Page 101 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
The hair was an issue also. There was just so damn much of its loveliness.
She tucked in the shirt and fastened the trousers.
“They’ll do.” He patted his coat. “I’ll keep hold of your mother’s letter. Is there anything else here you can’t bear to part with?”
Her eyes lit on the blasted lap desk he’d helped her to rescue from the tree and from Cummings. She’d hauled it all over England and Scotland since then.
“I’m sending one of Hackwell’s men back to him. We’ll pack that along to Greencastle for safekeeping.”
“It’s a small thing. I can stow it into a saddle bag.”
“Traveling by horse, are we? Fine. We’ll strap it on somehow and have a game of piquet when we stop for our dinner.”
Her grin made his heart swell. No doubt it was foolish to take her, but he knew he couldn’t leave her here.
She pressed against him in a tight hug. “Thank you, husband.”
She wasn’t strong enough to push the breath from him, yet it took him moments to be able to speak.
“I can’t work out what the devil is truly going on, Paulette. I don’t think Bakeley knows either, but Shaldon did, and Kincaid…well, he might or might not. Bloody damn spies with their games and their lies—they don’t even share the truth with each other. I don’t know why any of this would involve you. All I know is, I don’t want to lose you.”
She gripped him tighter, all womanly sinews and soft strength, her breasts swelling against him, reminding him they would need to be bound, and he must get at least an hour of sleep. And load his pistols. Ah. He’d not had a chance to train her.
“I do wish I’d had time to show you how to manage a pistol.”
“But I know already.”
He set her back. “How?” Jealousy sparked in him, and then he remembered—if her mother was truly a spy, perhaps she’d learned it from her and not from another man.
“Jock taught me.”
“Jock.”
“Yes. He was an old man, a friend of my father and mother, who came to live with us. He was a spy, too. He taught me many things, and told me stories about her.”
“He taught you how to load a pistol?”
“Yes. And to shoot. He taught me how to swim if I fell overboard, like he had. And a bit about knives.” She grinned. “And lock picking.” She took up her jackets. “Shall I finish dressing?”
“Try on the coats.”
The waistcoat was tight at her breasts, but it buttoned. The jacket was big, thank the Lord.
“Now, have you scissors in your sewing kit?” he asked.
She cocked her head, nodded, and went to get them.
Bink madea show of swinging his lamp as he strode through the dark corridors and the shadowy stable yard, and Paulette scooted around in the gloomy perimeter with the bags he’d had her carry.
It was proof they would travel light, as they must. If she was to play a gentry groom, she’d have to heft his kit and her own, at least when they were around others.
And he would not be sure they weren’t around others until he’d cleared this manor by many miles.
Bakeley’s coachman came into his circle of light and greeted him.
“Any report?” Bink asked.
“Nay.” The big man matched the quiet of Bink’s question.
