Loving the Earl: A Loveswept Historical Romance (7 page)

“What happened to Alice?” he asked. “Was she too ill to travel?”

Claire drew in a deep breath and he couldn’t help but notice her bosom rising, rising and rising until she released the breath. He pulled his gaze from the spot where her plump breasts rose above her décolletage, the image seared onto his brain. She was truly magnificent but he wasn’t so base to notice only that about her. Other aspects intrigued him just as much. Sebastian’s sister was a contradiction in almost every way. Strong, vulnerable, sassy. Vulnerable.

“She never made it to Calais,” she said.

“Pardon?” He yanked his wayward thoughts back to the conversation. “Never made it to Calais?”

Claire shook her head, her gaze going back to the scenery outside the window. “She, uh, ran away before we boarded the ship.”

Not only did she lie to him about her name, she also lied at the inn when she told him her maid had taken ill. Why? Did she fear he would send her home? Most likely. Which begged the question of what was so important in Paris that she had to get there without her maid? Yet when he thought of asking her about it, something told him not to. That same something told him to keep his meeting with her brother quiet as well.

“And Marie? How did you come to be with her?”

Her neck turned a lovely shade of pink that slowly crept to her cheeks. “She was to travel with me to Paris and connect with her family once there.” Her lips twisted in a rueful smile. “Apparently she was meeting with her family much sooner than I was led to believe.”

“So what now?” he asked, unwilling to continue with the subject of Marie because he felt she was mentally thrashing herself enough.

She looked at him in surprise. “Now? Paris.”

“And where are you staying once you reach Paris? Where will you find a maid? I’m assuming you’ll look for another?” Nathan didn’t know any woman who could function without the help of a maid. Then again, there were many men he knew who couldn’t function without their valet. Nathan had never relied on his valet as others had because for a long while he couldn’t afford one. Once he could afford one, he had already become accustomed to dressing without one. But women were a different story. Besides, ladies didn’t travel alone, period. That she’d managed to come so far by herself was miraculous in and of itself.

She looked out the window again. He was beginning to suspect she did so to hide the truth from him. If that were the case, then she was hiding a whole lot of truths. “Of course I’ll find another maid.”

A beat of silence passed, then two, three. “Where are you staying?” he asked again.

She bit the corner of her lip, an action he’d witnessed a few times before. He tried to decipher what
that
meant but couldn’t. The woman was a constant question in his mind.

“Staying?” She looked down at her hands, discovered she’d been pleating her gown to pieces and smoothed the irrevocably wrinkled fabric.

“Yes. Staying. As in lodging. As in where will you be sleeping at night?”

Her eyes widened and that pink blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks again. “Lord Blythe! That’s entirely inappropriate.”

“I gave you leave to call me Nathan. And it’s inappropriate to want to be assured you have accommodations for the night? Should I drop you off at the gates of Paris and brush my hands of you?”

Her eyes moved to look at him but she didn’t turn her head. “That would be fine.”

He smothered his spurt of irritation. “Have you ever been to Paris?”

She narrowed green eyes at him, some of that spark he’d witnessed earlier returning. “No, I’ve never been to Paris.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Do you have a place to stay once you reach Paris?” If she lost her maid in Dover and procured a thief as a maid in Calais, what the hell was she going to do in Paris—a city fraught with every imaginable thief, swindler and con artist?

She bit the corner of her lip again. Bloody hell, did she even have a place to stay?

“Surely your brother wrote letters of introduction and lined up
something
for you?”

Her back straightened and her small, perfect teeth released her lip. “Of course he did.”

The carriage wheels hit a rut. Claire clutched the seat, swaying with the conveyance.

“Well?” he finally asked, beyond entertained and now exasperated.

“Well what?” Her eyes rounded in innocence, a look that no doubt fooled many a man, but not Nathan.

“Where are your letters of introduction?” He forced his voice to remain even, to not display his extreme frustration.

“Oh. Those.” Her gaze skittered to the window, then back to him. At least her hands weren’t scrunching her gown anymore.

“Yes. Those. May I see them, please?”

“They’re in my bag.” She looked at him with such extreme innocence that he’d be a fool to believe her.

“And where is your bag?”

She shifted those lovely lips again to bite them, realized what she was doing and stopped. Wide, green eyes blinked a few times.

“You don’t have the bag, do you?”

She shifted in her seat, her gaze darting around the carriage. “It’s awfully warm in here.” She fanned herself with her hand and blew a lock of russet hair off her forehead. Earlier her hair had been wound on top of her head but now it lay past her shoulders, lending her a youthful air, but also the tumbled appearance of a woman well pleasured by her lover.

Whoa. Enough of those types of thoughts.
They were confined in this coach for most of the day and he could not afford to think such things of her. Especially when she was obviously nervous around him.

She released the seat long enough to tuck a tendril of hair over her ear. He leaned back and settled into the seat to keep from running his fingers through all that soft hair that seemed to glow like fire every time the sun’s rays hit it.

“It’s perfectly comfortable in here. Where are your letters of introduction? Where is your bag, for that matter? I saw only the one trunk. What happened to the other two?”

“I found I was carrying too much and condensed them.”

A woman who admitted she’d overpacked? Unbelievable.

“And your bag with the letters?”

She swallowed and suddenly her shoulders drooped. She concentrated on her knees. “My
bag is in Dover.”

He wiped a hand down his face and blew out a breath, cursing himself and Sebastian for getting him into this mess. “With your maid.”

“Not exactly.”

Nathan looked at her sharply. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” Bloody hell. This woman was one mishap after another.

“It was … well … stolen.” She cringed, as if he were going to hit her, which unsettled him more than he would have thought.

“So you have no letters of introduction.”

Her gaze shifted, darted, landing on everything and nothing at the same time.

“Out with it. What else aren’t you telling me? What else was in that bag?”

Her fingers twisted the fabric again—twist, smooth, twist, smooth—until he had to force himself from laying his hand atop hers to restrain her nervous movements. He held back because he was certain any sudden movement from him would have her jumping out of her skin.

She swallowed and met his gaze. “Just a few letters. Some clothing. Writing utensils.” Looking away she muttered something else.

Nathan leaned forward. “Pardon me? I didn’t hear the last thing you said.”

She sighed, a huge, gusty sound that would have rocked the coach if it weren’t already rocking. “My banknotes. The letters from Sebastian’s bank.”

“Hell and damnation!” Nathan yelled, causing her to shrink into the corner.

Never in his life had anyone burrowed beneath his calm exterior to get to him like this. That this woman had, in such a short time, was inconceivable and remarkable. He wanted to wring her neck.

She had no money, no contacts in Paris. Nothing.

Save him.

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire watched Nathan remove a silver flask from his coat pocket and drink from it. He sighed, cradled the flask in his hands and stared out the window. By the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his lips she knew she irritated him. More than likely she infuriated him.

He hadn’t expected to be saddled with a woman on his journey. A woman who lost her money and her letters of invitation, and oh, yes, two maids.

“I can secure lodgings on my own.”

His gaze moved slowly to hers. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. His cheeks and jaw were covered in dark, bristly stubble. His cravat was gone, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, his waistcoat unbuttoned as well. Claire flicked her gaze away, but wasn’t strong-willed enough to keep it away. Never before had she been in the presence of a man in such dishabille. With the exception of her late husband, of course. However, Richard’s naked throat never inspired such emotion in her as Blythe’s did.

“How?” he asked. “You have no money.”

Her back stiffened and she bit her lip. Besides the revenue from the gowns and luggage she sold, she had money, but was reluctant to tell him so. Well, not real money. More like currency. Richard had bestowed lavish jewels upon her during their marriage. Mostly because he wanted others to think he doted on his wife when the opposite was true.

Claire despised them.

She’d sewn most of the jewels into the hem of one of her gowns.

“I still have a few pounds left. That will tide me over until I can contact a friend.”

“What friend?”

Claire’s back teeth came together. She’d had just about enough of this man. “Lord Blythe—”

“Nathan.”

She swallowed her rising anger. “
Lord Blythe.
My business is not your concern. As soon as we reach Paris, we will part ways and you need no longer concern yourself with me.”

“
Lady Chesterman.
The moment I came upon your carriage under attack—”

“We were hardly under attack.”

“So what would you call it? Friends coming for tea? A stop along the way to pick up more passengers? Those men weren’t there to talk about the weather. They were there to rob you of your money and possibly other things as well.”

“They didn’t succeed because
I
brought them down.” Well, one of them at least, and she was still proud of that.

“You were lucky.”

Oooh, he infuriated her.

He took another sip from his flask. When he saw her eyeing it, he held it out to her. “Would you care for some?”

She sniffed and turned her head away. “No, thank you. I don’t imbibe.” She tried to infuse as much disdain into her voice as possible, but either he didn’t hear it or it didn’t bother him for he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and laid his head back, closing his eyes.

His massive chest rose and fell evenly, deeply. His face was tanned by the sun, his cheeks expertly sculpted. His ruffled hair lent him a boyish air, but that was as far as the boyish appearance went.

Automatically her gaze went to his hands folded across his stomach. They were just as large as the rest of him, the knuckles big.

He shifted, making her jump.

“Stop doing that,” he snapped.

“Stop doing what?”

“Acting as if I’m going to strike you.”

“I’m not—”

“You are. I’ve behaved myself and stayed in my corner of the coach for hours now. You can rest assured I have no intention of touching you.”

She didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved. Was there something wrong with her that he wanted nothing to do with her?

Oh, Claire, don’t be such a ninny.

Her gaze flew to his face where his eyes were cracked open so he could see her from
beneath his half-closed lids.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable squashed in the corner like that?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

He was so still she would have thought he’d gone back to sleep, if it weren’t for the glitter of his eyes looking out from beneath his lids. His stare made her want to squirm but she held back, keeping as still as he. His jaw muscle worked but he remained silent.

The coach continued on, growing more and more stifling. It was as if he sucked the air from the conveyance. She fanned herself with her hand again. At some point she’d had a fan but must have lost it in the scuffle with the thief.

“Why are you traveling to Paris?” she asked, out of curiosity and a need to break the silence he seemed all too comfortable with.

He took another drink from his flask and she frowned. His lips twitched, as if he knew how uncomfortable his drinking made her.

“Business meeting.”

She pulled her gaze from the silver flask. “That’s an awfully long way to go for one business meeting.”

“It’s an important one. Are you sure you don’t want a swallow? You have to be parched.” He held the flask out to her.

She wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you.”

He shrugged and took another swallow then sighed. “What’s so important in Paris that you’re willing to travel there alone?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’re traveling with no chaperone and no money for no reason?”

“I didn’t say that. I just said there’s nothing important in Paris.”

Those eyes that revealed the drunken revelries he’d partaken in the night before suddenly seemed very clear and very interested.

“Ah, then there
is
a reason.”

Claire shifted. Her legs were cramping and her bum was beginning to ache from all the jostling. “There’s always a reason. Isn’t there, my lord?”

He tilted his head and stared at her for quite some time. “Yes, my lady. There is.”

So what was his reason? What important business meeting took him away from his
gambling and drinking? Although from his appearance she had to surmise that he didn’t leave his gambling and drinking in England.

“Few people do things for no reason,” he said. “So what is yours?”

“My reason is my own, as yours is your own. I promise not to pry into yours if you promise not to pry into mine.”

He smiled and the action suspended Claire’s breath. Beneath the stubble and despite the red-rimmed eyes and mussed hair, that smile lit his face and made him look like a completely different person. Not to mention completely handsome.