Page 104 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
His long look turned her incipient tears into vapor. On a drier day, on a more secluded road, in a proper dress that could be discreetly lifted—and didn’t she now see the advantages of dresses for ladies?—he would have had her against the trunk of that oak tree.
The thought brought back her smile. “We should get to this house of Lady Hackwell’s. Does it have a bedroom?”
He mounted his horse. “As her steward, I’ve had occasion to inspect the place. And yes, it does.”
Bink ledthem out onto the road, now empty as far as he could see. It was fitting the master should lead the way, and he’d kept an ear tuned to the horse clopping at his rear flank.
She’d done well, his Paulette. Though whether she would be truly his upon receipt of whatever secret had been hidden for her—and by her—remained to be seen.
And anyway, they were not out of danger yet. That ancient cart had more than niggled at him. The man lolling in the back could be any laborer, but there was something familiar about him. The woman driving he’d seen in profile. She looked to be a Rom, but the dress was wrong, too well-made for the rest of the setup. Perhaps she was a Spaniard, or a Frog. And he’d seen a woman like her at one of the inn stops the day before.
He shook his head. The dress, the posture, the demeanor of that woman had been different. And in the decades since the Terror, there were more than a few dark-haired women tripping through the English countryside.
He glanced back to where Paulette sat tall and straight. Ah, that was it. The woman on the cart, the woman at the inn, they both reminded him of his Paulette.
Paulette’s coats outlined twin flattened mounds. It wasn’t in her to round her shoulders, but he would remind her to slump. They would arrive in London in the busy evening traffic. With luck, no one would take much notice of a rube and his boy.
