Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

F or the majority of the day, Evan found, to his intense surprise, that he liked having Frances with him. She was a fine traveling companion, amenably chatting at some points, allowing for quiet moments in others.

As the carriage rolled on, he found himself almost sorry that their time together would eventually come to an end. Generally, he abhorred the inactivity of traveling in a carriage, preferring horseback. But Frances, he was learning, flourished in long, quiet moments. Now that he had the context of her shyness—and blast him if he didn't feel like an idiot for not putting that together sooner—he felt that he was finally seeing the real her. All of her.

He had to admit, he liked what he saw.

He was so distracted by this uncommon instance—enjoying himself with an unmarried woman instead of being terrified that a matchmaker would jump out of the woodwork at any moment —that it was not until they needed to stop for the night that he recalled a very important detail.

He was traveling alone with an unmarried woman . One whose parents were actively seeking to cause a scandal that would end with her at the altar.

The thought should have horrified him. And it did, in a way.

Just not as much as it ought to have done.

And it certainly shouldn't have caused a small, proud part of him to preen in satisfaction at the idea of Frances as his .

"We're stopping?" Frances asked blearily. She'd dozed briefly, leaving Evan resisting the urge to draw her down into his lap so she wouldn't get an ache in her neck.

"We have to, sweetheart," he said, the endearment dropping from his tongue before he could bite it back. Bollocks. It was one thing to call her pet names while he was making her blush and tremble with the desire for an orgasm, but to do so in a quiet moment felt far too intimate.

Especially on the heels of the possessive thoughts he'd been having.

He swallowed, pushing back against this entire train of thought. "The horses are tired and so are we," he continued. "We pushed them hard today and got a good distance. If we leave as early tomorrow as we did today, we'll arrive in time to ask some questions tomorrow."

He watched her come fully awake, felt transfixed by the way that, with each blink, her eyes grew brighter and that calculating shrewdness that was perfectly Frances.

"Right," she said. She twitched aside the curtain of the carriage, peering into the darkness. "Where are we?"

"An inn."

"An inn ?"

Even in the dimness, he could see the calculation flit across her face. The potential for scandal. The potential for answers. She weighed the balance between them.

This was the point from which there was no turning back.

But Frances, for all her protestations of shyness, for all her claims that she was unremarkable, did not falter. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, as ready for battle as she ever was.

"Very well," she said.

The front drive of the inn was like so many other roadside establishments that Evan had seen in his day. These were places where the walls between the echelons of society thinned, aristocrats sleeping under the same roof as merchants and foreign travelers, all brought together by the unifying need to rest their heads somewhere clean, safe, and warm. Two young boys, about eight years old if Evan had to guess, played a game with rocks and sticks, quietly debating rules that were evidently of their own design. An ancient ostler whistled as he rubbed down a horse.

Evan gave Frances his arm and led her down the path, little more than hard packed dirt, that led to the front door. The room inside was pleasantly boisterous, the dining area bustling and redolent with the hearty aroma of stew.

"Good evening, sir!" A ruddy faced woman greeted them, shifting the dishes she held to a single arm. "Welcome to the Bell and Arms. I'm Mrs. MacLeod, proprietress. Are ye in for supper or for a room?"

"A room," Evan said. "We're traveling North, only stopping for the night."

"Just so, just so," said Mrs. MacLeod, passing off her armful of plates to one of the boys who had come in from outside. On closer inspection, he could only be her son. And, indeed, with the effortlessness of an innkeeper's son, the boy took all half dozen of the plates without breaking his stride.

"Aye," Mrs. MacLeod went on, "most of our guests are travelers. We can accommodate ye and yer…" She paused expectantly.

"Wife," Evan filled in smoothly, ignoring both the way Frances stiffened beside him and how good the lie tasted in his mouth. "Mr. and Mrs. Miller."

Mrs. MacLeod beamed, all right with her world once more. "Greetings to ye, Mr. and Mrs. Miller. I'll have my lad, Ollie—" She waved a hand and the other child from outside appeared as if by magic. "—show ye up to your room, then send one of the girls up to tend ye. Will ye be needing a bath? Supper?"

"Oh, that's not—" Frances began.

"Please," Evan said firmly, squeezing Frances' arm tighter in his to forestall any arguments.

"Right-o," said the woman. "A'right, Ollie, show the good sir and his missus up to the green room. Hop to."

The little boy, grinning to reveal his missing front teeth, hopped to.

"Follow me, sir and missus," he said, his words more like thir and mithus due to the gaps in his smile.

He led them up a narrow staircase to a small but neat room that had a decently sized bed for a roadside establishment, a copper tub that Evan would have a devil of a time fitting inside, and a banked fire. Ollie stirred the embers, adding a log and prompting the fire back into roaring joviality.

"M'sister Aibee will be along with your water," he proclaimed, giving a clumsy bow. "Thank'ee for yer patronage."

Then he smartly shut the door, leaving Frances and Evan entirely alone.