by Karen Ranney
How was he doing without her?
Did he miss her?
She should have sent him a note that said more than it had, but she couldn’t bear the idea of Howington reading it to him. Or even sweet Mrs. Thompson. Besides, what could she have said?
That night was a terrible mistake.
I’m too attracted to you. If you crooked your finger, I’d bound across the room like a faithful puppy to be at your side. I think about you entirely too much. I have even dreamed about you, isn’t that the most foolish thing? Dreaming of a Scotsman who was an English earl.
I can’t see you anymore. I can’t be with you. I can’t bear it. You’re tearing me in two, making me think that Neville might have done something monstrous and then kissing and loving me.
No, she was simply not going to allow herself to think about the man. He was a danger, an attraction she couldn’t afford, and an addiction she didn’t want.
She was not going to think of how he held her and kissed every inch of her skin. She was not going to remember the bliss she’d felt. But most of all, she wasn’t going to remember holding him in her arms when he trembled.
She would think of Partage instead.
Dark and brooding on the landscape, the castle sat black against the sky. The Clyde ran swift beneath the cliff, while long grasses flourished in the ruins, waving at her in greeting.
Sometimes, she felt like she could hear the past if she stood still long enough. If she did, the voices of those who lived there four hundred years ago might speak to a curious English woman.
Lady Terry had shared with her information that Partage was supposed to have been the site of the castle of the Bishops of Glasgow. She hadn’t discovered any evidence that such a site existed, but then, she wasn’t in Scotland more than a month at a time. Perhaps she should spend more time there.
Anywhere but in London where a certain earl lived.
THANK PROVIDENCE and all the angels that there was only one departure platform at King’s Cross. The station was located at the northern edge of central London, a half hour from Minerva’s home.
Daniels was a good enough driver that he navigated the rainy London traffic with ease.
“I’m not supposed to leave the carriage, Your Lordship,” Daniels said once they were at the station.
“Bugger the carriage,” he said. “I don’t care if the damn thing’s nicked.” He pulled some money from his pocket and stretched out his hand. “Give it to someone to watch the carriage, then.”
Daniels took a few bills, then pressed the rest back into his hand. “That’s enough, sir.”
“Then let’s be off,” Dalton said. On a quest to rescue a woman from her own folly. To protect Minerva Todd, not that she would thank him for it.
She was too opinionated, too stubborn, too much an individual. She pushed against the mold of society, bent its restraints, and was in the process of making herself a source of endless gossip.
His need to protect her startled him. She was, on the face of it, not the type of woman who engendered protective impulses. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? People didn’t see the true Minerva. They didn’t realize her loneliness or that she was easily wounded despite her crusty exterior. They didn’t know her capacity for affection or her sense of loyalty and duty.
She wasn’t plain; she was beautiful in a way that was completely Minerva’s.
He loved her voice, loved her way of speaking. Loved her mind and her wit. He might be coming too damn close to loving her, a frightening enough thought that it occupied him as they entered King’s Cross Station.
SHE LOOKED up to find Hugh approaching her.
“I’ve been thinking, Minerva,” he abruptly said. “I think it would be a good idea if I started looking for another position.”
She didn’t know what to say. He was right. She had bent the boundaries of propriety with Hugh and he was the one to have suffered for it. She expected him to go back to the role he had maintained for years and that was impossible.
“If you think that’s wise, Hugh.”
He nodded.
“It is, what with you being involved with the earl and all.”
She was certainly not going to justify her relationship with Dalton. Not when she was certain she’d made another mistake there, too.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Oh, good heavens, no. She could not be in love with the Earl of Rathsmere. What a ridiculous idea that would be, feeling something for the Rake of London.
No, she was not that foolish.
She was most definitely not in love with him.
“Of course not,” she said. “Nor am I a moth, Hugh.”
“He’ll hurt you, Minerva. Men like that do. He’ll toss you aside like yesterday’s handkerchief. I’d be surprised if he remembered your name the same time next year.”
She felt each word like it was an arrow tipped in poison. Hugh might be right about everything. Just one reason why she was leaving for Scotland and not sitting in the Earl of Rathmere’s library.
“Speaking of the earl,” Hugh said, staring behind her.
She turned and looked.
The Earl of Rathsmere was headed toward her, his hand on Daniels’s arm.
Dalton’s mouth was thinned. His jaw was hardened and he was frowning. He hated to be the object of attention and he was most definitely that. The sight of a devastatingly handsome man in an eye patch striding through the station was enough to capture anyone’s notice.
Whatever was he doing here? For that matter, what was her heart doing jumping up and down in her chest?
SHE WAS on her way to Scotland to escape him. He wasn’t that much of a fool. He knew only too well that she was going to Scotland rather than coming to grips with what she’d—what they’d—done.
She was entirely too bohemian, shocking, unafraid to bend rules or ignore them altogether. She startled him continuously, amused him endlessly, forced him to reassess himself, and made him want to be a better man.
No woman should have that power.
The noise of the station was overwhelming, like a wave of sound coming toward him. He’d never felt as isolated as he did in that moment.
Or as afraid.
How idiotic. He’d faced fear in America as he stood there outflanked by the enemy. One day, all he’d seen was a continuous line of gray soldiers with guns pointed in his direction. He’d thought, at the time, that they looked like a monstrous porcupine, one with death on its mind. If he could force himself to remain calm then, a little noise in a cavernous station wasn’t going to make him turn tail and run.
The urge was there, though, to find a quiet place, a small and cozy corner where he could identify by touch everything around him.
He was here to find Minerva. Pushing his discomfort to the back of his mind, he strode forward with his driver as his companion.
“Do you see her, Daniels?”
“Not yet, sir, but we aren’t at the departures platform yet.”
He nodded, damning his need to be guided like an infant in a pram.
Daniels suddenly said, “Good afternoon, Miss Todd.”
“Is she there?” he asked.
“She is,” Minerva said. “And she would appreciate being addressed correctly. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to save you,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Covington sisters sent me. They fear you will destroy your reputation if you continue on to Scotland with only your driver in attendance.”
“Oh, bother, you have to be jesting.”
“I assure you, Miss Todd, that I am not. I spent a good thirty minutes being utterly confused in their company. All I am certain of is one thing: they fear for your reputation. Evidently, they have doubts about Hugh’s honor.”
/> “And you’re better? They evidently don’t know to whom they entrusted my virtue.”
No one could infuse a statement with as much disgust as Minerva Todd.
“I’ve given my word to rescue you.”
He dropped his hand from Daniels’s arm and strode forward, reaching the bench where she sat.
“Dalton,” she said softly, “can you see me?”
“Only light and shadow, Minerva. I guessed that the shadow in blue was you.”
“I’m going to Scotland, Your Lordship. Nothing will stop me.”
“I have news of Neville,” he said.
“What?”
He turned and walked back in Daniels’s direction, hoping his driver had the sense to catch him if he strayed too far. Bless the man, he reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
“You can’t mean to keep the information to yourself,” she called after him.
He glanced back in her direction. “You can’t mean to travel to Scotland with only your driver as a companion.”
“I’ve already given notice,” Hugh said.
He didn’t give a flying farthing if Hugh quit on the spot. He didn’t like the man very much at the moment, if ever. Not only had Hugh abetted Minerva in her idiotic choices: the night she broke into his home and the day she’d invaded his garden. Hugh was also Minerva’s first lover, and there was no way he was going to forget that.
“How convenient. Are you going to leave Miss Todd’s employ after the expedition to Scotland or now?”
“Afterward,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your concern. Where’s Neville?”
“I’m not going to tell you here, Minerva.”
“I do not like you very much at the moment, Your Lordship.”
“That’s not a matter of importance. If you want to know what I know, you’ll come with me.”
“I can’t,” she said. “All of my equipment and my trunks are loaded on the train. I can’t do without them. Not my journals or my aprons, my pens, my notes.”
“Send Hugh to retrieve them. Have him take the trunks back to your house.”
“Tell me where my brother is, Dalton.”
How sweet her voice could seem sometimes. How seductive.
“No,” he said.
“Hugh, will you get our trunks?”
The words were tantamount to a capitulation, but he knew he’d only won the first round.
Perhaps it was a good thing he was blind. He didn’t doubt they were the object of speculation from dozens of people. A Punch and Judy show at King’s Cross. One thing about rumors, though, he’d learned in the last year. You had to know people to hear them. Minerva didn’t talk about other people and neither did his staff. If he was the stuff of rumors, he was blissfully unaware.
“Tell me where he is,” she said, once they were in Dalton’s carriage.
“Once we’re home.”
“I won’t go back to your house.”
“I’ll send for Mrs. Thompson. You’ll have a chaperone, which is a damn sight better than you’d have in Scotland.”
“You can be the most arrogant, autocratic, rude creature it has ever been my experience to meet.”
“While you, on the other hand, are impulsive, rash, and given to outlandish behavior with no thought to the consequences.”
“You drove me to it.”
He inclined his head in her direction.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“Never mind.”
“Are you blaming me for your sudden decision to leave for Scotland with only your driver in attendance? A man who was once your lover?”
“You needn’t shout at me, Dalton.”
He hadn’t realized he was yelling.
He’d never yelled at anyone in his entire life. He was the master of a look, a raised eyebrow, a sardonic quip.
Minerva Todd was making him insane.
Chapter 30
He thanked Daniels when the man stopped the carriage in front of his house. Holding his hand out for Minerva, he unerringly walked across the wet cobbles to the steps leading to his door. With a little more practice he wouldn’t have any hesitation at all. Of course, it would be easier if he wasn’t being pummeled by rain.
“I apologize for not having an umbrella,” he said, dropping her hand.
He reached for the banister with his right hand, his left clutching the top of his walking stick.
She didn’t speak until they reached the top of the steps.
“Why do you have a mushroom as a door knocker?” she asked.
“A mushroom?” He tried to envision the door knocker, then smiled. “It’s not a mushroom. It’s a thistle. A reminder of my Scottish heritage.”
“When I think of you as Scottish,” she said, “I envision you as a Highlander. I understand they were arrogant, too.”
He glanced in her direction.
Despite the rain marring what had promised to be a bright, fair day, he could almost make out details of her shape as she stood beside him.
Perhaps he should make another appointment with that fool, Marshall.
The rain was coming in a torrent now. Both of them were getting soaked.
He wasn’t surprised when the door was locked. James had instilled security in all his servants. He let the knocker fall twice, and when it was opened, Mrs. Thompson spoke.
“Oh, Your Lordship, I am sorry. Here I am making scones in the kitchen while you both are standing on the doorstep wet as two cats.”
“It’s nothing, Mrs. Thompson. I assure you.”
“I’ll go and get some towels for you.”
Her voice changed slightly. Dalton took that to mean she’d stepped aside. He motioned for Minerva to proceed him, and counted the steps once he entered his house. He reached out with a hand after he’d reached a dozen, turning toward his library.
“Are you going to tell me now, Dalton?”
How easily she vacillated between his given name and Your Lordship. She used Your Lordship when she was annoyed with him. He did the same when he called her Miss Todd.
In public, they were almost proper. Here in his home, they reverted to what they were: a man and a woman teetering on the brink of some kind of relationship. He wanted to be around her. He liked having her in his life. She challenged him.
No woman had ever challenged him before. No one—save his mother—had ever made him want to make her proud.
He stopped abruptly at the door to his library and turned to her.
“Will you be my friend, Minerva Todd?”
“Your friend?”
“I find I have a dearth of them lately. But I don’t want just anyone as a friend. I’ve become rather selective. I want someone I can trust. Someone who will tell me the truth. Someone I genuinely like and admire.”
He turned and headed into his office.
She didn’t speak. What the hell was she thinking?
“Should I rescind the invitation?” he said.
He went to stand in front of the cold fireplace. Again, he did so almost without thought. Familiarity made navigating easier. So, too, the fact that he could almost see the wall, the bookcases beyond, and the table between the two chairs.
Yes, he needed to make an appointment with the physician as soon as possible.
“You think all those things about me?”
“I’m not given to saying things I don’t mean, Minerva.”
“I’m Neville’s sister. How can you trust me?”
“I trust you because you’re Minerva Todd. I don’t care who you’re related to.”
Mrs. Thompson bustled into the room.
“Here I am, Your Lordship, with your scones and tea and towels.”
She handed him a towel and he hoped she’d done the same for Minerva. He began to dry his
face and hair. In a moment he’d excuse himself to change, an option Minerva didn’t have.
“I’ll just put the tray here, shall I?”
“That looks absolutely wonderful, Mrs. Thompson,” Minerva said. Her voice sounded thin, as if worry were eating away at it.
The best thing he could do for her was to tell her the news now.
“If you’ll ring, Your Lordship, if you need anything else,” Mrs. Thompson was saying.
He nodded.
A moment later he heard the door softly close. Did his housekeeper think anything about leaving them alone together? Did she remember those years of licentiousness? Or did he simply pay her enough not to question what he did?
He stood beside the chair, wishing Minerva would sit first. He hadn’t completely forgotten his manners. He heard a whoosh of fabric and then sat. He stretched out his hand toward the other chair, palm up. A moment later she placed her hand on it.
“I would be very honored to be your friend, Your Lordship.”
And now she called him Your Lordship in a soft and sweet tone, playing hell with his earlier assumption.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Minerva.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
He pulled out the letter he had tucked into his pocket.
“I’ve news of Neville from my cousin.”
“The one who’d been in the diplomatic corps,” she said.
He nodded.
“Neville is a prisoner of war,” he said. “They’re not sure which prison he’s at. They’ve narrowed it down to two.”
He handed her Glynis’s letter.
He knew when she got to the part that would trouble her the most.
I’m hoping it’s not Andersonville, Dalton, because I haven’t heard good things about that place. If a man doesn’t die of disease, there’s every chance he will starve. I’ll try to find out exactly where he is. I know that he’s been transferred once, perhaps twice. As soon as I know, I’ll write you.
