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‘Where are we heading for?’ Elinor asked.
‘Arnay le Duc, but we may not make it tonight. I’m trying to take a direct route for Maubourg without using the most obvious main road.’ He opened the carriage door, but Elinor shook her head. ‘You want to come up on the box? I won’t let you drive, you know.’ The smile creased the corners of his eyes and she made herself smile back as he gave her his hand to help her climb up.
‘Will they follow us?’
‘The countess and Julie?’ Theo untied the reins and gave the pair the office to move. ‘Difficult. I doubt very much if they’ll check on the cell—much too squeamish. What if they found us still alive? But they might check on the Chalice, worrying about whether it was safe to leave it there. Foolish to keep revisiting it, but people aren’t always rational when they’ve something on their conscience. I prefer to be cautious for a day or two. I’ve given Hythe a letter for the count, and I have to hope he acts upon it, but one can never be certain.’
‘What about Lord X’s men? They’ll be furious at being locked up.’
‘Hythe is going to tell them to go back and tell his lordship we have the Chalice and will be getting it back to England. If they decide they don’t trust me and come looking, it’ll take a while to cast around before they pick up our trail.’ He looked at her. ‘Don’t worry, Nell.’
‘I’m not. I’m just making sure I understand where everything, and everybody, is,’ she said, trying to focus on the practicalities and not on the fact that she was alone with Theo, not just for an hour or two, but for several days.
‘Well, the Chalice is under the seat wrapped up in a horse blanket and without a scratch on it, which is more than can be said for us.’ There was an edge to his voice, which made her want to take his face between her palms and not let him go until he told her what was wrong. That was not possible as they drove, but she could try just asking.
‘Theo, what is wrong?’ He shot her an incredulous look, one eyebrow arching up. ‘No, I don’t mean the fact that we are careering abo
ut the countryside with a valuable erotic art work hidden in the carriage and have left Mama with two murderesses. There’s something else.’
He had his eyes back on the road, his gaze focused on the road ahead and for a moment or two she thought he would not answer her. Elinor slipped one arm through his. ‘Theo?’
She did not receive a very warm response. He neither pulled away, nor, as she hoped, squeezed her arm against his side. ‘It occurs to me that I have not been taking very good care of you, Nell.’
‘You saved my life,’ she protested, incredulous.
‘I put it at risk in the first place. And besides, if you weren’t so determined and brave we would never have got out of there. I have dragged you into this mess, I made love to you and now, as you say, we are careering about the countryside in a thoroughly improper manner.’
Something hot, confused and miserable turned over in Elinor’s chest. ‘I have free will and a brain! You did not drag me anywhere, I went where I wanted. After that first kiss—if you can call it that—I wanted what we did at least as much as you did, and if I hadn’t, I’d have told you so. I thought we were friends, Theo. I thought we were in this together. But, no, I am just a woman who was apparently dragged along at your coat tails, who was waiting passively to be kissed, or not, who—’
‘Stop! Nell, I can’t argue with you while I’m driving. You’ll have to wait until we get to an inn if you want to scold me.’
‘Scold you?’ She dragged her arm free and clenched her fists in her lap. ‘I don’t want to scold you, you idiot man. I want you to treat me like an equal.’ And that was the heart of it, she realised. She loved him, admired him, wanted him. But she did not want to be treated like someone he had to cosset and protect. She wanted to be with him, not safe in England. She wanted to share the dangers and the adventures. She wanted, she realised with the clarity born of hunger and exhaustion and desperation, to live his life with him.
‘How, exactly?’ he asked warily.
‘Treat me like a man. One who is not as strong as you, of course. One who doesn’t have a good right hook in a fight. But I’m as intelligent as you are,’ she asserted. ‘I can take responsibility for myself.’
Theo looked at the slim, dishevelled, determined figure on the box beside him. Treat her like a man? Oh, no, never that. But treat her like an equal? That was an intriguing thought. He thought he had been, but his feelings for her were so overwhelming that she was probably right. His instinct was to protect Nell, cherish her—and all he had achieved so far was a variety of sexual experiences that had doubtless been highly unsatisfactory from her point of view, a fight from which he had had to be rescued, a scandal and a near-death experience.
‘All right, I promise,’ he said, meeting her stormy gaze. ‘I can’t treat you like a man, but I can treat you like the independent, intelligent woman you are. From now on, if I do not respect your decisions, you may remind me of that pledge.’
‘Good.’ Her nod was decisive, yet there was something else that was troubling her, he could sense it. But he couldn’t force her to confide. ‘Look, an inn. Theo, I don’t care how disreputable it is, I am starving.’
As it turned out, the Coq d’Or was modest but clean, and the girl who came out as they entered from the yard was pleased to offer them a choice of rabbit casserole or a cut off yesterday’s leg of pork, to be followed by cheese.
They made short work of the rabbit and still had appetite to attack the cheese, washed down with a pichet of the local red wine. ‘Where are we?’ Elinor asked the girl.
‘Eschamps, madame. Do you have far to go?’
‘Autun,’ Elinor said promptly. It was a good answer, he conceded mentally. Prompt, with no hint of mystery or concealment, and quite plausible, given the road they were on. Theo tipped his glass to her, to acknowledge the tactic, and she smiled back, turning his heart over in his chest.
He wanted her. He wanted this. This companionship, this meeting of minds. This enjoyment. That he also wanted her in his bed, stretched out under him while he took that slender, agile body to heights of delight, while he buried himself in her, while he showed her, again and again, how much he loved her, was something he had to deny to himself, had, at all costs to resist.
In the event the road was better than he expected and the horses stronger than he had hoped and they drew into Jouey, just north of Arnay le Duc, as the light was beginning to fade. And there, by the side of the road, was exactly the sort of inn he had been looking for. Large, respectable, with stabling and grooms and the strong possibility of bedchambers that would give them both the good night’s sleep they needed.
What he had not foreseen was the enforced, almost domestic, intimacy of the private parlour. Nell was delightfully wifely about the whole thing, insisting on checking the beds to see they were aired, frowning over the choices of food presented, consulting him, then ordering, sending the maid for more candles—creating, very successfully, the impression they were an established married couple. And, again, he had not thought to discuss the need to play-act with her in advance.
But admiration at her ingenuity was no protection against the insidious yearnings that were stirring in his breast. What if every day could be like this, travelling around the continent, searching for things to buy and patrons to sell to? Having adventures and having, every evening, the contentment of being together, sharing the day. Sharing the night.
