Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

The road to London was dusty, rutted, bumpy, and miserable.

And Minerva rejoiced in every passing mile.

That was to say, she rejoiced quietly, and without moving so much as a muscle. She hadn’t any space to move at all.

Inside the coach, they were packed four to a seat. Two more passengers shared space with the driver. Minerva was almost afraid to count how many people rode atop the carriage. From her view through the carriage window, their legs hung down like stalactites. Beyond them, she caught the occasional glimpse of Colin, riding on horseback alongside the coach. She envied him the fresh air and freedom of movement.

But all in all, she was thrilled. The agonized decisions and frantic preparations were behind her, and now she could simply bask in the exhilaration of having done it. After spending all of her girlhood fervently wishing she could run away from home—she’d actually done it. And this wasn’t a childish dash into the forest with a hastily packed picnic basket and petulant note reading simply, “Adieu.” This journey had serious, professional significance. It was practically a business trip.

This morning, she’d taken her life into her own hands.

But she was glad she wasn’t making the journey alone.

When they stopped to rest or change horses, Colin excelled at playing the attentive, would-be bridegroom. He stayed by her side and looked out for her in small ways, such as procuring their refreshments or keeping a watchful eye on her trunks. He made a point of touching her often. Subtly laying a hand to her elbow, handing her into the coach.

She knew the touches weren’t for her pleasure or his, but for the benefit of those around them. Those small physical cues made a point. Every time he touched her, he said without words, This woman is under my protection.

And every time he sent that message, she felt a little thrill.

Minerva was especially grateful for the protection when they arrived in London late that afternoon and reached the coaching inn. She was so road weary, she could scarcely stand. Colin dealt with the innkeeper, registering the two of them under a fictitious name without so much as a blink. He made certain all her trunks came upstairs, ordered a simple dinner, and even sent an errand boy to procure his traveling necessities—a few clean shirts, a razor, and so forth—rather than do his own shopping and leave Minerva alone.

In fact, he made her feel so safe and comfortable, they were halfway through their meal of roast beef and boiled carrots when Minerva felt suddenly struck—smacked in the face—by reality. She was in a small bedchamber, with a single bed. Alone with a man who was not her relation, nor her husband.

She put down her fork. She chased her last bite of food with a healthy swallow of wine. She took a slow look around at the room.

This was it. This was ruination in the making. Roast beef and boiled carrots and ugly, peeling wallpaper.

“You’re very quiet,” she said. “You haven’t even teased me all day.”

He looked up from his plate. “That’s because I’m waiting for you, Morgana.”

She set her teeth. Really, she couldn’t even be bothered to correct him anymore. “Waiting for me to do what?”

“Come to your senses.” He gestured about the room. “Call this all off. Demand I take you straight back home.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not going to happen.”

“You’re not having any second thoughts?”

She shook her head. “None.”

He poured them both more wine. “It doesn’t make you at all anxious, to share this room with me tonight and know what it will mean for you tomorrow?”

“No,” she lied.

Even though he’d been nothing but solicitous and protective since they’d left Spindle Cove, she couldn’t help but feel anxious in his presence. He was so handsome, so blatant, so . . . so very male. His personality seemed to take up the entire room.

And heavens, she’d agreed to share a bed with him. If his idea of “sharing a bed” entailed more than simply lying next to each other, she didn’t know what she would do. Fear and curiosity battled within her, as she remembered his skillful, arousing kisses in the cave.

“If I can’t dissuade you . . .” he said.

She closed her eyes. “You can’t.”

He exhaled expansively. “Then in the morning, I’ll see about finding space in a coach headed north. We should try to sleep as early as possible.”

She gulped.

While he finished eating, Minerva decided to seek a familiar refuge. Excusing herself from the small dining table, she went to her trunks and opened the smallest—the one that held all her books. She pulled out her journal. If she’d be presenting at the symposium in a week or so, she needed to organize all her most recent findings and add them to the paper.

Taking a pencil and clenching it between her teeth, she shut the trunk and brought the journal back to the table. She moved her empty dishes of food aside and adjusted her spectacles, settling in to work.

She flipped open the journal to the last filled page. What she saw there horrified her.

Her heart squeezed. “Oh no. Oh no.”

Across the table, Colin looked up from his food.

She fanned through the pages in dismay. “Oh no. Oh God. I couldn’t possibly be so stupid.”

“Don’t limit yourself. You can be anything you wish.” To her annoyed glance, he replied, “What? You complained that I hadn’t been teasing you.”

She stacked her arms on the table and rested her head on them. Slowly raising and lowering her brow, thunking her forehead against her wrist. “So. So. Stupid.”

“Come now. Surely it’s not that bad.” He put aside his cutlery and wiped his mouth on a napkin. Then he slid his chair around the table, so that he sat beside her. “What can possibly have you so upset?” He reached for the journal.

She lifted her head. “No, don’t!”

Too late. He already held it in his hands. He flipped through the pages, skimming the text.

“Please don’t read it. It’s all lies, all foolishness. It’s a false journal, you see. I stayed up all night writing it. I meant to leave it behind, to give my mother and sisters the impression that we’d been falling in l—” She bit off the foolish words. “That we’d been carrying on for some time now. So they’d believe in our elopement. But obviously, I made a mistake. I brought the false journal with me and left the real one at the Queen’s Ruby.”

He lingered on one particular page, chuckling to himself.

Minerva’s face burned. She wanted to disappear.

“Please. I beg you, don’t read it.” Desperate, she made a wild grab for the journal.

He held it back, rising from his chair. “Oh, this is brilliant. Utterly brilliant. You sing my praises so convincingly.” He cleared his throat and read aloud in an affected tone. “ ‘My mother always says, Lord Payne is all that her future son-in-law should be. Wealthy, titled, handsome, charming. I confess . . .’ ”

“Give it here.”

She chased him, but he backed away, scrambling over the bed and continuing from the other side.

“ ‘I confess,’ ” he continued in that tone of declamation, “ ‘I was slower than most to admit it, but even I am not immune to Payne’s masculine appeal. It’s so difficult to recall the defects in his character, when confronted so closely by his . . .’ ” He lowered the journal and drawled, “ ‘By his physical perfection.’ ”

“You are a horrid, horrid man.”

“You say that now. Let’s see how your tune changes when you’re closely confronted by my physical perfection.” He strolled back around the bed, toward her.

Now Minerva was the object of pursuit.

She walked in reverse until her back collided with the wall. Like a child with nowhere to hide, she closed her eyes. “Stop reading. Please.”

He flipped through the book as he ambled toward her. “Good God. There are whole pages of description. The roguish wave of my hair. My chiseled profile. I have eyes like . . . like diamonds?”

“Not real diamonds. Bristol diamonds.”

“What are Bristol diamonds?”

“They’re a kind of rock formation. On the outside, they look like ordinary pebbles. Round, brownish gray. But when you crack them open, inside they’re filled with crystals in a hundred different shades.”

Why did she bother? The man wasn’t even listening.

“ ‘No one around us could guess our connection,’ ” he read on. “ ‘To the observer, it would seem he only speaks to me to tease. But there is a deeper sentiment beneath his teasing, I know it. A man might engage in flirtation with disinterest, or even disdain. But he never teases without affection.’ ” He speared her with a look. “Those are my words. That is blatant plagiarism.”

“I’m so sorry. Falsehood doesn’t come so easily to me as it does to you.” She threw up her hands. “What does it matter? The words were a lie when you spoke them, and they were a lie when I wrote them. Don’t you understand? It’s a false journal, all of it.”

“Not this part.” He pointed a single finger in the center of a page. “ ‘We have kissed. He has bade me call him by his Christian name, Colin.’ ”

He fixed her with an inscrutable look. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she found herself swaying toward him. For a dizzying moment, she thought he might kiss her again.

She hoped he would kiss her again.

But he didn’t. And she was sure she heard someone, somewhere laughing.

“Yes, it’s true,” she said. “You’ve bade me call you by your Christian name. And yet, you can’t even recall mine.” She wrenched the book from his hand. “I think you’ve more than made up for lost time now. In fact, I’m certain you’ve exceeded your teasing quota for the day.”

“I can’t borrow against tomorrow’s?”

“No.” She snapped the journal shut and tucked it firmly back in the trunk.

“Come along. Don’t be upset. You said yourself, it was purposely ridiculous.”

“I know. That’s not what has me so upset.” Not entirely. “It’s the fact that I left behind the other diary. The real one, with all my latest measurements and observations.”

“I thought you had reams of findings.”

“I do. But my presentation will be weaker for not having those.”

He paused. “How much weaker?”

“Oh, don’t worry.” She forced a smile and patted the plaster cast in the trunk. “Your five hundred guineas are assured. So long as we still have this.”

“Well,” he said. “Thank heaven for Francine.”

Colin sighed heavily and pushed a hand through his hair. What the hell was he doing? When she’d made her little ultimatum by the road, she’d left him no choice but to accompany her. Simple decency demanded it. But he’d spent the entire day expecting her to come to her senses. To call off the whole mad journey and demand he return her to Spindle Cove, straightaway. Thus far, however, her determination had not wavered. And some strange force wouldn’t let him leave her side.

Colin didn’t know what the hell that force was. He was here in a coaching inn with her, so he couldn’t very well call it honor or duty. Protectiveness, perhaps? Pity? Sheer curiosity? He knew one thing. It damn well wasn’t five hundred guineas.

From her trunk, she unpacked a stout roll of something white.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

“Bed linens. I’m not sleeping atop that.” She indicated the dingy straw-tick bed.

As he watched, she unfurled the roll atop the sagging mattress, stretching and leaning in her efforts to spread the crisp, white linen to all four corners of the bed. Colin noted the edges of the sheet were neatly hemmed, and embroidered with a delicate, stylized pattern that he couldn’t quite make out.

She reached for a second roll. The coverlet, he assumed. This one featured the same repeating border. In the center, the fabric was emblazoned with an odd, roundish design the size of a dog-cart wheel. While she smoothed the creases, he cocked his head and stared at it. The careful, embroidered stitches delineated a coil of some sort. It looked rather like a halved snail shell, but the interior was divided into dozens of intricate chambers.

“Is that a nautilus?” he asked.

“Close, but no. It’s an ammonite.”

“An ammonite? What’s an ammonite? Sounds like an Old Testament people overdue for smiting.”

“Ammonites are not a biblical people,” she replied in a tone of strained forbearance. “But they have been smited.”

“Smote.”

With a snap of linen, she shot him a look. “Smote?”

“Grammatically speaking, I think the word you want is ‘smote.’ ”

“Scientifically speaking, the word I want is ‘extinct.’ Ammonites are extinct. They’re only known to us in fossils.”

“And bedsheets, apparently.”

“You know . . .” She huffed aside a lock of hair dangling in her face. “You could be helping.”

“But I’m so enjoying watching,” he said, just to devil her. Nonetheless, he picked up the edge of the top sheet and fingered the stitching as he pulled it straight. “So you made this?”

“Yes.” Though judging by her tone, it hadn’t been a labor of love. “My mother always insisted, from the time I was twelve years old, that I spend an hour every evening on embroidery. She had all three of us forever stitching things for our trousseaux.”

Trousseaux. The word hit him queerly. “You brought your trousseau?”

“Of course I brought my trousseau. To create the illusion of an elopement, obviously. And it made the most logical place to store Francine. All these rolls of soft fabric made for good padding.”

Some emotion jabbed his side, then scampered off before he could name it. Guilt, most likely. These were sheets meant to grace her marriage bed, and she was spreading them over a stained straw-tick mattress in a seedy coaching inn.

“Anyhow,” she went on, “so long as my mother forced me to embroider, I insisted on choosing a pattern that interested me. I’ve never understood why girls are always made to stitch insipid flowers and ribbons.”

“Well, just to hazard a guess . . .” Colin straightened his edge. “Perhaps that’s because sleeping on a bed of flowers and ribbons sounds delightful and romantic. Whereas sharing one’s bed with a primeval sea snail sounds disgusting.”

Her jaw firmed. “You’re welcome to sleep on the floor.”

“Did I say disgusting? I meant enchanting. I’ve always wanted to go to bed with a primeval sea snail.”

She wasn’t impressed. “I worked hard on this. The calculations were intricate. I counted hundreds of stitches to get every last chamber right.” She ran a fingertip over the ridges of thread, spiraling out from the center. “It’s not just a haphazard pattern, you realize. Nature adheres to mathematical principles. Each chamber of the ammonite’s shell expands on the last, according to a precise, unchanging exponent.”

“Yes, yes. I understand. It’s a logarithm.”

Her head whipped up. She adjusted her spectacles and stared at him.

“You know,” he said, “this design begins to appeal to me after all. Sea slugs aren’t the least bit arousing, but logarithms . . . I’ve always thought that word sounded splendidly naughty.” He let it roll off his tongue with ribald inflection. “Logarithm.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Ooh. Yes and thank you and may I have some more.”

“Lots of mathematical terms sound that way. I think it’s because they were all coined by men. ‘Hypotenuse’ is downright lewd.”

“ ‘Quadrilateral’ brings rather carnal images to mind.”

She was silent for a long time. Then one of her dark eyebrows arched. “Not so many as ‘rhombus.’ ”

Good Lord. That word was wicked. Her pronunciation of it did rather wicked things to him. He had to admire the way she didn’t shrink from a challenge, but came back with a new and surprising retort. One day, she’d make some fortunate man a very creative lover.

He chuckled, shaking off the sudden grip of lust. “We have the oddest conversations.”

“I find this conversation more than odd. It’s positively shocking.”

“Why? Because I understand the principle of a logarithm? I know you’re used to speaking to me in small, simple words, but I did have the finest education England can offer a young aristocrat. Attended both Eton and Oxford.”

“Yes, but . . . somehow, I never pictured you earning high marks in maths.” She reached both hands behind her back, undoing the closures at the back of her gown. As if she’d forgotten he was even there, or felt no compunction about disrobing in front of him.

Colin felt like carving a hashmark in the bedpost. Surely this marked a new level of achievement in his amatory career. Never before had he charmed the frock off a woman with talk of mathematics. Never before would he have thought to try.

Loosening his own cravat, he said, “As a matter of fact, I did not earn high marks in maths. I could have done. But I made certain not to.”

“Why?”

“Are you joking? Because no one likes boys who excel in maths. Priggish little bores, always hunched over their slates. They all have four eyes and no friends.”

He winced, realizing instantly what he’d said. But it was already too late.

She froze, arms bent in the act of undoing her gown. All amusement fled her expression. She sniffed and stared at the corner.

Damn it, he was always hurting her.

“Min, I didn’t mean . . .”

“Turn around,” she said, waving him off. “It’s late, and I’m fatigued. Spare me the apologies and turn around while I undress. I’ll tell you when my four priggish eyes are safely beneath the disgusting sea snail.”

He did as she asked, turning away. While he worked his cuffs loose, he tried to close his ears to the rustle of fabric. It didn’t work. He couldn’t stop his imagination from running wild, painting image after image of her stepping free of her gown, freeing the laces of her stays. He heard a rush of breath, and a thrill raced down his spine as he recognized it as that deep, arousing sigh a woman gave when her breasts were unbound at the end of the day.

Blood rushed to his groin, and he strangled a sigh of his own. He was a man, he told himself. There was an unclothed woman in the room. His physical reaction couldn’t be helped. It was simple biology. Birds felt it. Bees felt it. Even primeval sea snails felt it.

He heard soft splashes from the washstand, as she dragged a wet cloth over her every lush, naked curve. Really, she was just torturing him now. He probably deserved it.

At long last, he heard the bed creak. “You may turn now.”

He turned, fully assuming he’d find her huddled under the covers, facing the wall. Instead, she lay on her side, looking directly at him.

“I’m going to disrobe,” he said. “Didn’t you want to turn away?”

“I don’t think so, no.” She propped her head on her hand. “I’ve never seen a man naked. Not a real one, not up close. Call it indulging my scientific curiosity.” Her gaze sharpened. “Or call it an apology, if you prefer.”

Oh, she was a clever one indeed. So, he was to pay for all his teasing and unthinking insults with naked humiliation. Even Colin had to admit, the penalty was just.

“I’d be more than happy to let you survey my physical perfection in its entirety. But only if I get to see you, too.” To her shocked silence, he replied, “It’s only fair. Tit for tat.”

“How is that fair? You’ve seen countless tits.”

Damn, the way she said that word. So plainly, without any hint of missishness. Just when he’d regained control of himself, she had him instantly, throbbingly aroused.

“I don’t know why you’d need a peep at mine,” she went on. “And since you’ve proudly waved your . . . tat . . . before half the women in England, I find it odd that you’d claim modesty now.”

“It’s true,” he said evenly, “that I’ve been blessed to view a great many bosoms in my life. But every pair is different, and I haven’t seen yours.”

She shrank in the bed linens, curling into that embroidered shell. “They’re nothing out of the ordinary, I’m sure.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Her chin lifted. “Very well. Here is my best offer. Half of my nakedness, for all of yours.”

He pretended to think on it. “It’s a bargain.”

Sitting up in bed, she unbuttoned the front of her chemise. Then she drew the sleeves down each shoulder, carefully shielding her breasts with her folded legs. Her forearms were toasted by the sun, but her shoulders were pale, swannish curves of loveliness.

Once she’d bared herself to the waist, she hunched behind that wall of knees and issued a challenge. “You first.”

He pulled his shirt over his head and cast it aside. Then he undid his buttons and dropped his breeches without ceremony.

Well, not entirely without ceremony. There was a certain amount of fanfare. His rapidly growing erection all but trumpeted for attention, jutting out from its nest of dark hair. Waving in an embarrassing, adolescent way.

“Now you,” he said.

True to her word, she lowered her knees and revealed her bare torso.

They took each other in.

She was right, he told himself. Her breasts were nothing out of the ordinary. To begin with, there were two of them. The usual number. They were round and just on the plump side of average, capped with prominent nipples. The room was too dark to discern those puckered nubs’ precise shade, but he wasn’t choosy. Pink, berry, tawny, brown . . . they all tasted the same in the dark.

No, her breasts, while attractive, were not empirically more or less enticing than most bosoms he’d seen. But what quite stole his breath away was the entirety of her. The picture she made, sitting there half-nude in a rumpled nest of fresh white sheets. Her dark hair tumbling about her shoulders, and those spectacles perched—fetchingly askew—at the tip of her nose. Those lush, plum-colored lips oh-so-slightly parted.

She looked like a memory, interrupted. A torrid dream. Or a glimpse of the future, perhaps.

Stop. Don’t think such things.

“Surely it’s not always like that?” she asked, leaning forward and peering intently.

“Like what?”

“So . . . big. And active.”

His straining cock gave another eager leap. Like a poorly trained hound.

“Did you do that on purpose?” she asked, sounding amazed.

Oh, the devious things Colin suddenly longed to do on purpose. With purpose. For the explicit purpose of steaming those spectacles and making her mewl with unfettered delight.

“I’m not going to seduce you,” he said.

After a moment’s delay, she gave her head a brisk little shake. Her gaze wandered back up to his face. With a single fingertip, she pushed her spectacles up on her nose. “Excuse me, what?”

“I’m not going to seduce you,” he repeated. “Not tonight, or at all. I just thought I should say that.”

She stared at him.

“I mean what I said, that first night at the castle. About not ruining innocent girls. You see, I have rules.”

“You have rules. For the women you seduce?”

“No, no. For myself.”

“So there’s an . . . an etiquette to raking. Some seducer’s code of honor. Is this what you’re telling me?”

“In a way. You see, your average fellow who merely sets out to bed the girls he fancies . . . well, he wouldn’t need rules, perhaps. But when a man ventures forth with the quite serious goal of never spending a single night alone . . . a set of guidelines just evolves. Believe it or not, I do have some principles.”

“And these rules are . . . ?”

“They start with basic good manners, of course. Saying please and thank you, and adhering to the dictum, Ladies first. I’m not particular about locations, but I do have some prohibitions on ropes and scarves.”

Her jaw dropped. “Ropes and—”

“I have no qualms about tying, but I won’t be tied. Beyond that . . .” He ticked off the limits on his fingers. “No virgins. No prostitutes. No women in dire financial straits. No sisters of former lovers. No mothers of former lov—”

“Mothers?” she squawked.

He shrugged. There was a rather amusing story behind that one.

He said, “Listen, it’s not important that you hear all the rules. The point is that I have some. As I’ve already explained, seducing you would break them. So it’s not going to happen. And I thought it best to broach the topic now, while I’m standing here naked. Because if I brought it up at any other time, you might take offense and assume I’m just not attracted to you.” He indicated his full, turgid, ridiculously optimistic erection. “As you can plainly observe, that’s not the case.”

She went silent for several moments. Observing.

“You were right,” she told his cock. “We do have the oddest conversations.”

He rubbed his face with both hands and released a slow, deep breath. “It’s not too late to save your reputation, you know. I could take you to Bram and Susanna’s town house right now, and you could roll up those sheets and save them. You know, for a man who might be able to fully appreciate . . . the work you put into them. The significance. They’re part of your trousseau. They should be special.”

If they stayed alone in this room—an unmarried gentlewoman and a known rake—it made no difference what they actually did on these embroidered sheets tonight. Even if the linens remained unsullied by their sweat or his seed or her virgin’s blood, they were ruined. When she returned from this adventure unmarried, she would be ruined. Unmarriageable, in good society.

She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s done now, isn’t it?”

He pushed aside the surge of guilt, reminding himself this entire trip was her idea, and she knew full well the consequences. She’d literally made her bed, and now she was lying in it. Colin was going to share it with her. That was the bargain.

“I always sleep atop the bedclothes,” he said, sitting down on the mattress edge. “So as long as you stay under them . . .”

“There’ll be something between us.”

Something. Yes. Something with the thickness of a birch leaf.

As he stared up at the ceiling, the memory of her breasts seemed to hang up there in the dark. Like two round, peachy moons mounted from the rafters, tempting him to touch. To taste. Colin knew better than to stretch a hand toward the mirage, but his gullible cock strained and arced, ever hopeful.

He shut his eyes and tried to turn his mind to the least arousing things possible. Spiders with hairy legs. Those bumpy, long-necked gourds that made him think of poxy genitalia. Mashed peas. The dust-and-beeswax smell of impossibly old people.

Then an entirely different image bloomed in his mind. One that made him laugh out loud.

“What’s the matter?” She sounded sleepy. He envied her that.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just picturing your mother’s reaction right now.”