Page 66 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
She smacked her lips. “The innkeeper better have coffee and eggs.”
“Bacon.”
“And a hammer.”
He stilled. “Why?”
“Unless they give us a larger room and bed tonight, I’m going to take that bed apart splinter by splinter.”
He watched her get out of bed and pick up her robe to press to her chest, covered only by very thin muslin. “Hopefully our grooms had a better night in the stable loft.”
She disappeared behind the paneled screen to find more clothes and ignore his interest in her night rail. “We should have gone with them!”
*
A young, long-leggedboy of fourteen named Olivier brought out their fried eggs, ham, a large boule of bread, and a crock of butter. The proprietor had disappeared after pouring their mugs of coffee.
“Do you know where the Verne family lives?” Kane asked, because Gus was not certain of the route. On previous visits, Amber’s groom had driven the coach and Gus had paid no attention.
The youth thought a moment. “The road to Verdun. A brown cottage with a rusty plow in the yard.”
Instead of disturbing their grooms and having them hitch up the carriage, Kane asked for two horses to be saddled. Gus donned her breeches for the ride. Once more Kane had the tormenting challenge of watching her round hips and long legs make the most of her sinuous garb.
He secured a strap to his horse. “I’m going to ask you to wear those breeches every day of your life.”
She paused, at once serious. “Will you see me every day?”
He would be bold and honest. “I long to ask it of you.”
“Would you not grow bored?”
A challenge? A tease?He snorted. “With you in those? Never!”
But she did not pursue the subject, and he pondered what his life would be if she were his each day. Each night. In Paris, he speculated there was much he did not know about her life that would unsettle his existence. Most of it would be his worry about what she did. And there was much yet he did not know…and much she knew not of him.
“Let’s hurry.” She worked at the reins. “I’m tired of this search. And if…” She rested her forehead to the neck of her mount. “Oh, Kane. What if Amber is not here? What will we do?”
He went to her and turned her to him. “We will not fret.”
She scoffed. “How can we not?”
“Let us go, and quickly. Make no conjectures until we know what we face.”
Chapter Seventeen
They arrived withinminutes at the small thatched-roof cottage with the old plow in the long grasses out front.
Gus quickly reestablished Madame Verne’s memory of her years ago. The lady and she hugged and shed happy tears. “I hoped you would remember me!”
“I would, of course. You are so lovely,mademoiselle, and you have brought your beau to us? How kind of you!”
Gus had introduced Kane as her fiancé. To travel with a man of lesser relationship would raise numerous questions in the eyes of the lady who ran a simple country farm. To be in confined company with a man whom one would soon wed provided some rationale for the failure of propriety. Gus took a breath and asked if they had seen Amber.
The lady grew pensive. “No, Madame St. Antoine is not here. We enjoyed her whenever she came years ago withmonsieur, her husband. To have her is so rare these days. She is too busy in Paris. And you, too, are gone to Society. Even when she came, she left so soon afterward.”
“Madame Verne, did Madame St. Antoine come here recently for a visit?”
“She came in May.Oui, and she stayed with us briefly. She said she wanted to see the vines. But it was early spring and we had little. I wondered at her coming then and saying such. Sheknows too much about how vines grow to want to monitor their growth at that time of year.”
