by. “I also do not doubt that it was you who wielded the shovel, not Lady Claire.”
Actually, no shovel had been involved, although he did not miss her point. “So, you agree it took both our skills to find Scipio’s hoard. We work well together, Claire and I. She has strengths that I lack.”
“But it is physical strength that is needed to survive the life you lead.” His mother thrust her arms out in front of her. “These are the hands of a working woman. Do you want this for your fine lady?”
He stared at her red, roughened, knobby fingers. “I can protect her from that.”
“Can you? Can you also protect her from smallpox or the plague?”
“There hasn’t been a plague outbreak in Egypt for fifty years.” But he shifted against the squabs, remembering when he had carried Claire in his arms to the pump room. He hadn’t even been able to protect her from a blister. “You are aware that England has diseases, too.”
They were nearly to Chatwell’s residence. He glanced out the window as they passed through a pretty bit of park. And there was Claire herself, with Riya, Mrs. Eastwood, and a lady who looked vaguely familiar.
“Stop the carriage!” he called. It had not even been a full day since he’d seen her last, but why wait even one minute longer than he had to?
His mother peered out the window. “Isn’t that her?”
He nodded. The footman opened the door, and he stepped down.
Just in time to see the horse shy and Claire fly through the air.
Chapter Thirty-Four
This was what came from riding horses, Claire thought as her bottom met the ground with bruising force.
There was not much of the world that Claire could not find the logic in. The sun rose in the morning and set in the evening. The moon grew large and then shrank again as it circled the earth. Even people tended to behave consistently if you watched them long enough.
But horses were ridiculous creatures that evaded logic altogether. The last time she had ridden Parthus—a plodding gelding of uncertain years—he had not been remotely alarmed by the butterflies that danced from flower to flower.
Today, however, Parthus had apparently decided that the swallowtail resting on a clover, its wings opening and closing in gentle rhythm, was not harmless. Probably it was a bear in disguise. At the very least, it might bite. Thus Parthus had shied and dodged to the left.
Unfortunately, Claire had gone right.
“Claire!” her friends cried in unison.
“My lady!” The footman accompanying them drew his horse to a halt and sprang from the saddle. “Are you injured?”
“Only in dignity,” Claire said ruefully. She gingerly took his offered hand and braced herself.
“Don’t move!”
She froze at the familiar voice. “Colin! What are you doing here?” She tried to rise, but he stopped her.
“I said don’t move. You might have injured your back.” He swatted the footman away. “Where does it hurt?” he asked as he felt along her arms.
“I’m not answering that. Stop pawing me! I did not injure my back. Nothing is broken. Bruised, perhaps, but not broken.” When he didn’t listen, she grabbed his hands, holding them still. “I’m all right, darling,” she said, quietly enough that no one would hear the endearment.
“We’ll let the doctor decide that,” he said gruffly.
She didn’t need a doctor, but she would submit to an examination if it made Colin stop behaving like a maiden auntie. Claire was tempted to rub the part of her that ached, but instead she straightened her bonnet, which had gone askew, and set herself to rights. “Where is my horse?”
“Here, my lady,” the footman answered.
She looked. Parthus was enjoying a mouthful of grass while the butterfly—now determined to be reasonably harmless—circled his ear. Maddening, ridiculous creature.
“Perhaps I will walk back,” she said.
“I’ll carry you,” Colin said.
Before she could protest, he scooped her up in his arms. Ah, well. If it made him feel better, she supposed she would allow it. She wrapped her
arms around his neck and gave a little sigh of contentment. How nice it was to be in his arms!
Except his mother was watching the whole thing. Oh, dear.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Smith,” Claire said with as much decorum as she could muster from her son’s arms. “I hope your journey was comfortable.”
“Quite.” The woman regarded her with a twitch of her mouth. “Are you sure you are all right, Lady Claire?”
“Oh, yes. Though I will admit your arrival is quite fortuitous. I am…a little sore in an unfortunate place. The carriage will be much more comfortable than horseback.”
Colin grimaced. “Let’s get you home.” He instructed the footman to ride ahead and find a doctor to meet them at Chatwell’s residence.
“Shall we come visit you tomorrow?” Adelaide asked from her perch on a tall gray mare. “I should like to know you are all right.”
“I am all right now,” Claire said. “I certainly won’t be any worse tomorrow. But I would love for you to come to tea. We did not finish our discussion, did we? Eliza, Riya—you must come, too.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than Colin turned sharply, heading toward the carriage. She could feel the impatience rolling off him in heated waves. He really was worried about her, the poor man.
She nuzzled gently at his ear. “This is the second time you have carried me. It is getting to be quite a habit with you.”
“God, I hope not,” he said crossly.
“I rather enjoy it.”
He grunted.
She almost expected he would toss her into the carriage like a sack of flour, but he placed her gently on the squabs with as much care as if she were made of glass. Then he turned to assist his mother before getting in himself.
“I am so happy you are to stay with us, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “My mother is looking forward to meeting you.”
This was not strictly true. However, Mrs. Smith need not know that. If there was one thing the marchioness prided herself on, it was good manners. Regardless of what other ladies of the ton might think, her mother believed good manners required one be kind and friendly to guests.
Mrs. Smith hesitated. “Yes, thank you. I am looking forward to meeting her, as well.”
Also a lie. Claire exchanged a glance with Colin.
“Have you ever been to Bath before?” Claire asked.
“No. I’ve had no time for pleasure trips.”
“Oh.” Claire flushed. “Well, I do hope you find Bath pleasurable, in that case. It is truly a delightful place. Imagine, Roman soldiers once took their baths right where we take the waters!”
Mrs. Smith wrinkled her nose. “That does not sound sanitary.”
Claire threw back her head and laughed. “No, I daresay it does not. I— Ouch.” She drew in a sharp breath as the carriage jostled over a cobblestone.
Instantly, Colin was kneeling at her feet. “Where does it hurt? Is it your back? Let me see.”
“I most certainly will not let you see.” She pushed away his seeking hands. “I already told you, I did not land on my back. I landed on a part with far more, ah, padding.”
Mrs. Smith ducked her head to hide an amused smile, but Colin gave her an annoyed look. “You rolled backward after the initial impact; I saw it with my own eyes. You might have bruised a vertebra.”
“I don’t know what that is, but I assure you mine is in perfect health.”
“If it is damaged, you might not realize for weeks. But then the soreness will not go away, and it will become hard to walk. I’ve seen it before.”
“Colin,” Claire said, exasperated. “It was a very little fall. The horses were walking—and not even a fast walk at that, because we ladies were talking to each other as we went. It is not as though I were thrown whilst galloping over a jump.”
He didn’t look convinced.
They arrived home before the doctor. Despite her protests that she could easily walk, Colin insisted on carrying her into the house—which nearly gave the marchioness an apoplexy—and up the stairs to her room. He deposited her on the bed.
Claire frowned up at him. “It pains me to say this, because I adore being held by you, but you must stop carrying me about. My mother now thinks I am seriously harmed. She’ll keep me in bed for the next week.”
“Good,” he said immediately. “You should stay in bed until we know the extent of your injuries.”
She smacked him lightly with a pillow. “The extent of my injuries is a bruised bottom, you fool.”
Meg gasped. “My lady!”
“Oh, hush, Meg,” Claire grumbled. “He already knows I have a bottom, and he saw me land on it.”
“Meg, will you see about a poultice for Lady Claire?” Colin asked. When the maid hesitated, he raised his brows. “The door will be left open, and we are to be married in a fortnight. Her reputation is safe. Go fetch the towels, please.”
Meg curtseyed begrudgingly. “Yes, sir.”
When they were alone, Claire slid her arm around his neck, tugging his head lower. “Kiss me.”
He resisted. “Will you allow the doctor to examine you?”
“It’s unnecessary and embarrassing.” She tugged harder. “Kiss me.”
He braced his arms on either side of her and didn’t budge. “Let the doctor examine you.”
She intended to, despite her arguments to the contrary, just to satisfy his concern for her. “All right.”
He kissed her.
She melted against him, touching her tongue to the seam of his lips until he opened for her. He leaned into her, pressing her down, until she was no longer sitting, but lying flat against the bed.
Then, suddenly, he was pulling away. She tried to bring him back, but he hushed her. “Rest now.”
“I don’t need to rest,” she protested.
But he was already sliding from her grasp.
Chapter Thirty-Five
It was Colin’s opinion that a man who never knew fear was either not truly alive or he was a dimwit. He, himself, had been afraid many times. On his first voyage to India, he had been afraid he would never see land again. Once there, he had been afraid he would rot in prison. During one particularly hellish moment in Egypt, he had been afraid a sandstorm would swallow him whole.
But never had he been so terrified as the moment he witnessed Claire fly from her saddle. It was the kind of fear that stopped a man’s heart in his chest, sucked the air from his lungs, and froze his limbs to useless stumps.
And in that moment, it had become sharply, agonizingly clear that his mother was right. It was madness to take such a fragile creature as Lady Claire from the safety of her home. The sun would burn her, the rocks would bruise her, and— Hell. The woman courted disaster merely by breathing.
Which would have been fine, had he been able to live without her.
But as he could no more live without her than he could without the heart beating in his chest, she must be kept safe.
He had no illusions that she would submit to being locked in a padded house forevermore, but by God, he could keep her from crossing the ocean. Blisters and bruised bottoms were one thing. Hurricanes and malaria were quite another.
It was this same feeling, this sick twisting of his gut, Colin had no doubt, that had led Chatwell to lie to his daughter. Likely, the marquess had experienced it at least half a dozen times at Claire’s hand. Well, Colin would lie, too, without the slightest guilt. He would tell a thousand lies if that was what it took never to feel this fear again.
It was not his habit to hesitate between making a decision and acting upon it, and this was no exception. Once he had determined the proper course of action, he put his plan in motion. And if, perhaps, it occurred to him that Claire would be furious when she found out, that thought was easily obliterated by the image of her flying from the saddle.
He went to Deb first. For the first time in all the years Colin had known him, Deb was not amused.
“You want us to stay in England for a year?” he dema
nded. He said something foul in Bangla. “We will freeze to death while Belzoni discovers all our treasures. There will be nothing left for us.”
“You’re being absurd. There is enough in Egypt to keep adventurers busy for the next century,” Colin said.
Deb merely shook his head.
Colin switched tactics. “What of Riya?” he asked. When his friend grimaced, he knew he had found his weakness. “Your sister wants to stay in England. It is your duty to see that she is happy staying with Miss Benton before you abandon her in a foreign land.”
“Perhaps Riya will decide to join us, after all, now that Lady Claire will be with us and can keep her company,” Deb suggested.
“Riya knows it is no life for a lady. Perhaps she will convince Lady Claire of that, rather than the other way around.”
His friend paused. “I see,” he said softly.
“You do not see,” Colin said shortly. “You were not there when she blistered her foot so badly I had to carry her. You were not there to see her thrown from a horse. How do you think she will fare in Egypt?”
“That’s what this is really about, then. Does Lady Claire know your plans have changed? I must say, I expect her to oppose the plan most strongly.”
Colin shrugged. “It is only for a year.”
“So you say. But what will you do when the year is up and she still longs for travel and adventure? What will you do?”
“Perhaps I will not have to do anything. She might be with child by then.”
“Ah, yes. Because childbirth is much less dangerous to a woman’s life than sea travel,” Deb said drily.
Colin flinched. God, was no place safe for her? “I don’t know what else to do.”
His friend gave him a sympathetic look. “Very well. I will agree to wait a year—for my sister’s sake, not for yours. You, my friend, have gone entirely mad with love, and I hope Lady Claire finds the cure before you make the both of you miserable.”
Having secured Deb’s agreement—if not his blessing—Colin returned to Chatwell’s residence to find that Claire had kept to her rooms all morning.
Wicked With the Scoundrel Page 14
