Page 25 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
Seven
Almost twenty hours. That was how long he’d been terrorized by the red-haired banshee. The first three or so hours of the trip had been a trick. She’d spent most of the time looking out the window, seldom speaking. He’d thought himself lucky to have such a silent companion for such a long coach ride.
If she’d winked or teased, he’d blush, think of kissing, and have to spend his time cowering in the shadowed corners of the coach, hoping she didn’t notice. He’d thanked God and all the angels for her silence.
Lies.
She’d babbled on for hours after that, only stopping her constant prattle to sleep. But then, in the late hours of the dark night, he’d been sleeping too, squashed on a seat much too small for him. She’d lain out with only a little bend in her knees and had woken up with only a little drool on her cheek and a little confusion in her eyes.
He should have insisted they stop to sleep at an inn.
His body hated him for that poor decision, wanted to toss him from the carriage for it. They’d passed an inn around sunset. They could have hadbeds. But he’d insisted on pushing on. To protect a reputation she insisted didn’t need protecting. And because what the hell would his body do with the notion of her in a bed so close to him in a bed? He’d never sleep. At least the coach provided almost constant discomfort to keep his imagination from undressing her.
Bloody inconvenient bout of lust. Should have been gone by now. He knew beauty held only deceit, but his body quite disagreed, and ever since their visit to Lady Balantine’s, he’d seen her as more than merely a beautiful woman and leech on the family coffers. He’d begun to see beyond her body to her intellect, her cunning, her courage.
Even though he didn’t want to see those things.
“What do you think?” she asked him now, tapping her pencil on her notebook.
“I’m not listening to you any longer.” He held his small notebook tighter on his thigh and finished up the sketch he’d been working on slowly, to avoid the almost constant jolts and bumps of the swaying coach.
“Ah. Then I’ll put that down as a yes.” She flashed a brilliant smile, showing white even teeth through pink lips.
Hell. What did she think he’d agreed to? Dare he ask? He must. “Yes… what?”
She grinned. “Thank you, my lord, for agreeing to teach a class in satirical sketches to—”
“No.” He snapped the notebook closed.
Her grin dissolved. “But you just said yes.”
“I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.”
“Your inattention to my conversation is no excuse.” She sat taller, threw her shoulders back.
“Are we there yet?” He pressed his hands into the small of his back and arched, producing a crack that felt like relief.
“Almost. Surely.” She craned her neck to look out the window. “There are buildings up ahead. Several of them. Tall too.”
He looked, saw the buildings in the distance.Finally. “Yes, almost.” He’d traveled the road many times to visit Drew. “And we must make a stop first.”
“Oh? Where? Why?” She snapped her notebook closed and held it primly in her lap, mostly hidden by her folded hands.
“My brother lives here, Lord Andrew. He owns an agency that hires out tutors and governesses to work with Manchester’s wealthiest families.”
“Ah. A nice little family reunion. With the mistress.”
“You’re not my mistress,” he growled.
“You’d better improve at saying ‘Yes, she’s my mistress’ in the upcoming weeks or you’ll ruin your own cover.” She batted her lashes.
If the damn woman knew how the mere sight of her was a goddamn tease, she wouldn’t torment him so. She’d run away. As she should.
He busied his hands straightening his jacket and hair and brushing lint from his trousers. He was a rumpled mess, but so was she, and Drew would notice, but Theo didn’t care. “I need information about Pentshire, and since Drew lives in Manchester, a short jaunt from Holloway House, he’ll have heard whatever there is to hear.
She tilted her head to the side. Rumpled gown, hair falling despite her earlier efforts to tame it, bonnet gone long ago—a perfect fright. Yet, somehow, at the same exact damn time, plainperfectas well. Perfectly poised, perfectly calm, perfectly in control. Did no emotion simmer beneath her skin as it did his? Did the deeper passions never threaten to erupt from her bones? Even when she flirted, she did so in a coldly observant way, as if she wished merely to see how he might react.
“Your brother is a gossip?” she asked.
