Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Minerva woke in the night.

Tangled with him.

She knew a moment of pure, paralyzing terror, until she recalled exactly where and when she was . . . and with whom. Once she’d remembered that she was in a London coaching inn, and the heavy leg so casually thrown over both of hers belonged to none other than Lord Payne . . .

Then the true fear set in.

He sighed in his sleep, nestling closer. His arm cinched tight about her waist.

Oh, God. His arm was about her waist.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. He was all over her, and she was all . . . under him. His scent and warmth covered her like a blanket. His chin rested heavy on her shoulder, and his nose jutted against the soft place beneath her ear. Yes, the embroidered sheet still formed a soft, pliant barrier between their bodies. But aside from that, they were so closely intertwined, they might have been one creature.

She stared up at the ceiling. Her pulse pounded in her throat. The desire to move was unbearable, and yet she didn’t dare stir.

For untold minutes, she lay still. Just breathing. Staring into the darkness. Listening to the frantic beat of her heart and feeling the soft heat of his breath against her neck.

And then, suddenly, his whole body turned to stone. His grip around her waist tightened to a painful degree, making it difficult to breathe. The leg thrown over hers went rigid as iron. His warm breath ceased washing against her neck.

He began to tremble. So violently, he shook them both.

Minerva’s heart rate doubled in both speed and intensity.

What should she do? Wake him? Speak to him? Remain still and simply hope this . . . episode . . . passed?

This dreadful sense of helplessness wasn’t new. She felt the same whenever Diana was stricken with an asthma attack. Minerva could never do much to ease her sister’s suffering during a breathing crisis, except to stay at her side and keep her calm. To let her know she wasn’t alone.

Perhaps that would help him. To know he wasn’t alone.

“Colin?”

He drew a harsh, rattling breath. His muscles were coiled as tightly as springs.

One of her arms lay trapped at her side, pinned by the weight of his body. But she had the use of her other hand. She raised trembling fingers and laid a cautious touch to his forearm. With the fire banked, the room had long gone cold. But his skin was damp with sweat.

“Colin.” She traced her fingers up and down his forearm in long, calming strokes. She wished she could caress other parts of him—his scalp, his back, his face. But unless he loosened his tight hold on her body, this was as much of him as she could reach.

Her attentions didn’t seem to be helping. He shook violently now, and his breathing was erratic. His heartbeat hammered against her shoulder.

This was so much worse than in the cave. There, he’d been mildly agitated. Now he seemed to be struggling for his very life.

A sound rasped from his throat. A raw, anguished, almost inhuman moan.

“No,” he muttered. Then more forcefully, “No. Won’t let you. Get back. Get back, you bloody bitch.”

She winced. She’d never heard him speak in such a savage tone.

Oh God. Oh, Colin. What are you facing in there?

Desperate to do something—anything—to pull him out of that dark, terror-stricken place, she resorted to a trick he’d taught her on the dance floor. She slid her fingers to the vulnerable underside of his arm and pinched him, hard.

He jerked and startled, sucking in a deep, gasping breath. Like a drowning man who’d just surfaced.

“Colin, it’s me. It’s Minerva. I’m here.” She twisted in his slackened embrace and rolled to face him. She stroked calming touches over his brow. “You’re not alone. It’s all right. Just take deep breaths. I’m here.”

He didn’t open his eyes, but the tension in his body ebbed. His breathing slowed to a normal rate. Her overtaxed pulse gratefully took the excuse to slow, too.

“I’m here,” she repeated. “You’re not alone.”

“Min.” His voice was like a rasp rolled in cotton-wool. Rough and soft all at once. His fingers caught a lock of her hair, and he twisted it between his fingertips. “Did I frighten you?’

“A little.”

He muttered a curse and rolled her close to his chest. “Sorry, pet. All’s well now.” His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “All’s well.”

Remarkable. After that episode he’d just experienced, he was the one soothing her. And doing a very good job of it, too. His fingers grazed her temple in deft, calming strokes. The relief of knowing the crisis had passed . . . it left her sapped and boneless. Weak.

“Do you need anything?” she mumbled, pressing her brow to his chest. “Brandy, tea? Would it . . . would it help to talk?”

He didn’t answer, and she worried she’d offended his pride.

He pressed a kiss to her crown. “Just sleep.”

So she did as he told her. She curled into his strength and let his slow, steady heartbeat lull her back to sleep.

When Minerva woke next, it was daylight.

And she was alone.

She sat bolt upright in bed. Weak sunlight filtered in through the room’s single, grimy window. In the daylight, the room looked even shabbier than it had the night before.

After donning her spectacles, Minerva looked around. All of her things were still there. But she saw no sign of Colin. Not his boots, not his coat, not his gloves, not his cravat hanging over the chair back.

Her stomach lurched.

He couldn’t have gone.

She scampered from bed and began searching the table, the chest of drawers. Surely, he would have left a note, at least. When she found none, she hurried to wash and dress as quickly as possible. Rationally, she knew he was probably just downstairs, but she’d feel much better when she laid eyes on the man himself.

Fortunately, the moment Minerva descended to the breakfast room, Colin rose from his chair to welcome her. “Ah. There you are.”

He’d bathed and shaved. She could see that his hair was still damp behind the ears. The worst of yesterday’s travel dust had been brushed from his coat, and it made a respectable dark-blue contrast with the snowy white of his fresh shirt and cravat. Someone had blacked and polished his boots to a healthy shine.

He looked well. Truly well. Not just handsome, but vigorous and strong. After feeling him groan and tremble beside her last night, this came as profound relief. She’d been so worried for him.

“Colin, I . . .” Strangely overwhelmed, she put a hand to his lapel.

“I do hope you slept well. We’ve been waiting on you.”

Her head jerked in surprise. “We?”

“Yes, dear sister,” he said loudly, taking her hand in his. “Allow me to introduce the Fontleys.”

Dear sister? She gawped at him.

“This is Mr. Fontley and Mrs. Fontley.”

He turned her, with all the finesse of a clockwork gear turning a porcelain dancer in a music box. Minerva found herself curtseying to a kindly-looking couple. Silver frosted the gentleman’s thinning hair, and his wife smiled from beneath a tidy lace cap.

“The Fontleys have offered you space in their carriage. They’re traveling north as well.”

“Oh. I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance,” Minerva said, with genuine feeling.

With a hand placed to the small of her back, Colin swiveled her to face the other side of the breakfast table. “And here are their children. Mr. Gilbert Fontley and Miss Leticia.”

“How do you do?” Gilbert, a young man just on the cusp of adulthood, rose from his seat and made a gallant bow.

“Please call me Lettie,” the bright-eyed girl said, offering Minerva her hand. “Everyone does.”

Lettie possessed the same sandy hair and flushed complexion as the rest of her family. She looked just a few years younger than Charlotte. Twelve, perhaps thirteen.

Gilbert brought a chair for her, and Minerva sat.

Mrs. Fontley smiled. “We’re so pleased to have you joining us, Miss Sand. It’s our honor to escort you to your relations in York.”

Miss Sand? Relations in York? She shot Colin a look full of questions.

The teasing rogue didn’t answer.

Mrs. Fontley stirred her tea. “I think it’s so beneficial for Gilbert and Lettie to make the acquaintance of young people like yourselves. Doing such good in the world. Gilbert has his eye on the Church, you see. He’ll be at Cambridge this autumn.”

Gilbert spoke up. “Miss Sand, your brother has been telling us about your missionary efforts in Ceylon.”

“Oh, has he?” With an air of utter incredulity, Minerva looked to the “brother” in question. “Pray tell. What tales of our good deeds have you been relating, Colin?”

She laid heavy emphasis on his name. His real Christian name. After all, if he were truly her brother, she ought to call him by it.

Now, let’s see if he could remember hers. And use it, consistently.

She propped her chin on her hand and stared at him, smiling.

He smiled back. “I’ve just been telling all about our time in Ceylon, dear . . . M.”

M. So this was how intended to solve his memory problem. Not by actually remembering her name, but by reducing her to an initial. Magnificent.

“Miss Sand, he’s been telling us all about your years of missionary work, ministering to the poor and unfortunate. Feeding the hungry, teaching little children to read and write.”

Lettie’s eyes went wide. “Did you really spend your schoolgirl years curing lepers?”

Minerva set her teeth. She couldn’t believe this. Of all the false identities to assume. Missionaries curing lepers in Ceylon? “Not actually, no.”

“What my dear sister means”—Colin slid his arm around the back of Minerva’s chair—”is that it wasn’t all hard work, all the time. We were children, after all. Our dear parents, may God rest their souls, permitted us ample time to explore.”

“Explore?” Gilbert perked.

“Oh, yes. Ceylon’s a beautiful place. All those lush jungles and mountains. We’d leave our family hut early in the morning, me and M, with just a bit of bread in our pockets. Then we’d spend our whole day out adventuring. Swinging from vines. Devouring mangoes straight from the trees. Riding elephants.”

Minerva looked around at the Fontley family. She couldn’t believe that anyone would believe this ridiculous story. Elephants and mangoes? But they all stared rapt at Colin, a mix of wonder and worship in their matching blue eyes.

Well, at least this was some balm to the sting she’d incurred that night in the turret. She wasn’t his only dupe. Clearly, he employed this talent for willful, wild exaggeration regularly. And with consistent success.

“You’d wander the jungle all day long?” Lettie asked. “Weren’t you afraid of being eaten by tigers? Or getting lost?”

“Oh, never. I might have worried, if I were alone. But there were always the two of us, you see. And we had a little system. A game we played whenever we went out adventuring. If we lost sight of each other in the dense jungle undergrowth, I’d just call out, ‘Tallyho!’ and M would call back . . .”

Colin turned to her, eyebrows raised, as though waiting for her to put the final link on this epic chain of balderdash.

“You’re cracked,” she said.

He slapped the table. “Exactly! I’d call out, ‘Tallyho!’, and she’d call back, ‘You’re cracked!,’ blithe as anything. And that’s how we’d keep from being separated.”

Each and every member of the Fontley family laughed.

“What a clever game,” the beaming patriarch said.

“Nothing will ever separate us, will it, M?” Colin reached for her hand and squeezed it, gazing fondly into her eyes. “I think I’ll never feel such kinship with another soul as I do with my dear sister.”

Across the table, Mrs. Fontley sighed. “Such good young people.”

As the footmen secured her trunks atop the Fontley carriage some time later, Minerva took the first possible opportunity to draw Colin aside.

“What are you doing?” she hissed in his ear.

“I’m making them feel comfortable,” he murmured in reply. “They’d never allow you to travel with them if we told the truth.”

“Perhaps. But must you make the stories so absurdly exaggerated? Curing lepers and riding elephants in Ceylon? How do you even come up with such things?”

He shrugged. “It’s called improvisation.”

“These are decent people. It’s wicked to tell them such horrid lies.”

“We’re traveling under false pretenses. On the premise of a false engagement. Using false names. And this was all your idea. This is hardly the time for moral scruples, pet.”

“But—”

He raised a hand. “If my entertaining the Fontleys with a few exaggerated tales counts as wicked, I suggest you learn to embrace wickedness. For at least the remainder of the week. Their offer of transport is a true boon. It will save a great deal of money and perhaps preserve your reputation, as well. You have a chaperone.”

She knew it was true. “That’s all very well. But now I’m the one who must ride in a carriage with them for days, living out your absurd fictions.”

“Exactly. So why not have fun with it?”

“Fun?”

He took her by the shoulders and waited for her to meet his gaze. Minerva did so, with no slight reluctance. It was impossible to think clearly when she looked into those brilliant hazel eyes.

“Live in the moment, M. This is your chance to crawl out of that shell. There’s an interesting, confident girl in there somewhere. She comes out for a peek every now and then. Try being her, for just a few days. You won’t progress very far on this journey otherwise.”

Minerva bit her lip. She wanted to think there was an interesting, confident girl inside her, and that, at last, someone saw that girl clearly. But for all she knew, he was working the same trick he’d played on the Fontleys. Puffing her up with false praises. Telling her just what she wanted to hear.

Lying to her. Again.

“It’s only a few harmless exaggerations.” He walked her slowly toward the carriage. “Think of it like running down a slope. If you attempt to slow down and choose your steps, you’re bound to trip up and stumble. But if you simply let yourself run with the story, everything will come out fine.”

“Are you ready, Miss Sand?” Mr. Fontley said. “Mrs. Fontley and the children are already inside.”

Minerva nodded.

Colin handed her into the carriage. Once she’d taken a seat beside Lettie and arranged her skirts, her “brother” closed the coach door and popped his head through the open window.

“I’ll be riding nearby, M. Never fear. If you have any need of me whatsoever, you know what to do.” He flashed a smile and called out, “Tallyho!”

In unison, Lettie and Gilbert called back, “You’re cracked!”

With a little groan, Minerva buried her face in her hands.

“It’s always been like this between me and M,” Colin said. As they walked through a little wooded area, he pushed aside branches so she could pass. “Ever since we were in our cradles.”

“Truly?” Lettie asked. “Even as babies?”

Minerva rolled her eyes. How did he have the energy to keep manufacturing this poppycock? She was exhausted. By the time they’d stopped for luncheon and a change of horses, she’d been running down his figurative slope all morning, churning out one vague falsehood after another to satisfy the Fontleys’ boundless curiosity. She’d hoped to find some brief escape by declaring her intent to walk and stretch her legs.

But of course, Colin would decide to accompany her. And Lettie and Gilbert would jump to follow.

“Oh yes,” Colin continued, leading them all on the path. “My sister and I have always had this deep, unspoken connection. We have whole conversations without exchanging a word.”

He looked to her then. She held his gaze.

He was right. They could have a whole conversation without exchanging a word. And the conversation they had right now went like this:

Colin, shut it.

I don’t think I will, M.

Then I’ll make you.

Really? How?

I’m not certain, but it will be slow and painful. And I won’t leave any evidence.

“She saved my life once,” he told the young Fontleys.

“Who?” Lettie asked. “Miss Em?”

“Yes indeed. She delivered me, single-handedly, from death’s clutches. It’s a grand story.”

Striding through the ankle-high grasses, Minerva choked on a laugh. Oh, I’m sure it is.

“Do tell us. I’m certain the tale does Miss Sand great credit.” Gilbert looked to Minerva with admiration in his eyes. And quite possibly a glimmer of infatuation.

Oh dear. Of all the times for a young man to finally take a fancy to her.

“Well, it all started deep in the jungle,” Colin said. “While we were out exploring one day, I was bitten by a rare, highly venomous beetle.”

Lettie’s eyes sparked. “And Miss Em cut open the wound and sucked out the venom!”

“No, no. She couldn’t do that. The poison was too fast acting.”

“So she dragged you back home, to get help?”

“I’m afraid not.” Colin shook his head. “I was too heavy for her.”

“So I left him dying and went home for dinner,” Minerva said cheerfully. “The end.”

Gilbert laughed. “Of course you didn’t. You ran for help, didn’t you?”

“She did,” Colin said.

They’d reached the stream’s edge. Colin propped one foot on a fallen log.

“And I’ll wager,” said Lettie, flouncing down next to his boot, “that she dashed like mad all the way home, and then made it back just in time. Bringing along some native doctor to cure you with his mystic chanting and powders.”

Smiling at the girl’s imagination, Colin shook his head. “No. Actually, by the time she returned with help, it was too late. She couldn’t heal me. I had died.”

Everyone went silent.

“But . . .” Lettie frowned. “But that can’t be. Here you are.”

“What happened?” Gilbert asked.

Yes, what happened? Minerva almost added herself. Even she was breathless to learn what came next, when he’d lay dying in the jungle after a rare Ceylonese beetle bite.

Nothing happened, you ninny. It’s all a lie.

Colin cleared his throat. “Well, I can’t tell you precisely what happened. Because I slumped unconscious on the jungle floor, and I don’t remember anything after that. I’d fallen into a deep coma, it seems. The signs of life were so faint, my own family believed I was dead. They prayed over me, prepared my body and put it in a wooden coffin. And the next thing I knew, I woke up underground. In the dark. Buried alive.”

“Cor,” Lettie cried, clinging to his boot. “Whatever did you do?”

“I cried. I wailed. I clawed at the planks sealing me in until my fingernails were torn to bloody nubs. I despaired and trembled. I screamed until my throat was raw.” His voice had taken on a strange quality. He looked up, searching Minerva’s gaze. “And somehow, she heard me. Didn’t you, M? You heard me, calling through the darkness. I was alone and frightened. But in the dark of night, you heard the anguished cries of my heart.”

Minerva swallowed back the lump rising in her throat. She didn’t like this story anymore. She wasn’t sure what Colin was playing at. Obviously this description of his boyhood self, trapped and screaming in the dark, was meant for her. It would seem he hadn’t forgotten last night’s episode. He remembered it. All of it. And now he wished to . . . what, precisely? Thank her for her help? Mock her for her concern?

He asked, “Do you want to tell the next bit, M?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

He turned to the children. “She came running out to the burial site, began digging through the dirt with her bare hands. When I heard those noises . . . well, I thought at first I’d truly died, and the hounds of hell were scratching at my coffin.”

Lettie squeaked and bit her knuckle.

“To this day, I have no fondness for dogs,” he said.

“Oh, how sad.”

In her memory, Minerva heard the echo of his savage cries. Get back, you bloody bitch.

“I tried to call out, but couldn’t. The air was growing more and more close, and I could scarcely take a breath. As the sounds drew nearer, I managed to suck just a gasp of air into my lungs. Enough to call out one word.” He paused dramatically, then whispered, “Tallyho?”

The children held their breath.

“And you can guess what sweet magic I heard in return.”

“You’re cracked,” they replied in hushed unison.

“Exactly,” Colin said. “She’d saved me from the very clutches of death. My dear, daring sister.”

Their eyes met, and Minerva had to look away. She didn’t know what to feel, but she felt . . . something. And she felt it deeply.

Gilbert turned to her. “How brave you were, Miss Sand.”

She fluttered a hand. “Not really.”

“She’s too modest. Always was.” Rising from the fallen log, Colin playfully chucked her under the chin before leading the way back to the road. “Just wait until you hear about M and the cobra.”