Chapter 4

Four

Lawrence had never been so satisfied with the rain slowing down a journey in his life. He knew from consulting with Silas that they were merely inching across the sodden landscape of Wessex instead of making anything close to good time. The horses needed to stop more frequently because of the strain of pulling the carriage through mud, and they’d lost an entire day of travel when one of the carriage wheels suddenly needed replacing.

But the journey could last all winter, as far as Lawrence was concerned, as long as he could continue to keep company with the clever and enigmatic Lady Minerva.

“I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate that the last inn contained a book exchange,” Lady Minerva said shortly after they’d departed a particularly well-kept inn just past Camberley, where they’d paused to have a bite to eat. “I was glad to surrender a few of the books I have already read and had no further use for in exchange for these gems.”

Lawrence smiled at the way she eagerly ran her hands over the books, drawing her finger down their spines, each in turn, then flipping through the pages to see what they contained. He’d never seen anyone so excited about the pulp of trees before, but as he understood it, one of the volumes in question was a collection of poetry by a Mercian woman, and the other was a gothic novel of the sort she’d told him three times now that she adored.

“This one should have a great deal of blood in it, since it is about a vampire set loose in the German countryside,” she said, setting the poetry book on the seat beside her faithful skull companion, Clarence.

“I know how you love your blood and horror,” he told her with a smile.

Lady Minerva raised her eyes slowly from the page in front of her, one eyebrow arched, as if she were demanding he explain his comment.

“And I can imagine it’s all very thrilling,” he added, intending to leave her questioning whether he was teasing her or not.

In fact, he was teasing her, but he did not feel as though there were anything malicious in his teasing. Lady Minerva took herself and her hobbies quite seriously, but underneath all that gothic grace, Lawrence was certain he could sense a woman who wanted to let herself go and laugh. Whatever had inspired her to cloak herself in a protective shell of gloom, it was not a permanent part of her. It was the shell that covered the rich and vibrant egg inside.

“Perhaps you could learn something about the depths of emotion if you were to read Miss Banbury’s poetry, my lord,” she said, holding onto her vampire book with one hand and handing the book of poetry across to Lawrence.

Lawrence’s humor faltered as he stared at the book for a moment. His pulse sped up and his throat felt like it might close up on him. There was nothing for it but to take the book from Lady Minerva, though. To do otherwise would have been rude.

“Enjoy your exploration,” Lady Minerva told him, then happily opened her book once more, turned to the first page, and settled in to read the tale.

Lawrence glanced from her to the book he now held, uneasiness rippling through him. He took a deep breath and mirrored Lady Minerva’s pose of literary contentment as he nestled back into the seat. Then, with a deep breath and a prayer for patience, he opened the book.

As he’d expected, the words on the page in front of him danced and shifted, refusing to give up their secrets to him. At least he could manage the printing better than handwriting.

It wasn’t that Lawrence did not know the letters or how they worked together to form words. He’d had an unusual and accomplished tutor at one point in his childhood who had explained to him that he was one of a small number of people who had great difficulty perceiving letters printed on a page, but that it did not mean he was an imbecile, or that he could not read. It simply took him longer to make sense of what he saw where letters were concerned. Much longer.

He put one finger on the page, hoping Lady Minerva didn’t notice the action, and squinted slightly as he attempted to make out the first line of the first poem in the volume. It was something about May, possibly buds on trees, although it might have been bugs. The trouble was, every technique he knew for deciphering his enemy, letters, was hopeless and pointless in a jostling carriage.

“I wonder that you can read at all with the carriage jostling about so much,” Lawrence said after a solid ten minutes of attempting to read past the first few stanzas of his poem. “I dare say the roads between here and Wiltshire have been completely destroyed by the rains we’ve been having.”

Lady Minerva glanced wryly up from her book, arching one eyebrow at Lawrence. “My lord, do you not see that I am deeply engaged in the world of Black Forest vampires at this particular moment.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lawrence said, matching her solemnity. “I was merely concerned for the condition of your eyes, and perhaps your stomach, while trying to read in a jostling carriage.”

“My eyes are perfectly well, my lord,” she replied. “And my stomach is still digesting the magnificent repast we were just treated to.”

“Yes, there is something so warm and comforting about luncheon at a coaching inn along a heavily traversed road,” Lawrence pressed on, despite her hint that she did not wish to be disturbed.

For the last several days, Lawrence had vigilantly guarded Lady Minerva’s privacy and her reading time. He was loath to interrupt her at a pastime she clearly enjoyed. The trouble was, there were only two of them in the carriage, and after so many days of keeping himself to himself, he was beginning to consider it cruel that his only companion would withhold conversation from him. Clarence certainly was not much of a conversationalist.

Which was why he did not feel at all bad about asking, “What do the vampires of the Black Forest of Germany have to say about traveling across muddy roads?”

Lady Minerva glanced up from her book once more. “They do not travel across muddy roads,” she said. “They transform into bats and fly over them.”

“Ah,” Lawrence said, smiling. “Now that is the way to travel. Although I would not turn into a bat. I think it far more likely that I would transform into some sort of confused tit.”

Lady Minerva appeared to choke on her own spit and burst into a coughing fit in an effort not to laugh.

Lawrence caught his breath in excitement. He was determined to make the somber lady laugh if it was the last thing he ever did.

“Though I suppose the birds of the air are in too much of a hurry for me,” he went on. “If I were to transform into any creature, it would most likely be an enormous toad of some sort.”

“A toad?” Lady Minerva asked, lowering her book slightly.

“Yes, of course,” Lawrene said. “I have always considered myself entirely ordinary, and what could be more ordinary than a common garden toad?” He paused, tilted his head to the side, then continued with, “Well, I suppose Alden wouldn’t find me common. Or rather, he would consider me common, but a fascinating specimen all the same. He could house me in his terrarium, along with the rest of the alligators and poison dart frogs.”

“Would you not grow tired of spending your entire life enclosed in glass?” Lady Minerva asked, her mouth twitching.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Lawrence said. “Alden takes very good care of his creatures. I should have sunshine whenever I wanted it, amphibious companionship, and as many flies and bugs as my heart desired.”

“Would you?” Lady Minerva lowered her book all the way to her lap.

“I would,” Lawrence nodded seriously. “Bugs make quite a feast, I’m told. It even says so in this poem.”

“And which poem is that?” Lady Minerva asked, closing her book entirely and leaning slightly closer to him.

“Right here.” Lawrence picked up the book of poetry, opened it to the page he’d been struggling over, and recited from memory what he’d thought he’d read earlier. “Oh, bless the daring bugs of May that swing and flow on general breezes.”

Lady Minerva’s mouth moved through contortions that most definitely hinted at her desperation not to laugh at his ridiculousness. “Are you quite certain it is not the darling buds of May that sway and flourish on gentle breezes?” she asked.

Lawrence felt heat rush up his neck to his face at being caught in his illiteracy, but he pretended nothing at all was wrong with what he’d said.

“If I were a toad living a rich and peaceful life in Alden’s terrarium, I would sing verses more along the lines of ‘Oh, delicious bug! How I adore the crunch of your wings and the squish of your tender body bursting its blood in my mouth!’”

Lady Minerva clapped her free hand to her mouth, practically pinching her lips to stop herself from laughing.

“I thought you might like that,” Lawrence said. “It did contain blood, after all.”

Lady Minerva snorted then coughed as her closed mouth prevented her laughter from freely escaping.

“See? You even sound like a frog now,” he said. “I accept your appreciation.”

She could not help herself then. She laughed freely for a moment before clapping her hand over her mouth again.

The sound was beautiful, and it was in complete contrast to the somber, even macabre presentation Lady Minerva always tried to make of herself. She really was a beautiful and spritely woman, despite her attempts to appear as though she were an animated corpse. Her complexion was too warm and her cheeks too pink for her to look like the vampires she so loved to read about, and while her hair was, indeed, dark, it was a rich shade of brown that caught the sunlight and ignited with flecks of auburn.

Lawrence suddenly found himself thinking that it did not make an ounce of sense that Lady Minerva had come so far in life without some half-mad suitor snapping her up and becoming her devoted slave. He could not see her as anything close to a submissive, Wessex wife, but Lawrence had seen and participated in enough in his life to know that not every man wished for a meek and bland wife who would look pretty and never bother him with her thoughts.

He had been searching for something that was the exact opposite of that expression of womanhood himself for a very long time, but without luck.

“I am not a frog, my lord,” Lady Minerva said, still grinning slightly, though the look had become more sly than anything else. “Find another poem to compare me to or I shall never forgive you.”

A twist of panic hit Lawrence’s gut. He glanced down to the book in his hand, wondering if he could somehow please Lady Minerva while still concealing his secret shame. His only hope was that she had never read that particular book of verse before.

“Certainly,” he said, lifting the book and flipping through the pages.

He scanned the pages he passed, willing the letters to come together into something he could read at least a few lines of. He was able to spot a word here and there that he thought he’d made out correctly, but nothing that formed itself into sentences of any sense. He would be forced to invent poetry at a moment’s notice and to deliver it convincingly.

The best way to do that, he reasoned, was to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“Ah, here we go,” he said, pretending to find something in the middle of the book.

“I am ready, my lord,” Lady Minerva said, watching him with a clever, calculating look.

Lawrence cleared his throat as sweat broke out down his back.

“Heaven knows little beauty as precious as a raven in the rain,” he said, thinking of Lady Minerva and willing the words to come to him. “She glistens where others see only gloom and thrills where others know only tragedy.”

He peeked over the top of the book at Lady Minerva, only to find her watching him with breathless intensity.

“Shall I go on?” he asked, part of him hoping she would say no.

But she said, “Yes, yes, by all means!”

Lawrence cleared his throat and stared blankly at the page in front of him again.

“From spire to spire she flies, free to dip and wheel and plunge as she sees fit,” he said, focusing his heart on his impressions of the unique woman watching him. “No simpering dove or chattering sparrow can conquer her. She holds her own amongst the court of goldfinches, shaming their gaudiness with her might. She is bold and proud. She is her own.”

That was all Lawrence thought he was capable of, so he lowered the book and closed it with a snap, lest Lady Minerva took it upon herself to snatch the tome away and see the supposed poem for herself.

“That was remarkable,” she said without reaching for the book. “I did not know Miss Banbury was capable of such metaphors.”

Lawrence’s face flushed hotter. Of course Lady Minerva was familiar with the work of a poetess from Mercia. She had to know that he’d made up the poem himself. He only hoped that she did not guess the reason why.

He liked Lady Minerva. More than he liked most women, including several of the ones he’d sought to court. He did not think he could bear it if she put him off, like so many others had, because she thought him to be an imbecile.

“You should do a reading when we reach tonight’s inn, my lord,” Lady Minerva said instead of rejecting him or demanding to see proof of his poem. “I’m certain the good people of whichever village we will pass through later would enjoy being read to by a nobleman of your caliber.”

Lawrence laughed, continuing to feign careless affability when really, the very thought had him quivering in his boots.

“I doubt anyone would want to listen to a tired, old artist attempt to spout poetry,” he said. “If anyone were to gain a crowd of appreciative admirers, I am certain it would be you.”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Lady Minerva said.

Lawrence waited for her to go on, waited for his secret to be revealed, but instead, Lady Minerva raised her book once more.

As disappointed as Lawrence was not to continue conversation with the woman, he very much enjoyed the warm, almost cheeky glance she sent him over the top of her book. It was as if she was flirting with him before returning to the world of her vampires.

Lawrence smiled and settled back into his seat, opening the book of poetry to make another effort at reading it. He couldn’t make out a single word, of course, but he did enjoy staring at the shapes on the page while letting his thoughts drift off to imagine how Lady Minerva might do if she did stand up before an inn filled with travelers to recite poetry.

As wonderful as those thoughts were, between the rocking of the carriage, the coziness he felt, and the monotony of endless movement, Lawrence fell asleep.

He was awakened an indeterminate amount of time later by the feeling of the carriage stopping. As soon as he dragged himself to full wakefulness, he heard the sounds of people talking, animals kicking up a fuss, and dogs barking nearby. That, combined with the scent of chimney smoke, a stable, and supper cooking hinted to him that they’d arrived at the next coaching inn.

Lady Minerva had fallen asleep as well, so Lawrence took the liberty of touching her knee to shake her awake. He had to shake her twice, and when she was slow to pull herself out of slumber, Lawrence saw an opportunity to tease her and reached for Clarence on the seat beside her.

He held the skull in front of his face like a mask, and when Lady Minerva drew in a breath and pushed herself to sit, he said in a low, somber voice, “You have arrived in the land of the dead. Prepare yourself!”

Lady Minerva let out a small squeak, then snatched Clarence back from him, saying, “You wretched man,” in a slightly groggy voice.

Her eyes glittered with mirth, and she had a difficult time keeping a smile off her lips once again.

Lawrence laughed, knowing he was laughing along with her, and shifted to open the carriage door. He stepped down with a groan, stretching his back and shaking his leg before turning and extending a hand to help Lady Minerva down.

Lady Minerva moaned and stretched as well—Lawrence averted his eyes to where Clarence had been left on the carriage seat in order not to let his imagination run wild with the sounds his traveling companion made—and breathed in the air of the crossroads they’d come to.

“It seems we’ll have a bit of choice in where we stay and dine this evening,” Lawrence told her, glancing between the two large, comfortable-looking inns on either side of the road. “Shall we?”

He offered his arm to Lady Minerva and was surprised when she took it.

But when he headed towards the inn closest to where the carriage had stopped, Lady Minerva pulled him back.

“We cannot stay there,” she hissed, eyes wide with alarm as the glanced at the inn.

“Whyever not?” Lawrence asked, confused. “It looks to be a right cheery place.”

Lady Minerva shook her head, then stared at him in thought for a few seconds. Then she said, “No, we cannot stay there. See the sign?”

Lawrence swallowed awkwardly, then turned back to the inn. There was a sign on the door, but he’d assumed it was something having to do with the name of the inn, or perhaps a menu, or a schedule of coaches that traveled through the town. He could see it wasn’t a timetable of any sort, but the more he squinted at it, the more jumbled the letters became for him.

“It says that the inn is under quarantine because of a fever,” Lady Minerva whispered to him. “It urges us to seek out rooms in the inn across the way.”

Embarrassment that skated closer to alarm shot through Lawrence. What might have happened if he’d ignored the sign and gone into the inn hosting a fever? He shuddered to think about the perils of putting Lady Minerva in danger like that.

“We’ll check the other inn, then,” he said with a smile that hid his shame over his shortcomings. “I only hope everyone else traveling this way hasn’t had the same thought.”

“It looks as though public coaches might be passing this town by entirely,” Lady Minerva said as they crossed the street to the other inn after waiting for a speeding coach to rush past them.

“Do not be distressed, Lord Lawrence,” Lady Minerva went on as they approached the inn’s door. “If this inn has a fever raging within it as well, then I’m certain we will both catch it and die magnificently romantic deaths. Particularly if we are cast out to die in the stable or along the side of the road.”

Lawrence laughed, and patted Lady Minerva’s hand, then stepped ahead of her to open the other inn’s door.

Inwardly, he worried. He was all but certain Lady Minerva was suspicious of his abilities, or his lack thereof. He just prayed that if she found out, she would not despise him. Not when he was coming to like her as much as he did.