Page 16 of Hazard a Guest
“Ah, well,” Ember sighed, slapping her palms over her knees through the gold and brown fabric of her riding kit. “The crumpets will have to come with us, I suppose. Cornwall awaits, Mr. Cresson!”
Jones was already bustling back up to the mezzanine to fetch his mistress’s bags. She followed him around, giving him last-minute instructions on the management of the Forge while she was away, the two of them tossing back asks and answers like rapid swats of a birdie.
Joe grabbed one of the crumpets, sighed, and returned back to the ground floor.
He could only hope that wouldn’t be their only conversation on this adventure.
Freddy had already thrown the doors wide and was making a big, provincial show of heaving their knapsacks into the carriage like some strapping farmboy just arrived for his conscription to France.
He seemed to be enjoying himself, so Joe did not interfere.
Instead, he waited, assisting with Ember’s luggage, talking logistics and timeframes with the driver, and looking around one more time in mild awe at the strange reality of it all. At the end, he was rewarded with a soft gloved hand in his as he helped the lady into the embrace of the coach and clambered in after her.
Her face split into an eager smile as she beheld the two men sitting across from her, and she reached up to bang her fist onthe top of the carriage once the doors had clicked into place. “Grand!” she announced between beats. “Blackcove ho!”
CHAPTER 5
Ember had remained upright and ladylike for about three hours. After that, Mr. Cresson had started to doze, and she decided that the trip to Cornwall was far too long for her to pretend any semblance of genteel upbringing.
So while he slept, dark curls lolling against the curtained window, she had kicked her boots off and dragged her legs onto the remainder of the bench beside her, fluffed a pillow behind her head, and sighed, relaxing as much as one could in a vibrating wooden box as it jostled down the Great West Road.
Freddy, of course, immediately narrowed his eyes at her, looking up over the pages of the book he’d brought along with a particularly judgemental finger landing on the passage her comfort had interrupted. She suspected the only real problem was that he was jealous of her additional legroom.
So she stuck her tongue out.
“Charming,” Freddy said, though he was unable to completely stifle his amusement at it.
“Why, thank you,” she clipped, making a show of adjusting her pillow to the exact height of comfort.
Of course, as soon as Freddy fell back into the pages of his poetry, her gaze shifted to the other man in the carriage, mercifully oblivious to her consideration.
This was indeed the Mr. Cresson she knew, dark lashes feathered over his cheeks, arms crossed like protective armor over his torso as he let the most unaccommodating conditions somehow lull him to peaceful slumber.
He looked more himself like this, she thought, even with the rakish curls and stronger shoulders. His unguardedness had always been a part of his charm, but when a man was asleep, they’d truly lost every last scale of the visage they presented to the world.
He’d smiled at her this morning at the Forge. He’d talked about his mother.
Where on earth had this man come from where women could terrorize the neighbors with muddy donkeys and cared not for the trappings of the wealthy? It didn’t sound much like any Englishwoman she’d ever met, of any status whatsoever.
Even the maids who cleaned the Forge in the mornings had airs about them, proud to serve in St. James. The girl who manned the cloakroom in the evenings had grown up in some ditchwater village a stone’s throw from the edge of the universe and still had all manner of fluttering affection for a well-turned cloak with satin stitching.
Of course she knew noteveryEnglish person was a materialistic cow, but it just seemed so very baked into their day-to-day lives in a way that hadn’t been quite as stark back in Kildare.
Hell, even the Irish with airs had a name—the Ascendency. Why would anyone call them that if they weren’t trying to climb higher than their own people thought necessary, after all?
It was a compliment and an insult all at once, and that felt familiar to Ember. It felt predictable.
Mr. Cresson was not predictable.
Maybe he was some breed of exotic Englishman who’d just learned to cover his accent. She pondered that, considering. Yes, there had been all manner of wild roots in the family trees of some of the more colorful corners of this country. Perhaps he was from the north? York or Liverpool. Or farther south, like Cornwall itself.
Hell, she supposed he could even be Welsh. There was no knowing for certain unless she asked him.
She’d thought about learning away her own accent once, and she’d been lucky enough to not have to. Joseph Cresson didn’t have the freedoms Ember did, though, not as a freshly minted barrister.
It would make sense.
“Will you stop that?” Freddy snapped under his breath, dropping his stupid book into his lap and huffing at her. “You’re going to set him on fire, staring like that.”
