by Ella Edon
Chapter Fourteen
Getting Closer
Cutler felt the sunshine slant in and touch his eyelids, the warmth of it soaking onto his face. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at the window, the curtains open as he had left them the night before. Cloudy daylight washed in, making him stop and wonder, for a moment, where he was.
“I’m in an inn, in the middle of York,” he reminded himself, sitting up in bed. His memories of the previous night washed back – Lady Raymonde, the journey, the coach. He rolled out of bed and stood to stretch. The window showed him rooftops and a steel-gray sky.
He walked over to the table by the window, splashing his face in the bowl of water. It was cold and he shivered, drying his face hurriedly. He looked around the room.
“I wish Arthur were here,” he said under his breath.
The fire had gone out during the night, and his coat was in wrinkles where he’d left it, half-hanging on the back of the chair that night. Arthur, he thought, would have set all that to rights far better. The thought annoyed him somewhat. He really ought to be able to look after himself – he had more than enough practice doing it in the army, after all.
He stoked the fire and sat back on the hearth-rug. He thought he heard booted feet on the floor of the room next door – a light footfall. He smiled, imagining Raymonde there.
I wonder if she’s going down for breakfast.
He smiled at the thought of her, and then frowned. He wanted to invite her for breakfast, but couldn’t very well go over and knock, could he? She would think he was frightfully impolite.
You really ought to realize she wants nothing of you.
She was here by some sort of awful accident.
All the same, he couldn’t help thinking that she had been less than displeased to walk with him, and that sometimes the look in her eyes was tender, not hesitant.
“A lot of nonsense,” he told himself firmly. He was not about to indulge in flights of fancy. Raymonde was a Duke’s daughter and one, what was more, who had a very firm idea about what was proper and what was not. She was not about to consider a dalliance with somebody so far below her.
He stifled his heart’s longings with these fierce words, then went to the curtains and drew them back further. He was just finishing with his shirt’s buttons when he heard the sound of booted feet walking across the floor.
“Lady Raymonde!” he breathed. He rushed to the door faster than he would have believed possible. If he got there as she left, he’d be able to escort her down for breakfast. He wanted to. He wrenched it open and shot into the hallway, just in time to see her appear through her door. She glanced at him as if he had entirely distanced himself from his sense.
“Good morning, sir,” she said, dropping a slight curtsey. One brow lifted, curious.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs, realizing he must look completely mad.
He had charged out of the doorway, his cravat loose, rushing headlong into the hallway and sprinting for the top of the stairs as if the room was on fire.
“Good day, My Lady.” He bowed low. “My apologies. I had wanted to make sure I could escort you to breakfast.” He raised a brow, hoping he looked at least vaguely calm. Inside, his thoughts were racing incoherently.
“Aren’t you in somewhat of a hurry?” Raymonde asked lightly. “It’s only eight o’ clock. I am quite sure they will still have breakfast for us.” She gave him an odd look.
“Um…yes,” Cutler muttered, feeling foolish. He followed her down the stairs, cheeks flaming.
She turned around on the landing, looking back at him with a soft smile on her face.
It’s like she knows how much I longed to see her.
He waited for her to make some wry-faced insult, but she didn’t say anything. Her eyes merely sparkled.
He had been too tired the previous evening to even think of dinner, and he realized, as he went down the steps, that his stomach was aching with hunger. She turned back and smiled at him fondly.
He followed her down the stairs, his heart lifting with hope.
They reached the dining room and he paused in the doorway, seeing Lady Raymonde go pale. The room was full of traders and laborers, workers and carters and joiners. They were all cheerfully eating their breakfast, their laughter and shouting mingling. He tensed, knowing that she would probably feel badly out-of-sorts there.
“We can go…” he began. She put a hand on his arm, gentle and insistent.
“There’s a table over there, by the wall,” she said. She pointed, and he saw it – there were two seats, and it was behind a table crowded with laborers, whose manners were far from good, even in the eyes of a man who’d been in the infantry and seen everything in terms of eating habits.
“We can sit there,” he agreed.
She took his arm and walked with him across the crowded space. As they walked, a kind of wall succeeded them; some sort of magic curtain that drew across the crowds as they passed, rendering them silent.
“Grand. Now they’re all gawping at us,” he whispered, feeling utterly terrible.
“Well, at least we know we’re worth staring at,” Raymonde said, drawing back a chair and sitting down. She looked utterly calm.
He looked down at her and her face was so relaxed, so completely oblivious to the crowd that he wanted to chuckle.
“Yes, Lady Raymonde,” he agreed, drawing out his own chair and sitting down carefully opposite her. He wondered if she was used to all the fuss and gawping. He wasn’t.
He stretched his legs under the narrow table. His booted feet lay near hers and it made him feel a jolt of longing.
“So?” She grinned at him, making his heart lift. “What are we having for breakfast?”
The room was still quiet, people still watching them. He himself was too nervous to say or do anything, but she was ignoring everybody. He had never felt as much admiration, for her or anybody else, ever, as he felt in that moment.
“I think they said they had fresh bread and cheese,” he said, jerking his head towards the innkeeper, who was carrying a tray from the kitchen and had just informed another guest of this as he and Raymonde had walked past them.
“Well, then,” Raymonde looked at him mildly. “Bread and cheese, it is. But I do wish he’d hurry up – I didn’t have dinner and I’m ravenous.”
Cutler did chuckle then, though he hoped that he wouldn’t offend her.
She smiled back. “This is not too bad,” she conceded. “I could get used to it.”
He laughed. “I don’t think it’s bad,” he agreed.
The room had become rowdier then, and the sound served as a wall to shut them out, making their table a bubble of silence kept apart from the rest of the room.
He found himself staring into her eyes. He wished that the inn was empty, that it was just the two of them alone. If it were, he would feel no reservation at reaching over and laying his hand atop hers where it rested lightly on the table.
He studied it covertly. Her skin was white, her fingers long and tapering. Her nails were short but neatly oval, and her veins showed lightly blue where they crossed the back of her hand. He longed to feel the warmth of it, to cover her hand with his.
But the room was noisy, and the innkeeper was heading toward them and the sunshine blazed in, too bright to hide any indiscretions. Cutler made himself focus instead on the innkeeper and their urgent request.
“Breakfast, if you please,” Cutler ordered, pitching his voice to carry above the cacophony.
“Yes, sir.”
The man headed off toward the kitchens and Cutler turned to Raymonde.
“That should get us some breakfast,” he said with a smile.
“It remains to be seen,” she replied, grinning at him.
Breakfast arrived fast, and Cutler was surprised to find they fell very swiftly into easy conversation. He passed her the bread and she took some, glancing through the window as she buttered it.
“It looks like rain. I t
rust the coach is ready?” she asked him.
“Mr. Risborough, the coachman, said he’d get it ready by ten this morning.”
“Good,” Raymonde said lightly. The bread was in rough-cut, thick slices. He wondered if she’d ever seen anything like it before. He watched as she lifted a piece, and ignoring the size of it, she smeared butter on it and took a big bite.
“Rather good,” she said after she swallowed.
He smiled. She would never stop surprising him, it seemed. She had traces of butter on her lips, melted and oily from where they had sunk into the hot, fresh bread. His loins tensed, and he wished he could lean over and kiss her, removing the stains of butter with his own. He imagined how her eyes would widen in surprise, and how she’d sigh and lean against him as she had that night.
He tried to look away, but she had clearly noticed how his eyes lingered on her mouth.
“What?” she asked. Her lips widened with a smile and he thought that he might die of longing if he didn’t distract himself.
“Um… Nothing, My Lady,” he said. “I was just thinking about the travels.” He had no idea how to reference the fact that she had butter on her mouth. Luckily, before he had to think too hard about it, she lifted her napkin and dabbed it off herself.
“So,” she continued, giving him an odd look. “I think that it would be best if we set off as soon as possible and aim to make the greatest part of the journey today. You did say it was two days’ journey, did you not?”
“Yes,” he replied, feeling suddenly guilty. He had asked her to come with him but had given her no real indication of where he lived or where they were going.
“I think we should stop and change horses this evening too,” Raymonde added. “It would be best.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
His hand was resting beside hers, almost touching. It had eased across the table almost without his awareness and come to touch hers. He felt the contact thrill through him, making his entire body shiver.
“Sorry,” he murmured, moving his hand back.
“Not at all,” she responded.
They sat uneasily for a long moment.
He was looking into her eyes and she looked back and the look in her eyes suggested to him that she was thinking along similar lines as himself – that they ought to be alone now.
She broke the eye contact first, looking down swiftly at the table.
“We should leave soon,” she said. “Then we’ll make good time and arrive at your estate tomorrow.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
They finished breakfast and she stood up first from the table. He shot upright, not wanting to be rude, pushing in his chair hurriedly.
“I’ll go up and pack,” she said. The dining room was quieter now, and her words were soft. She didn’t meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
He watched her walk across the room, moving neatly around the tables and then out through the door. He ached for her company, even though she had only just left.
He went to pay the innkeeper, but the fellow was still busy with breakfast and he felt himself almost dying with impatience as he stood at the counter.
“Perdition take it,” he said softly. He’d tell him to send the bill on to his lodgings. He headed off up the stairs.
He reached Lady Raymonde’s door just as she came out of it. She almost walked into him, giving a little gasp of surprise.
“Oh! Lieutenant. I didn’t expect you’d be here…”
“Sorry,” he murmured, then, as she teetered back a little, “Whoops! Here. Let me help you.”
He gripped her hand and then, as he looked into her eyes, he drew her into his embrace. Her lips were warm and close and his own pressed against them, his tongue gently moving along the line of her mouth, seeking entry.
She gasped and held him close and he ached to hold her longer, his loins flaring as he imagined pushing her back onto the bed at his home and tenderly removing her clothes.
As he felt himself deepening the kiss, he moved back, gasping.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
She looked up at him, her eyes huge. She was clearly too surprised to say anything, though she said something he didn’t quite hear. She looked frightened.
“Sorry,” he stammered again, and hurried to his room, shutting the door behind him. He stayed there for a moment, his body still recovering from longing. “You idiot,” he said to himself. “Now you’ve gone and frightened her.”
It was bad enough, he thought, to have brought her along on this trip without any knowledge of the destination and no chaperone. He had just behaved like the lowest of humanity by agreeing to take her along without her maid. Now, he’d actually kissed her without her wishes. He really ought to avoid her forever. She must hate him.
But I can’t leave her at this inn alone. So, she’s going to have to sit with me in a coach for the next day and a half, and then stay at my house.
He shut his eyes. For all he knew, she was terrified of him and she’d rather he left her here with enough money to take the stage-coach back to Westmore House.
“Well, if she wishes, I can leave Mr. Risborough here with her.” He thought about it and realized it made sense. He could request the coachman to stay behind with her and take her back to Westmore House. He himself would take the mail-coach to his home.
He headed out to the inn-yard to explain the situation.
“Mr. Risborough?” he called. He could see no sign of the fellow, which was odd, since he’d asked him to prepare the coach. There were several people at work in the yard, and he could see the coach, standing with the horses harnessed, ready to depart.
“Have you seen Mr. Risborough?” he asked one of the stable hands, a boy of perhaps fifteen. The youth shrugged.
“Big fellow with a hat and swanky manners?” he asked impudently.
“Went that way, sir.”
Cutler ignored the feeling of annoyance he felt and nodded, then headed off in the direction the youth had pointed. He found himself in a small street beside the inn. He looked around, feeling a little puzzled. What business would Risborough have out here?
“Mr. Risborough?” he called, wandering further down the alley. “It’s time for us to depart. I need to speak to you.”
He thought he caught sight of someone standing in an alcove and hurried towards the form. As he did so, the form he thought he saw moved back and the alley exploded into sound.
He felt a searing pain and the world swirled around him.
Chapter Fifteen
A Change of Plan
Raymonde stood in the hallway. She looked around, feeling bewildered. The Lieutenant’s manner had been very strange that morning. She blushed, recalling the feeling of his kiss on her lips.
“Where is he?”
She heard the innkeeper come out of the kitchen again, busying himself with his books behind the counter. He was clearly trying to eavesdrop, or to watch her and the Lieutenant, should he emerge from wherever he had gone. Seeing him there, Raymonde turned stiffly away, walking to the door.
The rain had started outside, the drops falling on the tiled barn roofs. The air was frosty and she drew her shawl around her, wincing at the cold air. She glanced around the yard. Their coach stood ready, the horses harnessed. A merchant, dressed in a brocade waistcoat and long mantle, crossed the yard and went through the back gate. A miller with sacks of flour started unloading at the inn kitchen door. She could see no sign of Cutler Wingate.
“Lieutenant?” she asked, walking across the yard.
At that moment, the air was rent with the sound of a shot. A raven, startled off its perch, flew into the air in protest. Raymonde shivered.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“A shot, Miss,” a boy said cheekily, coming out from where he’d sheltered in the doorway. Raymonde turned to look at him. She was torn between an irritated retort to ignoring him when she heard a groan from the street in the direction from which the shot had come.
/> She stared. A man with dark hair was lying there. As she watched, he struggled to sit up. He looked up at her dazedly and she recognized his face.
“Lieutenant!”
Breathless, she ran across the cobbles and into the street. She dropped to her knees beside him, reaching for him. It was like a nightmare. When she heard the shot, she never thought that she would be confronted with the fact that Lieutenant Wingate had been hit!