Loving the Earl: A Loveswept Historical Romance (19 page)

“Get up.”

Claire blinked owlishly into the darkness. Nay, not darkness. Someone held a candle that glowed like the brightness of seven suns and pierced her skull with the intensity of a hundred knitting needles.

Her head pounded and each movement made her curdled stomach heave.

The masculine voice had her squinting past the flame. “Wha—
Lord Blythe
?” She scrambled to a sitting position, yanking the bedclothes over her nightdress, her stomach protesting the sudden movement. “This is … What are …”

He tossed clothing at her. A petticoat hit her in the face. She batted it away but it was quickly followed by her stays. She hurriedly buried
those
beneath the bedclothes.

“What are you
doing
?”

“We’re leaving.” He swiped his hand toward the door. “I’ve brought a maid to help you.”

The poor girl’s back was pressed against the wall, her eyes wide, her mouth open in what could only be termed as shock.

“Leaving? But …” She looked toward the window. Her stomach lurched and she had to swallow to keep from casting up her accounts. “It’s not even daylight.”

Blythe approached the bed, the candle still in his hand. Macabre shadows danced across his face, lending him a ghoulish appearance.

“I’m leaving in a quarter of an hour. If you’re not downstairs by then … Just be ready by then.” He spun around and marched to the door, opened it and shut it behind him.

Claire stared at the closed door, then looked at the maid who hadn’t moved.

She smiled weakly at the poor girl. “He doesn’t mean that.” Yet, she wasn’t so sure. Something had happened to put him in such a foul mood. Had he lost at cards last night? If so, it served him right and he had no reason to take it out on her. Except, she didn’t believe he’d be in such rare form simply from losing a few hands of cards. Unless it was more than a few hands. Unless …

Oh, dear Lord. Unless he’d gambled away all the money from the sale of her jewels.

She moved to climb out of the bed but had to stop because her head was spinning and her stomach was churning in counterpoint. She groaned, closed her eyes and swallowed a few times.
She would never make it on the long carriage ride to Switzerland in this condition. Oh, she should never have had so many glasses of wine. It was all Blythe’s fault. She
told
him to stop filling her wineglass.

“It’s not like he forced the wine down your throat,” she muttered.

“Excusez-moi?”
The maid slid one foot forward and joined it with the other, looking tentatively at the door Blythe just exited.

Claire waved her hand in the air. Even that small action had her stomach protesting.

“Oh, dear.” She swallowed some more but it was no use. She lunged for the chamber pot and cast up her accounts. She sat back and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and closed her eyes in mortification, seriously considering taking him up on his offer to return her to England. Instead she climbed to her feet and stood on unsteady legs while the maid dressed her and she tried not to move overmuch for fear of upsetting her stomach again.

Claire emerged from the inn one minute before the deadline he’d set. She was refreshing with her red hair pulled back and simply tied at the base of her neck with a ribbon that matched her lavender gown. He immediately thought of the words she’d whispered in his ear before he sent her off to bed. The thought of her, so young and so fresh, moving into the arms of an Italian lover soured his stomach and his disposition.

I’m going to find an Italian lover.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

While sitting against her door through what was left of the long night, he seriously contemplated turning around and taking her back to England even if he had to travel on the ship with her. The only reason he didn’t was because he had no assurances that once he left her, she wouldn’t turn around and find an alternate way to Italy in pursuit of this elusive, mysterious lover. No. It was best that he was with her. To keep an eye on her. Just like he told Sebastian he would.

He pulled his angry thoughts away from Italian lovers to concentrate on the woman walking toward him. She hadn’t found that lover yet and if he had anything to do with it, she never would.

She moved slowly, as if she would shatter if she didn’t place her feet exactly right. Her eyes were narrowed and her face was so pale that he took a few steps toward her in fear that she wouldn’t make it to the carriage.

Obviously the numerous glasses of wine she consumed last night were a few too many.

“Lady Chesterman.” He held out his hand to help her into the carriage.

She glared at him, ignored his outstretched hand, gathered her skirts and climbed in.

Ah, so it’s to be one of those days.

With a sigh, he climbed in behind her to find that she’d fallen onto the seat and half lay, half sat on it, her head resting against the back, her hand over her stomach, her legs splayed in a very unladylike fashion.

“It will take most of the day to reach the border,” he said as he settled in.

“Hmm.”

He lapsed into silence, amused even though he knew he should be contrite. After all, he’d been the one to repeatedly fill her glass.

Did she remember standing outside her door and lifting her head to him, practically begging him for a kiss? Did she remember telling him she was searching for an Italian lover? His smile slipped at the thought and his gut clenched in a feeling that wasn’t at all familiar.

The coach lurched forward and Claire groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.

This was going to be a long day.

After a few moments, she lifted her arm and glared at him with only one eye open. “Lord Blythe, not to be rude, but you stink.”

He grinned. “My apologies, my lady.”

What color remained in her face drained and she swallowed. He knew the signs well, having suffered them himself more than a few times. Thankfully she regained control of her wayward stomach and closed her eyes again. They rode in silence a bit, the carriage jostling her about. He couldn’t bear to hear her moans and had to force himself to keep to his side of the carriage.

A long ride on a sour stomach was most unpleasant. Maybe he should have let her sleep it off at the inn. He could have sat outside her door and waited for her stomach to settle. After all, he spent the majority of the night there, guarding it against the reprobate he’d chased off.

He sighed and turned his gaze from her but found that he couldn’t look away for long. As
many times as he’d been in her situation and knew it wouldn’t last long, her pale face worried him. Bloody hell, he should have ignored her manipulations and taken her to Calais as he originally intended.

Instead he’d acquiesced with little argument because, damn it, the thought of traveling to Venice with her was too enticing. Regardless of the impropriety. And he wasn’t entirely certain she was bluffing either.

She whimpered. Dismissing the voice in his head that insisted he stay where he was, Nathan slid across the carriage and sat next to her, gathering her into his arms and resting her head on his lap. Another impropriety that she would no doubt squawk about.

Instead of squawking, she sighed and settled her head onto his thigh, as he looked down on her in horror. She was … Her head was … Sensing a female nearer than one had been in a while, his manhood sprang to attention. Her hand moved to his knee, then traveled up his leg to settle close to her face—and entirely too close to his cock.

He watched her hand, alternately hoping it would move closer and praying it would stay where it was. Good Lord, what a predicament he was in. His cock ached with a need that went far past anything he’d experienced before. He was in pain, damn it, and the worst part about it was that she didn’t want him in return. Instead she wanted some nameless, faceless lover from Italy.

With a groan, Nathan laid his head against the seat and closed his eyes, reveling in the sensation of her slight form curled up next to him, of her head pressed against his thigh, of her even breathing and, even though she drank half a bottle of wine the night before and, by all rights, shouldn’t smell like a garden, the floral scent of her.

He was doomed. Lost. And yet at the moment he couldn’t find the outrage in that thought. Later he would, no doubt.

He sat like that for what seemed like days, his body on fire with need until it nearly consumed him. For a long time he simply stared at her, his hand finding the mass of red hair warm to the touch. He lifted his hand, letting the soft strands sift through his fingers, mesmerized by the variations of red. He’d never known red came in so many different colors. From gold to russet, light blond to hot fire. So many deviations, just like Claire herself.

Claire lurched off the seat, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Jolted into action, Nathan quickly rapped on the ceiling then lunged for the door, opening it before the carriage
stopped.

He lifted Claire out and set her on the side of the road where she dropped to her knees and cast up her accounts. Nathan knelt beside her and gathered her hair to keep it out of the way.

When she was finished, she sat back, her face so pale that Nathan’s heartbeat spiked. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and she swayed, closing her eyes.

“My apologies.”

He wanted to gather her to him and hug her, but feared too much jostling would cause another attack. “No need to apologize. I well understand what you’re feeling.”

She grimaced. “How do you do this night after night?”

“You build a tolerance to it until your body is accustomed to the alcohol. After a time, you hardly feel anything.”

That sounded somewhat depressing. Is that what his life had come to? Had alcohol failed to have an effect on him anymore? Thinking back on it, he hadn’t felt like Claire in a long while and he drank … well, almost constantly. Except for today. He hadn’t had one drink yet today. Strange, that.

She struggled to her feet, clutching Nathan’s arm in support, and took a deep breath.

“Have you eaten today?”

She shook her head, then winced. “There wasn’t time.”

“Then we need to feed you.”

“No. Thank you.”

“You need something in your stomach, else you’ll continue to cast up your accounts.”

“If I put something in my stomach, I will cast up my accounts all over you, Lord Blythe.”

“Sit on the ground for a bit while I fetch a piece of bread.”

She didn’t argue, which was a blessing and a concern. He procured a piece of bread from the half loaf he’d bought off the proprietor and brought it back to her with some peppermint tea he’d also bought.

“The bread will settle your stomach as well as the peppermint in the tea.”

With shaking hands she fed herself, which was a bit of a disappointment for he wouldn’t have minded feeding her himself. She took a few tentative sips of tea as well. After a few moments, color returned to her cheeks and she was looking a little more hardy, if not still a bit peaked.

She gave him a weak smile. “Thank you. That did seem to do the trick.”

“I would have offered you a bit of whiskey but didn’t want to take the chance.”

“Whiskey on top of wine?” She made a face that had him laughing.

“It’s called the hair of the dog. Give yourself a smidgen of what bit you.”

Again she made a face, twisting her lips and wrinkling her nose. “Sounds archaic.”

“But it works.” Nathan rose and offered his hand to her. She took it, much to his surprise, and he helped her rise.

He kept a careful eye on her once the carriage rolled onward, but the sickness seemed to have gone away for the time being, leaving her with circles under her eyes and a pinched look about her mouth.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Before long her breaths were even and the lines in her forehead smoothed. It wasn’t until then that Nathan realized how tense he really was and how much he needed to loosen the knots that had formed between his shoulder blades. Convinced that she was well for the time being, he also closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the sun was high in the sky and Claire was watching him with her brows furrowed and a thoughtful expression in those beautiful green eyes. For a long moment his heart accelerated and a strange feeling overtook him. It seemed … right that they were together like this. Comfortable.

Quickly he shook the thought away. He was a rogue of the worst order. She was his friend’s sister and a lady to boot.

“What?” The word came out harsh, filled with the trepidation building inside him.

“You puzzle me.”

“How so?”

“You claim to be a rogue, a reprobate, someone I shouldn’t … How did you say it? Someone I shouldn’t look at as if he hung the moon. Wasn’t that it?” She nodded when he didn’t answer. “And yet you’re extremely kind.”

“No, I’m not.”

“A reprobate wouldn’t have thought ahead to bring peppermint tea and bread. A reprobate wouldn’t have held my hair back or knelt beside me while I was sick.”

“Stop it, Claire. You’re reading too much into this.”