Page 52 of Better Off Wed

Not until the earl’s traveling coach lumbered away from Thornton Hall did Laura allow herself to breathe easily.

“Were you worried?”

Jeremy did not pull his gaze from the window as he spoke. He was seated across from her and surely could neither have felt nor heard her sigh of relief. His perceptiveness, the way he seemed to read her feelings and anticipate her reactions, ought to have been disquieting, yet she caught herself exhaling again, easing into the comfort of his presence.

After two days of autumnal weather, the warmth of summer had returned to tease them. She unbuttoned her pelisse as she spoke. “Weren’t you?”

The corner of his mouth curled in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I still am.” He reached into his breast pocket, withdrew some papers, and held them out to her: the notes from earlier, which she recognized, and what looked to be the start of a letter. “I thought I would have to leave a note for Thornton, explaining our departure. I found this, instead. I don’t know if it was wise to take it, but I needed some way to test my theory about the cyphers.”

“An unfinished letter?” She turned the sheet of foolscap this way and that in the light.

“Not unfinished. It’s the second letter I’ve seen in Thornton’s possession that seemed to be written in some form of invisible ink. When I put the pen to what I thought was a blank sheet of paper, the words began to appear. Once I get access to the proper tools, I’ll be able to reveal the rest. What’s written on that page,” he said, nodding toward it, “may show me how the cypher is to be used.”

She heard a note of hesitation in his voice. “But?”

“If Thornton notices it’s missing, figures out I’ve taken it, well…” He leaned back, tossed the papers onto the seat beside him, and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

“He’ll be too occupied with preparations for his guests to spare a thought for his correspondence,” she said, not knowing whether it was true but wanting to reassure him.

“Let’s hope.”

With nervous fingers, she plucked at the ribbon of her reticule, her own uncertainty bubbling inside her chest. “I understand, of course, that what Lord Thornton may be involved in could affect the safety and security of far more than his household staff. Nevertheless, I fear what might befall Dora in the next few days,” she confessed in a rush. “Or Miss Godfrey. I didn’t even have a chance to speak with her before we departed. I’ve been so busy trying to distract everyone around us, I think I—I let myself be a little distracted too.”

Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he reached for her hands. “I saw her on the servants’ stair and explained the situation as best I could. Advised her to keep her weapon at the ready,” he added with a crooked smile.

It was dazzling, that smile. And his eyes in the morning light, on the first sunny day since they’d left London. She blinked half a dozen times, rather than be caught staring.

His smile turned slightly baffled. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking that, on the night we arrived, I told you I was the better actor. Now, I…I’m not so sure.”

“Well, as it turns out, we’re both professional liars and secret keepers.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “But I’d still give you the nod, purely in terms of experience. I do my best work behind the scenes, seated at a desk, with a stack of books.”

Experience. Yes, she had a great deal of experience in playing parts and finding out things that others wished to keep hidden and using those secrets—or threatening to use them—to achieve her own ends.

But she hadn’t any experience she could use at the present moment, no experience in trusting and caring and letting someone see past the shield of charm and cleverness she’d been wielding for years.

“How’s your ankle, by the way?” He jerked his chin toward her injury. “What did Phelps say?”

“Considerably less painful. Still, I’m not to put any weight on it, and should keep it elevated when possible.” She glanced around the interior of the carriage. The bench seat wasn’t long enough for her to sit as she had on the sofa in the blue room. On the floor of the carriage sat a small wicker basket with a lid. “I suppose I could use Mrs. Tenney’s hamper for a footstool?”

“Higher would be better, yes?” When she nodded, he released her hands, shrugged out of his greatcoat, and folded it into a cushion, heedless of the wrinkles. “Here,” he said, positioning the makeshift pillow on his knee and patting it to indicate she might rest her leg there.

It was at once generous and intimate, and she bit her lower lip to keep a sudden flood of emotions—tears or laughter, she couldn’t decide which—at bay. How could such a small, silly gesture send her off-kilter? “I couldn’t possibly,” she insisted when she trusted herself to speak. For one thing, her foot was bare except for the bandage, as she had not wanted to trouble Dinah for help with her stocking after the doctor’s examination; for another, the thought of sitting across from a man in such a posture was shocking, even to her.

He didn’t argue, but neither did he move his folded coat. The coach jostled over a rut, and the unpredictable movement made her ankle throb. “Well,” she said, after a moment, “I suppose it would be all right for a little while.” She hitched up her skirts a few inches and straightened the leg; he curled one hand beneath her calf and set her foot gently into place, then carefully arranged her skirts to drape over her ankle and his knee. Her pink toes peeked from beneath the hem.

“Better? I thought as much.”

“Where did you learn how to…?” How to treat a lady, she’d almost said. But it wasn’t that, not really. Gentlemen were rarely called upon to do the sorts of things for ladies that he had done over the past three days.

Except, perhaps, for kissing her senseless.

He tilted his dark head to one side and lifted his brows expectantly. “I can’t answer until you finish your question. Or rather, I’m at least clever enough to know better than to try.”

“I was wondering where you learned about codes and cyphers and how to break them. But I suppose the answer is obvious: in the army.”

He riffled through the papers he’d laid aside, then picked up one of the pages of notes Dinah had found that morning. “The army took what I knew and refined it into something…well, useful, I suppose one might say. But I learned all the building blocks from my father. Latin, Greek, French, philosophy, mathematics.” A smile played about his lips. “Chess.”