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.