by Shana Galen
“You wouldn’t dare.” Her eyes flashed amber fire.
Brook crossed his arms over his chest. “Two minutes.”
Lila stared at him for a long moment. He would hate forcing her to walk six miles in this cold in only a thin muslin day dress, but he would do it. She would see it as further proof that he was a brute. Brook saw no need or reason to prove his strength or power to a woman. But he would protect her, even from herself.
Finally, just as he poised to move, she stomped across the wood floor and yanked her pelisse from the table where it lay. She shrugged it on and took her time fastening it. By his reckoning, her time was up, but he gave her a little leeway as she pulled on gloves, a bonnet, a scarf, and half boots. Closer to ten minutes had passed when she was finally ready, but Brook offered his arm magnanimously.
Lila walked right past him and out the door.
Brook smiled. He did like her sometimes. He really did.
* * *
The wind cut through her pelisse and her dress, and straight to her bones. Lila tried to keep her head down so the top of her bonnet took the worst of it, but her ears still ached from the cold. Her fingers, which she’d tucked inside her pelisse, felt numb and frozen. Her feet were the worst of all. The rain had left muddy puddles everywhere, and she could not avoid stepping in many of them. Consequently, her feet had been wet and stiff shortly after they’d set out.
Everything from her toes to her back to her red nose hurt. She had no idea how long they’d been walking or how much farther they had to go. She simply followed Brook.
For his part, her husband didn’t look troubled at all by the wind or the wet. His feet must also have been icy, his face windburned, but he showed no sign of flagging. Lila wouldn’t ever admit it to him, but his resoluteness fueled her own. If he could go on, so could she. If he did not make complaint, neither would she.
The fact that her teeth chattered and her jaw had locked closed certainly aided in her efforts to quell any grumbles that rose to her lips. Unfortunately, she’d been thinking about her cold toes and how much she hated Brook Derring and not looking where she walked. Too late, she saw the small hole in front of her. Her foot slid into it, and she overcompensated in her efforts not to lose her balance. Lila fell forward, catching herself on her hands and crying out when her wrist buckled in protest.
Brook swept her up immediately, enveloping her in his warmth and checking her ankle for signs of injury, as though she were a small child.
“Where does it hurt?” he demanded. Then, before she could answer, he made a sound of disgust. “If you needed to rest, you should have said so. I knew you were too quiet.”
“Perhaps you would have been happier if I’d complained incessantly.”
His dark eyes pierced her. “There is a difference between complaint and request.” He put his warm hand around her ankle. “Does this hurt?”
“No. My ankle is fine.” Cold but fine. “It’s my wrist.”
She offered it to him with a small wince. She did not think it was broken, but the pain had not subsided.
“Take off your glove,” he said. Then, “Here, allow me.”
But when he tried to pry it off, she hissed and recoiled.
“Damn it,” he swore.
“Let me try,” she said, tugging gingerly on one of the fingers.
“No. I can’t do anything about it out here. Better to press on and examine it at the posting house. Can you walk?”
Lila realized she’d been perched on his lap as he knelt on the road. She started to scramble up, and he settled his hands on her hips to hold her steady. As soon as she stood, she shied away. She did not want to feel his hands on her. She did not want to remember the wanton things they’d done together.
“My ankle is fine,” she said, testing her weight on it. “How much farther to the posting house?”
“Not more than a mile now.”
Lila wanted to cry. A mile yet to go, and she was already so weary. But she blinked the tears away and started forward. Brook walked beside her, his hawk-like gaze on her.
She wanted to rail at him, to blame him for the ache in her wrist, but she could see in the furrow of his brow, he already blamed himself. “I would not have brought you if I could have been certain you would be safe at the cottage.”
Why he still called that tiny hut a cottage was beyond her.
“Yes, I can see why you would worry. There are any number of creaky boards and rusty nails that might cause me injury.”
“You know my concern is more serious than that. If Beezle were to find you—”
“Beezle find me? Good Lord, I don’t even know where I am,” Lila said. “Surely a thief from London’s rookeries can’t know.”
“You make a mistake when you underestimate the rabble. Beezle wouldn’t be an arch rogue if he didn’t have cunning and boldness. We already know he has contacts in Parliament. Even if Beezle doesn’t have the resources to trace us here, you can be sure the members of Parliament do.”
Lila’s boot caught on a rock and she stumbled—not enough to fall, but Brook’s arm went around her nonetheless. She might have shrugged it off if it hadn’t been warm. At that moment, she would have rubbed shoulders with the devil himself if it meant more warmth.
“If there is a member of Parliament who ordered this Fitzsimmons dead, why is he worried about me? I saw the murder, but I didn’t see him. Even if I can identify Beezle, I don’t know who he works for.”
“You are a loose end. A man with political ambitions, a man capable of ordering the murder of another, will not want a loose end.”
“And so I hide away forever? Even when this Beezle is caught, you cannot be certain he will reveal his employer.”
“He’s no snitch,” Brook conceded. “But I’ve been known to persuade other closed-mouthed rooks to tell me their secrets.”
Lila peered at him curiously. “How do you do that? Or do I not want to know?”
“Incentives.” His gaze remained on the road before them. Lila didn’t ask him to elaborate. She didn’t need to. Hadn’t he persuaded her to join him in bed with incentives? He was obviously a man who knew how to get what he wanted. The worst of it was that she almost believed, for a time, it was what she wanted too. Although, how any woman wouldn’t want Brook Derring to kiss her, touch her, was a mystery to Lila.
She hadn’t known she could feel the way he made her feel. It wasn’t just the physical pleasure, although that was certainly part of it. But he made her feel as though she were the most desirable woman in the world. He looked at her, touched her, as though he wanted her more than…well, more than anything else. More than air or water or life.
It was ridiculous, a figment of her imagination. She’d allowed her emotions to cloud her other senses, just as she had when she’d been a child and read love poems and the Arthurian legends with their romance between Guinevere and Lancelot. Upon discovering Lila devouring the story of Arthur for a third night in a row, her governess had pointed out that Lancelot and Guinevere’s love had not ended well.
The lesson seemed to be that strong emotions only caused trouble.
Lila believed that more than ever. She had to rein in her emotions for Brook Derring or she would fall helplessly in love with him. The problem was she did not know how to prevent doing so. If he would only act like an overbearing tyrant—as he had that morning when he’d threatened to drag her out in only her dress—she might be able to hate him.
But he insisted on catching her when she fell, rescuing small kittens, and kissing her senseless. Even when he was overbearing, it was for a good reason. He wanted to protect her. Lila was no Guinevere, but even Lila’s defenses could not withstand that sort of assault.
The worst of it—as though all of this wasn’t bad enough—was that he did not seem to care. He didn’t catch her or protect her because he was in love with her. He did it because it was the sort of man he was. She’d wanted to believe it was out of a sense of duty, but how did duty account for th
e mother cat and the kittens? How did duty account for the fact that he’d covered her up last night so she wouldn’t grow cold while she slept?
Dratted man. If only he still loved her a little!
But, of course, she’d ruined that. Just as she’d ruined everything else in her life. She’d alienated every friend she’d ever had. She’d thought herself better than every man who ever proposed. And Lila had angered her mother by spending too much, snubbing her friends, and refusing to marry the man her mother had chosen for her.
And then her mother had died.
Lila had realized, too late, that life was fleeting. She’d understood only at the end of her mother’s life that kindness and compassion were more valuable than beauty or cutting wit. When one lay on a deathbed, no one cared if you’d been a diamond of the first water or turned down a half-dozen marriage proposals. If you had no friends, no love, you died alone.
Lila’s mother had not died alone. Lila had not left her side, and Colin had come as often as he could.
But her father had stayed away. Lila had wanted to believe it was because his wife’s illness tore at his heart. Later she came to realize he had already been courting his next bride. He’d never loved his duchess. Their marriage had been an alliance between two great families, nothing more.
Lila had vowed, at first, never to marry. It was a ridiculous vow because after her year of mourning, she wasn’t invited to any of the Season’s events anyway. All of her “friends” from the past had married, and the new crop of debutantes could have cared less about her. Her father’s choice to marry again when his old duchess was barely in the grave had created something of a scandal, which meant the Duke of Lennox was not at the top of many guest lists.
Her father hadn’t cared. He had a new duchess to keep him busy.
Lila was the one who had suffered. She’d been lonely and made desperately unhappy by her father’s new marriage. She hadn’t bothered to hide her dislike of her stepmother, and she’d been exiled.
Now, against all odds, she found herself married to one of the men she’d rejected. Only he didn’t want her any longer, and she was in very real danger of being either killed or set aside via annulment.
Lila wasn’t certain which option was worse.
Lila raised her head at the sound of hoofbeats. On the road ahead, a coach charged toward them. Brook pulled her to the side of the road, using his body to shield her from mud spatters. He raised his hat to the coachman and walked on.
When the posting house came into sight, Lila wanted to sag with relief. Her injured wrist shot streaks of white-hot pain up her arm, and her hand felt heavy and swollen. Brook maneuvered her through the muddy yard of the posting house, with its strong smell of horse manure, and into the warm common room. The heat was almost stifling after the brisk breeze of the last couple hours. Brook spoke with the proprietor and requested the use of a private room. Finally, she was able to sit by the fire and warm her shivering body.
The proprietor promised to return with tea and cakes, then left them alone. Brook took the seat beside Lila.
“Let me see your wrist.”
Lila hesitated, wanting to keep it close and protected, but she finally lay in on the table.
Brook pushed up the sleeve of her pelisse and pressed lightly at the top of her glove. She hissed in pain.
“Bloody hell.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“I’d like to see if you don’t curse when we have to pull that glove off. That wrist is either badly sprained or broken.”
Lila glanced down at her glove. The fabric had stretched slightly to accommodate her swollen wrist. She’d always had slender, graceful wrists. The sudden doubling in size alarmed her.
“Would you like me to do it, or would you rather have a go?”
Lila considered the glove and said, “I’ll do it.”
With her good hand, she tugged on the fingers, wincing when her wrist protested at even the slightest movement. She paused when the pain threatened to make her sob and closed her eyes. She was exhausted from walking in the cold on an almost-empty stomach and now by the effort of removing the glove. Finally, she pried the glove off and dropped it on the table. Brook took her hand in his, twisting it this way and that.
“Forgive me,” he said, pressing his fingers against the swollen flesh lightly then turning her wrist to and fro.
Lila bit her lip to stifle the cry of pain, but it was bearable. Brook did not mean to hurt her. He flinched when she made a sound of distress, and his touch was as gentle as if she was a Sevres vase.
“It’s not broken,” he declared finally. “At least I don’t think it is. If it is, the fracture is small.”
“It certainly hurts as though it’s been broken.”
He glanced up at her with a wry smile. “Have you ever broken a bone?”
“No.”
“An expert then. It hurts because you’ve sprained it. Badly. I’ll need to ask the proprietor for linen strips to bandage it. The less you move it, the better, for the next few days.”
Lila nodded, wishing she’d injured her left wrist instead of her right. Eating or sipping tea with her weaker left hand would be difficult.
“I inquired after a gig and a horse so the postboy might drive us back, but the gig has a broken axle and that carriage that passed us took the last of the fresh horses. I’ll ask if the proprietor has a room available.”
“Rooms?” Lila felt as though a wash of sun spread over her. She might sleep in a comfortable bed tonight and dine on real food. Perhaps the posting house had a hip bath she might make use of.
“Room. We only need one.”
He would insist on one room. But did he do so in order to protect her or because he wanted her close?
“While we’re here, you’ll need to stay out of sight. I’d prefer to go back to the cottage tonight, but I’d be a brute to make you walk back when you’re in so much pain.”
Lila bit back the retort that he was a brute most of the time anyway. She would accept this kindness graciously. Perhaps they might even stay at the posting house until this Beezle was caught and his employer ferreted out. She would never have seen a posting house as anything other than a brief stop on a journey, but compared to the hovel in which Brook had hidden her, the accommodations here were luxurious.
“Oh.” Lila frowned in concern.
“You don’t want to stay?”
“I do,” she said. “I just thought about the mother cat and her kittens. I hope they aren’t too cold or hungry tonight.”
Brook stared at her, the fire making his dark eyes look like polished mahogany. “You are concerned about the cats?”
When he put it that way, it seemed rather silly. “I…I suppose they will be fine.”
Brook sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He regarded her so long she began to squirm. Thankfully, they were interrupted by a quick knock at the door when the proprietor, who Brook called Mr. Nicholson, brought hot tea and a plate of small sandwiches and cakes. Brook inquired after a room, and the proprietor assured them his finest was available—did any innkeeper ever possess a room not his finest?—and hurried away to bid the maids to make it ready for the couple.
Lila reached for the teapot with her left hand and grasped it rather awkwardly. To her surprise, Brook waved her away and poured the tea himself, inquiring whether she wanted milk or sugar. She took neither and wasted no time blowing on the tea and sipping it.
If her mother looked down on her from heaven right then, she would have been most displeased at seeing her daughter blow on tea like a common scullery maid. Lila was too hungry to care. After she sipped the hot tea, she snatched a cake and took a large bite. It was so delicious, she finished it off with another bite and reached for a second.
Lord, but how she had missed these small civilities.
Brook was either not as hungry as she or had better manners because he took his time choosing a sandwich and waited for his tea to cool before sipping it. Lila
knew he watched her with those hawk-like eyes, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t as though, after what he’d done to her the night before, he had any remaining illusions about her being a proper lady.
She’d reached for a third cake and was about to begin nibbling it when Brook rose to pour her more tea. “I left the kitchen door open,” he said.
“What?” Lila asked, around a mouthful of food. She could all but hear her mother’s voice, urging her not to speak with her mouth full and to say pardon.
“For the cats,” he said, raising the teapot. “If they grow cold or it rains, the kitchen building is open. It won’t have a fire, but at least they’ll be inside.” He glanced down at the plate. “You’ve eaten all the cakes.”
She stared at him, in her shock, unable to apologize.
“I’ll call for more.” He went to the door, and she swallowed the lump of cake. She couldn’t taste it anymore. She couldn’t even feel the pain of her sprained wrist. Her head spun and her heart thudded.
Long before she’d ever considered the cats, he’d thought to leave the kitchen open for them. He hadn’t thought her silly for mentioning the mother cat and kittens. He probably wondered why her thoughts turned to them so belatedly.
As Lila watched Brook speak with the proprietor, his head bent so he might look the man in the eye, with his broad shoulders shielding her from view, one thing became perfectly clear.
She was in love with Brook Derring.
Fourteen
Brook had vowed to leave Lila alone that night. He’d sit in the common room, listen to the talk of travelers and locals alike, and return to the bed chamber when she was almost certainly already asleep. Her wrist pained her, and the walk had almost done her in. He hadn’t thought about how little she’d eaten in the days before they’d arrived at the cottage and in the days since they’d been there.
Of course, she’d never complained of hunger. She actually complained very little, which was rather unexpected. He thought she’d be quite vocal about everything and everyone—including him—being quite beneath her.
