Page 17 of Hazard a Guest
She cut her eyes to him, twisting her lips into a smirk. “He’s just a bit of a puzzle, is all,” she said with a shrug.
“Oh, is that what he is?” Freddy returned mockingly. “A little maze for you to wander through? Leave him alone, Ember.”
“I haven’t done a single thing to him,” she said, raising her brows. “What’s got into you? You were never great friends with Mr. Cresson, were you? I thought you barely knew him when you took over his flat.”
“I knew him,” Freddy said defensively, slapping his book against his thigh, that judgemental finger now wedged inside. “I know him better now. Living in someone’s home will do that, you know. He’s not for you.”
“How would you know?” Ember returned, though not with nearly as much fire as she had intended.
She frowned, glancing once more at the sleeping form of Cresson with that old feeling, the one she’d felt when she was married. The reminder that she truly was just an upstart who got lucky and unworthy of any real access to the world above her own.
She hadn’t felt that in a very long time. It curled around her ribs like tepid, clammy vines, familiar with the paths to her most vulnerable places. It didn’t sting or burn. It just quietly ached.
She realized she was clenching her teeth and forced herself to stop. She sucked in a breath through her nose and spat it back out again through her mouth, steadying herself.
And Freddy, the cur, was staring at her, some stupid expression on his face that she wasn’t exactly familiar with. Was it guilt? Contrition?
Did he realize what he’d said and now he felt sorry for making her feel bad?
That wouldn’t do.
She gestured to the book, cocking an eyebrow and conjuring a teasing smile onto her lips. “I didn’t know you could read.”
He flashed a smile, almost like he was grateful for the barb, a little gust of stiffness melting out of his body at the insult. He removed his finger and tossed her the book, which she caught with a surprised bit of reflex.
“Have you read that one? It’s my favorite right now.”
She turned it around in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over the embossed title:Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt.
“Oh, for the love of Christ,” she groaned, looking back up at him with half a grin. “I have. Why am I not surprised you’re up to your throat in Lord Byron’s histrionic moaning, Freddy?”
“Because,” he replied, leaning forward to snatch it back out of her hands, “you see him in me.”
“I certainly might if you ever got close enough to the man,” she snapped back, grinning at his affected gasp. “He has that effect on people.”
“Well,” sniffed Freddy, “so do some of the men in this carriage, I’ll have you know.”
Then, as though he realized what he’d said, Ember and Freddy both found themselves looking at poor Joseph Cresson’s sleeping body.
They spent the next several minutes stifling laughter so as not to wake him. Ember tilted her head back, focusing on the drooping velvet of the carriage ceiling, swallowing her own hiccups of amusement while Freddy just opted to drop his head in his hands.
Despite their valiant efforts toward silence, Mr. Cresson stirred, his silver-gray eyes batting open like a startled hare’s.
“What?” he said to the muffled laughter in the coach, his brows drawing together in such earnest confusion when his bafflement only redoubled the strength of their stifled hysterics. “What did I miss?”
Freddy was an idiot,but Ember had decided he was probably right.
Someone like her would only damage a man like Mr. Cresson, and it would be cruel to harm such a pure creature. The world needed men like that, didn’t it? To give everyone a little bit of hope.
So she decided to pull back over the days in the carriage, to speak only politely and to avoid every instinct in her body to tease the man, to try to summon up the blushing cheeks she used to enjoy getting out of him.
It was, simply put, a serious damper on her joy. But she was already compromising poor idiot Freddy by dragging him along to this place, and she ought to only ruin one man at a time, if she was going to do it at all.
Still, it was hard not to steal glances at him, hard not to hope that she’d accidentally inspire a little jolt or flutter and that she’d be quick enough to see it happen.
She never did see it happen.
They stayed at two coaching inns. They shared meals and polite conversation, the three of them. Freddy offered them books from his pack to fill the hours in the coach, so Ember hadread some George bloody Byron because the alternative was clattering silence.
