That surprised her friend. “London?”
“It suddenly came up.” Offering no other explanation, she pressed, “Will you watch him?”
“Of course.” From the way Alice Walters continued to glare at Ross distrustfully, she most likely expected him to murder Grace right in front of her. “You trust this man?”
“Not at all,” she answered quickly, and far too earnestly for his comfort. “But if he gives me any trouble, I’ll simply tie him up.” She cast a sly glance in Ross’s direction that told him she meant just that. “He also needs a change of clothes.” She added in a private jab, “Something that doesn’t make him look as if he fell into the English Channel.”
“And a shave,” Alice muttered.
He rubbed a hand against his jaw and flashed the older woman his best rakish smile. Her cheeks flushed, and she glanced away.
Grace narrowed her eyes and mouthed, Stop that!
He winked at her. Which caused her cheeks to flush. He was beginning to find a new appreciation for women in fishing villages.
“Do you think you have an old set of your late husband’s clothes that might fit him?” Grace asked.
The older woman mumbled, “Might have.”
“You’re the one who keeps telling me that it’s time I claim Ethan’s inheritance for him,” Grace reminded her in a soft voice that Ross suspected he wasn’t meant to overhear. “This might be my only chance.” Her frown softened. “It will work out, I know it.”
Alice nodded, although reluctantly, and pulled her hands away from Grace. Sending a suspicious glance at Ross, she walked into the backroom.
Ross folded his arms across his chest. “She doesn’t seem happy about this.”
“We’ve surprised her, that’s all.”
He suspected they’d done a lot more than that. “She knows about your past?”
“The only one who knows, except for you.” Lowering her voice and glancing toward the stairwell, she rested her hand entreatingly on his upper arm. “Ethan can never know, understand? Not unless I’m successful in retrieving his inheritance. I can’t risk that he might tell someone, or attempt something foolish when he’s older.”
He placed his hand over hers, pinning it there. “You think his uncle would harm him?”
“I know so.” Her scar showed bright pink as her face paled beneath it. She slipped her hand away and turned back toward the stairs. “Ethan!” she called out again. When silence greeted her, she slumped her shoulders with a frustrated sigh and grumbled, “How is it possible that he can hear whispers about birthday and Christmas gifts from two rooms away but can never hear me when I call for him?” Losing her patience, she shouted, “Ethan, now!”
Stomping steps reverberated overhead, then slowly down the stairs. A boy who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, slight of build and with a shock of unruly hair, grudgingly emerged from the stairwell and went to his mother.
She dropped to her knees and pulled him into her arms, to hug him tightly to her. But the boy scowled and stepped back, darting an embarrassed look at Ross.
“Mother, I’m not a baby,” he protested wearily.
Ross suspected that Grace had heard that same admonishment countless times before, yet that didn’t stop a pained expression from flitting across her face.
She plastered on a smile as she rose to her feet and took the boy’s shoulders in her hands, to turn him to face Ross. “Mr. Thomas, this is my son Ethan. Ethan, this is Mr. Christopher Thomas.”
Ross noted that she didn’t add any further explanation of who he was or how he knew her, although that was still just as much a mystery to him. He inclined his head and held out his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Master Ethan.”
“Sir.” The boy shook his hand.
Ross smiled. “How old are you?”
“Nine and a half, sir.”
“And a half, hmm?” Well, Grace certainly had her hands full with this one. “So you’re in year five at school, then. When I was in year five, I loved geography and despised math.”
The boy’s eyes gleamed. “I like math. It’s Latin I don’t like.”
“Don’t worry.” He couldn’t resist tousling the child’s hair, drawing a duck of his head and a soft laugh from the boy. “You’ll never use Latin outside the schoolroom.”
“Mr. Thomas,” Grace warned quietly.
Both males promptly ignored that—Ross because he wanted to be on the boy’s good side, and Ethan because he seemed determined to ignore all of his mother’s warnings. As any nine year-old boy would. “Unless you become a vicar,” Ross added. “Do you want to be a vicar? My brother claims he does.”
He proudly stuck out his chest. “I want to be a ship’s captain!”
Behind him, Grace blanched, her hands tightening on the boy’s shoulders. “Honey, we’ve talked about this.” She brushed her hand through his hair, combing it back into place. “Being a sailor is dangerous.”
“But it’s what I want to do.” When he scowled and shoved her hand away, an injured expression flashed over Grace’s face. “Why can’t I? I want to be on a ship, sailing around the world.” He grumbled, “Away from here.”
That peevish dig hurt Grace, and badly enough that she didn’t answer right away.
So Ross intervened before the boy could realize that he’d wounded her. “When I was younger, I was an officer in the army. Traveled all over the world—France, Spain…once all the way to northern Africa.”
Ethan’s face lit up with excitement. “Truly?”
“The God’s truth.” He smiled at the boy as he flicked a gaze up to his mother, who bit her lip in worry over what future distress he might be causing for her with such tales. “I hated every moment of it.”
Ethan’s excitement waned. “You did?”
“I missed my home and my family, all my chums back in England.” Realizing that he wasn’t persuading him as much as he wanted, he changed tactics. “And the food was terrible.”
The boy stilled for a moment at that revelation. Then he jutted up his chin defiantly. “But I won’t be in the army. I’ll be on a ship!”
“Even worse. Homesick and seasick. Three years away from England with only salt pork and hardtack to eat.” Knowing more of the lesson would sink in if the lad were eavesdropping rather than receiving a lecture, he glanced up at Grace, changing his tone from addressing a child to one of conversing with an adult, and talked past the boy. “My brother served in the navy and swears that hardtack’s not that bad.” He chuckled then, as if sharing a joke between adults. “He said that mealy worms are the only fresh meat sailors get when they’ve been out on the water for six months straight.”
He didn’t dare lower his gaze to the boy without giving himself away. Nor did he want to when he saw Grace’s unease melt into amusement.
“So your brother was at sea.” Her bright eyes shined knowingly as she joined in. “Of course, we have mostly whole sailors here in Sea Haven, those who still have both arms and legs. But I’ve heard stories about how many men in London and further along the coast are missing parts. Did he lose a leg?”
“Both,” he answered, deadpan.
From the bottom of his gaze, he saw the boy’s eyes widen, and he bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Grace beamed with conspiratorial glee at Ross over her son’s head.
“How do you know my mother?”
The unexpected question froze the smile on her face. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she raced to come up with an answer.
“We’re old friends,” Ross answered for her. “From long before you were born.”
That answer seemed to satisfy him. Until… “Why are you in Sea Haven?”
“The storm forced me to come ashore.” Not technically a lie. “And I unexpectedly came across your mother.” Also not a lie. “We spent all night becoming reacquainted.” Unable to help himself, he added, “I couldn’t bring myself to leave. It was as if I were tied in place.”
A strangled sound came from her thro
at. Her eyes narrowed murderously on him for just a beat, then she forced a smile and turned the boy to face her. She lowered herself to her knees as she reached up to brush at his hair. Ethan rolled his eyes.
“But Mr. Thomas is needed in London.” She paused. “And I’m going to travel with him.”
“You are?” Ethan asked warily, sliding a distrustful glance at Ross. “Why?”
“Because I have business in London, and it isn’t safe for women to travel alone.”
“Then I’ll come with you.” Another look at Ross, this one purely territorial.
The boy was a handful and chafed beneath his mother’s care, but he clearly loved her. Which was more than could be said of most sons of the aristocracy, who were raised by nannies and tutors and whose only interactions with their parents before the age of thirteen was to be paraded out nightly for a cursory review before being promptly returned to the nursery. Thank God he and Kit had been given a better childhood than that.
“You can’t, honey. You’ve got school, and I could be away for several weeks. You’ll stay here with Mrs. Walters and have a grand time.” Her forced smile faltered. “You won’t give me a second thought while I’m gone. So be a good boy for Alice, and kiss me goodbye.”
When she leaned in to kiss his cheek, Ethan scowled angrily and pushed her away. “I told you—I’m not a baby!”
Grace rocked back onto her heels and gaped at him, this time unable to hide the hurt from her face. Her lips parted delicately, stunned.
“Ethan,” Ross called out sharply.
The boy’s head jerked up in surprise.
He pinned the child with a hard look. “If you want to be a man, then you’ll respect your mother. In every way. Good men always treat their mothers well.”
He held Ross’s gaze for a long moment beneath that chastisement, as if contemplating how far he could push back.
“Apologize to your mother,” Ross ordered. “Then be a man and kiss her goodbye.”
A sheepish look clouded the boy’s face, and he turned apologetically toward Grace. “I’m sorry, Mother.” Dutifully, he placed a contrite kiss to her cheek. “And I’ll be good for Mrs. Walters.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, blinking rapidly. “Now go on back upstairs. I’ll send letters as soon as I can.”
The boy nodded, then turned to Ross. “Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye, Ethan.”
The boy hurried off, whether to escape his mother’s coddling or further scolding, Ross couldn’t have said.
“And thank you,” Grace repeated, solemnly meeting his gaze.
“It was nothing.” He took her elbow and helped her to her feet. “But you don’t need to worry too much. I was a rough and tumble boy once, too.” He grinned at her. “I’d like to think I turned out all right.”
She squeezed his hand. “You turned out just fine.”
He wished he could believe her.
Then her face darkened as she confided, “He deserves better than to die at sea. Your help in obtaining his inheritance will prevent that.”
Yet after so many years, the odds of it happening—Ross wouldn’t have placed that bet into the book at White’s.
But he also wouldn’t have bet on his odds of surviving his own flight from Paris, or the fate awaiting him in London.
“Here.” Alice Walters returned with several pieces of clothing in her arms. She set them on the counter, then picked up one of the shirts and held it up to his shoulders. She frowned, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d demand he strip to his breeches so she could measure him. “This one will work.” She tossed it over his shoulder and snatched up a jacket, quickly measuring it across the breadth of his shoulders. “This one might be a bit tight, but it’ll do.” Then she reached for a pair of trousers—
Ross grabbed them from her before she could measure other parts of him that she had no business being that close to in the first place. “These will all do nicely, thank you.”
She arched a brow. “Is there a reason you don’t have your own clothes?”
“I had to leave home quickly. There wasn’t time to gather my things.” He’d been prepared to leave everything behind. Once he stole the last of the documents, he knew that his life would never be the same again. “I hadn’t planned on getting caught in the storm.”
He hadn’t planned on getting caught at all.
“Hmm.” She raked her gaze over him once more, folding her arms across her chest as if she found him lacking. “A friend from Grace’s London days, huh?”
Suspicion panged in his chest at the way she said that, almost as if leveling a challenge.
“Alice,” Grace warned softly. “That doesn’t matter—”
“Not really,” he confessed, deciding that the blunt truth was best. “But she needs to go to London, and so do I. We might as well travel together.”
Grace interjected before Mrs. Walters could protest. “He might be able to help me once we’re there.”
Or get her arrested as an accomplice in treason. He didn’t dare put voice to that, or Mrs. Walters might just fetch her gun after all.
Alice narrowed her eyes on him. “If you hurt her, Mr. Thomas, I swear that I will hunt you down and make you pay for it.”
“Alice!” Grace exclaimed, shocked. But her friend didn’t lower her resolute gaze.
Neither did Ross. “I won’t let any harm come to her.” He meant it.
At that, Alice snorted in distrust and walked away. “That’s not the only way for a man to hurt a woman, is it, Grace?”
But Grace kept her gaze straight ahead and her face turned away, to hide as much of her scar as possible, and said nothing.
Chapter 9
In the dim light from the inn’s lamps, the post-chaise swayed to a stop, and the postilion gratefully slid off the horse’s back. Ross opened the door and swung stiffly to the ground, then reached a hand back to help Grace.
“Watch your step,” he warned, reaching a second hand up to take her arm as she descended.
She gave him a tired smile. After six hours in the hired carriage, stopping only to change out horses and postilions, her legs prickled with pins and needles, and all of her ached. But they’d made good time over the roads, which couldn’t decide whether to jar their bones with rocks and bumps or mire them in mud.
He picked up her travel bag in his left hand and took her elbow in his right to guide her to the wooden planks that had been laid across the yard as a temporary footpath so passengers wouldn’t sink up to their ankles in mud and manure. Even though Ross hadn’t complained, he must have been even more tired and travel-sore than she was, given how he limped slightly on his wounded leg. Around them, the inn bustled with activity, despite the early evening darkness, as hostlers and drivers busied in the dim lamplight to care for the teams and carriages. Raucous laughter and music drifted from the inn’s common room, the light spilling out of the windows and open doors into the night.
“We’ll buy some food here and rest a bit,” he told her, “then see about securing seats on a stage coach heading out yet tonight.”
A sharp ache pinched her back at the thought of traveling on. But it was an inexplicable pang in her chest that snared her attention, a disappointment that they’d be crammed into a mail coach with other passengers when she’d had him to herself since they’d left Sea Haven. She’d enjoyed that time alone with him, far more than she wanted to admit.
It had been only the two of them in the post-chaise all afternoon and past sunset. They’d passed the time telling stories, with Ross avoiding sharing any more details of his flight from France and those odd papers he’d carried tucked beneath his waistcoat, just as Grace foiled all his attempts to wheedle out of her when they’d originally met and her husband’s identity. It had become a game, each knowing exactly what the other was attempting. Their own version of a traveling chess match, played to a stalemate as the miles slipped past.
“We can travel faster if we hire another post-chaise,” she cou
ntered. And continue the game they’d started, one she’d found herself liking a great deal.
“Not tonight.” He glanced up at the pitch-black sky overhead, not one star or a sliver of moon to be seen. But the chilly air held the promise of more rain to add to the mud and standing water from the storm. “There’s safety in numbers on a night like this.” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t want Alice Walters to chase me down with that gun of hers for letting you be robbed by a highwayman.”
“Don’t be silly. She wouldn’t really come after you with a gun.” She gave him a smile as they entered the crowded inn. “She’d use a knife.”
He laughed as he led her up to the innkeeper. He rapped his knuckles on the counter to get the man’s attention. “My wife and I need two seats on the next coach to London.”
Wife…the word skittered through her. Of course, they were traveling under the pretense of being married. But this was the first time she’d heard it said aloud, and she wasn’t prepared for the pulse of shooting electricity it brought. Or the faint niggling of guilt that she was betraying her late husband.
The innkeeper shook his head. “None goin’ out t’night. Roads ‘re too bad. None o’ the drivers wants to fight the mud i’ th’ darkness, ‘specially when passengers have to get out an’ push.”
Ross looked down at Grace, his expression held carefully inscrutable. But she’d come to know him well enough during the past few days to sense his simmering frustration.
“A wagonload o’ chickens is headin’ out in ‘bout an hour,” the man offered. “Ye might be able t’ ride i’ the back with ‘em, if’n yer in a hurry t’ get on. Can’t say ye won’t end up helpin’ t’ push that one through the mud neither though.”
Ross’s gaze never strayed from Grace’s, but she saw a flicker of amusement light his blue eyes. “What do you say, Mrs. Thomas? Ride with the chickens or take a room?”
“Whatever you think best, dear husband.” When he looked back at the innkeeper, she muttered, “Either way, I have a feeling that I’m going to be plucked.”
He froze, except for a twitching of his lips. The only visible sign that he’d heard her.
How the Earl Entices Page 8
