The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance) (22 page)

It cut him to the quick to see the look of
pain which flitted across her lovely face at his thoughtless words,
but he knew it was better to hurt her now than to cause her a
lifetime of pain.

"I shan't impede you, my lord," she said
with dejection. "Once you find your lord, you have my blessings to
ride off on your own precious mount back to London." She threw down
her napkin and rose from the highly scrubbed table. "Now, if you'll
excuse me, I believe I shall go to my bed."

Shoving the table as he got to his feet, he
said, "And I believe I shall go to the tavern."

* * *

Louisa would have been better off had she
stayed in London. True, she would have had slimmer financial
prospects, but at least her heart would not have been so badly
bruised. How much better off she had been back in London than she
was now.

Nothing could be more
painful than having Harry's cherished presence slammed into her
every waking minute. Being so close to him, yet knowing a love
between them could never be. Wanting to touch him, too feel him
close to her, yet knowing such intimacy could never happen. Worst
of all was the painful knowledge that Harry detested her. What had
she done to have merited such wrath? Surely she had not been
mistaken weeks earlier in her thinking that he welcomed her
company. He
did
.
Then.

But not now.

She was torn apart. As painfully as she
needed him, her need to be away from him was even greater. She lay
in the soft feather bed, the peat fire smoking in the grate, her
every thought of Harry. Already she mourned his loss.

Almost as much as she regretted having come
on this journey with him.

* * *

The following morning they rode for ten
miles when Harry decided he and Louisa would walk while the
carriage went on to Falwell.

"I'm bloody tired of being cooped up in a
blasted carriage," he said.

"Me too," Louisa said in a low voice as she
fell in step beside him.

He was not sure how far they were from the
coast, but its feel and smell were strong here. His thoughts
flitted to the day Louisa had plunged off the cliff and of how
worried he had been that he'd lost her.

Fortunately, there was no coastal cliff to
gobble her up here. Just a hilly, pleasing landscape, air tinged
with salt water, and perennial breezes that swept Louisa's soft
muslin gown to outline the gentle curves of her body.

He felt compelled to draw her hand into his
as they walked along the footpath. Even with no words passing
between them, he was oddly warmed by her presence as they trod up
the forlorn hill.

When they reached the top of the hill,
Harry's breath caught at what he beheld. On the next bluff there
arose a mighty castle. Its turrets caught the light of the mid-day
sun, the castle's solidness the antithesis of Tintagal's ruins. His
chest tightened. This was it. Their quest had ended.

Long after the innkeeper's wife had cleared
away their dinner dishes at the Speckled Goose Inn that night,
Louisa and Harry sat in the parlor discussing their plans for the
following day.

"I cannot believe our good fortune," Louisa
said happily. "To think tomorrow is actually the Public Day at
Gorwick Castle."

"The home of Lord Tremaine," he added
dryly.

"I know you're right. I shouldn't be getting
my hopes up. After all, how many times have you been at Public Days
and actually set eyes on the Lord of the Manor or – in this case –
the Lord of the Castle?"

He looked at her incredulously. "I've never
been to a Public Day in my life, unless you count Cartmore
Hall."

"No, I don't expect you would have," she
said, laughing. "How stupid of me."

"Except for pulling flowers from the edge of
cliffs, I'll wager you've never done a stupid thing in your
life."

The crimson began to roll up her face.

"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," he said,
placing his hand over hers.

A bubbling heat surged through her at his
touch."You know very well you have put me to the blush again."

"I seem to have a facility for doing
that."

She smiled, glad that she could find humor
in herself.

He grew pensive. "What if we don't see the
Lord of the Castle tomorrow?"

"Then we'll just have to find a way to stay
within the castle walls when the tour is over."

"I don't like the sound of that," he said.
"It could be dangerous -- if Tremaine is the man who ruined my
father."

"Since he's reclusive, I don't think the
lord would recognize you. After all, you spent eight years out of
the country."

"But he might recognize you."

"I told you there was no way he could have
seen me that night."

"How can you be sure?"

"For one thing, I was in darkness. For
another, he had to be sixty feet away from me."

"Had the man ever seen you, he would
remember."

"How so?" she asked, puzzled.

"You are an exceptionally beautiful
woman."

Sweet heaven above!
Her cheeks were flaming again. She didn't know how
to respond. To thank him would be to acknowledge the truth to his
statement -- which would be the pinnacle of conceit. How did
practiced flirts handle such a situation, she wondered, not that
she wanted to resemble those empty-headed girls in any way. Her
inexperience with men -- despite eight years as a married woman --
only brought home how inadequate she was for Harry. Not that he
would have had her anyway.

He reached toward her and traced her nose
with a single finger. "Sorry I made you blush."

She tried to make light of the sensual
gesture. "I daresay Cook could bring me to blush by reciting the
grocer's list."

He laughed at that, then poured more
wine.

Together they drank three bottles of wine,
though Harry's glass count far exceeded hers, as did his capacity
for drinking spirits. Louisa began to yawn, and the next thing he
knew, she laid her head on the table, right next to the dripping
candle, and went to sleep.

Harry carried her upstairs to their
bedchamber, his insides turning to pure mush. Louisa had a habit of
doing that to him.

Their room was dark when he placed her on
the bed to light the taper. That done, he removed her pelisse. She
would just have to sleep in her gown because he wasn't about to
draw her wrath for such an action. He stood there a long while,
drinking in her loveliness. He thought of going back to the tavern
and drinking himself into oblivion, but for some inexplicable
reason he could not leave Louisa.

He moved to the bed,
stripping off his clothes until they heaped on the well-worn wooden
floor. Then he climbed beside Louisa. She began to softly moan,
then she called his name.
Harry
.

She called his name again.

Then with a disappointment deep and gnawing,
he realized Louisa was asleep.

"Harry!" she said once more, urgency in her
voice.

He placed his arm around her. That it was
his name she called – and not that beast Godwin Phillips' – pleased
him. His own comfort was far from his thoughts. He was consumed
with the urge to take care of Louisa for the rest of her days. To
protect her from men who would use her. Or abuse her. To let her
know what it was to be cherished. To awaken the passion of true
love he knew budded within her soul.

For in this passionate little bluestocking
lay the promise of all his dreams. Louisa Phillips was the only
woman who could ever replace his mother as the Countess
Wycliff.

* * *

Edward stopped to change horses at Woking.
Because of the fair weather, he had made excellent progress. He was
going to push himself to make Salisbury by nightfall, and if he
continued at this pace, he could be deep in Cornwall tomorrow. With
his riding crop in one hand and his unraveled woolen neck scarf in
the other, he jumped from the box and strode toward the tavern. A
drink would do his parched throat good.

Then he heard it. A small voice had said his
name. And the deuced thing about it was the voice sounded like Miss
Sinclair's. "Mr. Coke."

There it was again! Couldn't be the young
lady's. She was miles from here, safe and snug at Wycliff House,
though it was no longer called that. Nevertheless, he decided to
turn around to see who it was who was calling his name.

Had the king himself been standing there
addressing him, he could not have been more taken aback. For the
quite lovely Ellie Sinclair faced him, and she was dressed as a
tiger! And from the direction she had come from, he realized she
had been perched for the whole world to see on the back of his
phaeton! That is, the whole world except him.

For a moment he scowled at
her, completely seized with anger.
What
could she possibly be thinking of to come all this way with no
chaperon?
Whatever was he to do now? Two
days could be lost in taking her back to London, and he had no
assurances the foolish chit would even go.

What a fool he'd been to trust her to be
complacent and stay behind. After listening to those radicals she
surrounded herself with, how could he have been stupid enough to
think the girl would do the conventional thing?

"You are angry," she said feebly, walking
toward him in her masculine togs.

Where ever did she find them? From a
distance she would be taken for a boy, but no one seeing that
lovely face could have any doubt as to her gender. He wished for a
fleeting second that she could be ugly. Then this would be much
easier.

"Course I'm angry. You've cost me valuable
time."

"How so, sir?"

Did the deuced girl have to
gaze at him in such an innocent manner? Blast her!
"Naturally, I'll have to take you back to
London."

She huffed and stuck out her flattened
chest. "I will not go."

Were she really a boy he would have been
able to speak authoritatively to him, but he couldn't do so with
Miss Sinclair. She was, after all, a lady. "Now see here, Miss
Sinclair, you cannot travel with me."

"Why not?"

"Because you're a lady." He swallowed. "And
I am a gentleman."

"My sister, sir, is a lady, and your cousin
is a gentleman, and they are travelling together, and you yourself
admitted there was no lewdness between them."

"But I never said it was appropriate. In
fact, it would be extremely inappropriate if it weren't for the
fact your sister's been a married lady."

She thought on all this for
a moment, standing there in boys' clothing that was still too big
for her. "There will be no impropriety if people
think
I'm a
boy."

"But you're not a boy!" Seeing a man leave
the tavern and not wishing to be overheard, Edward rushed toward
Miss Sinclair and walked her back to his gig. "See here, Miss
Sinclair, it ain't proper for you to be traveling with me," he said
in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

She looked up at him, those blue eyes of
hers flashing. "What is proper and what is improper is merely in
the eye of the beholder. Do you not agree?"

"I agree," he said, rolling his eyes.

"You and I know there is no impropriety
between us, do we not?"

"We know there is no impropriety," he said
with the voice of one reciting a familiar passage in a favorite
book.

"Then as long as others believe that I am a
boy, there will be no impropriety! So it's all settled."

"What's settled?"

"I'll continue to act the part of you tiger
all the way to Cornwall."

"Can't have you sitting behind on that
rail," he uttered.

She shrugged. "Could I be your little
brother, then?" she asked meekly, her voice like that of a much
younger girl. She stuck out her chest. "See, I have bound my
breasts so I look like a lad."

He turned away, an unfamiliar flush creeping
into his cheeks. "I will not look at your breasts."

"Oh, you cannot see them," she said
cheerfully.

"I should hope not!" he exclaimed, turning
back to face her, a scowl on his face.

"Oh, Mr. Coke, I have put you to the
blush!"

"You have not," he snapped.

She linked her arm through his. "Then it is
all settled."

God in heaven, what have I
ever done to be saddled with the likes of Miss Ellie
Sinclair?
he asked himself.

* * *

When Harry awoke Louisa with a cup of hot
tea the following morning, she nailed him with an accusatory stare
and said, "Confess, my lord, when I slept last night you brought a
hammer into our chamber and pounded my head soundly with it."

He laughed. "I fear you consumed far too
much wine."

She raised herself to a sitting position.
"How did I get to bed?"

"I carried you up the stairs."

He thought he liked it better when she
blushed. Her complacency disturbed him. This was not his
Louisa.

His
Louisa
. He cherished the idea. To the very
core of his soul, he cherished Louisa Phillips. She was undoubtedly
the finest woman he had ever known.

Yet he knew Louisa was the only woman who
could ever claim his heart. The only woman – indeed, the only
person – whose life was more precious than his own.

At breakfast – which Louisa and Harry again
took in their private parlor of the Speckled Goose Inn – Harry ate
heartily, but Louisa had little appetite.

"Has my special elixir helped your head?" he
asked softly.

She nodded. "The head's better. Would that I
could say the same for the rest of me. Why did you allow me to
drink so much, my lord?"