Page 28 of How the Earl Entices

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 countered. 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.

Recovering himself, he reached into his jacket pocket for the money. She’d given it to him before they left Sea Haven because he would need to pay for everything as long as they pretended to be married. Yet it wasn’t until that moment that she realized what he’d done with it, how he’d kept it separated from the French papers. If they were robbed or pickpocketed, whoever took the money from that one pocket would never think to search him further and find the papers. Clever.