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Chapter Two
Andrew Farrington expecteda cold hovel. What he found was an inviting, three-room stone cottage with the hearth already lit. The house sat thirty yards from the sea cliffs, its windows cheerfully glowing, chimney smoke swirling amidst the snowfall.
The woman in his arms wriggled. “I h-haven’t lost my ambulatory capabilities, you know.”
He hefted her higher against his chest and strode to the red-painted door before lowering her feet to the ground. “Stay,” he muttered, digging the key from his pocket. While he opened the door, he felt her staring at him through her crooked spectacles. “And stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
He ushered her inside. The cottage wasn’t large, but it was warm, and warm was what she needed. “Like I belong in Bedlam.”
“Well, you did just marry your secretary.”
The cottage’s interior was clean and surprisingly well furnished. Soft carpets covered the plank floors of the main room. A settee and two green upholstered chairs flanked the stone hearth. On the longest wall, a table with four chairs sat beneath a pair of square-paned windows. In the center sat a basket of bread, a tea kettle, a lantern, and a bottle of whisky.
A quick search through the rest of the cottage revealed a plain kitchen and a bedchamber with a single window, washstand, and a wood-framed bed large enough for two. The bed was dressed in dark blue wool, the floor covered with another carpet. Clearly, the cottage had been prepared for their arrival. Or, at least, Euphemia’s arrival—with Gibbs.
Anger surged at the thought. He comforted himself by recalling that Euphemia hadn’t married the beak-nosed blackguard. She’d marriedhim.Thank God he’d arrived in time.
Back in the main room, she stood huddled near the hearth. His coat swallowed her compact frame whole. Her spectacles sat askew on her whisper of a nose. Her white-blonde hair had lost pins and now slumped over one ear. It was still wet, darkening the color to ashen gold. Because of her coloring, her brows and lashes virtually disappeared against a milky complexion mottled with cold.
All in all, she was a mess. To be expected, he supposed. She’d taken quite a tumble.
When he’d arrived at the inn early that morning, he’d only meant to speak to her, coax her back to sanity. After questioning the innkeeper, he’d quickly discovered she and Gibbs had been there for several days. True, they’d stayed in separate rooms. But the implication was there in the innkeeper’s shrug—they were scheduled to depart that day, likely to be wed.
That would have been enough to set his temper ablaze, but then someone had opened the inn’s main door, and he’d overheard an argument in the yard: a man slurring his S’s and a woman telling him he wouldn’t like where she next planted her boot if he didn’t release her at once. Euphemia, of course. She’d once used the same threat on an aggressive Italian chap they’d encountered outside acafféin Bergamo. Of course, he’d pretended to let her handle the matter, returning to thecafféalone later that day to give his own warning more pointedly.
But even without that memory, he’d know her anywhere. And hearing her normally sweet, calm voice breaking with tension, he’d lost his mind. He scarcely recalled the moments afterward. Snow. A waiting carriage. A man with bleary eyes and a long beak of a nose. Blood. A bit of pain in his knuckles. His own voice growling strangely as he’d driven the man back and back and back. Then down to his knees.
She’d tugged at his arm. Placed herself between them.
Fury had thundered in his ears. “You intend to marry this sotted bastard?” he’d shouted. “What the devil are you thinking?”
Round-eyed and wary, she’d lowered her voice as though speaking to a lunatic on a rampage. “No need for shouting.” She’d explained her cousins’ demands and her scheme to enter a temporary marriage with Gibbs. “I’ve since reconsidered, though why my plans should concern you this much, I cannot…” She’d trailed off, huffing several breaths, her spectacles fogging. “Mr. Farrington.”Huff, huff, huff.“Wh-what are youdoinghere?”
“Preventing you from doing something utterly stupid.”
“Mr. Gibbs lost his senses after too much whisky—”
“And yet, you planned tomarrythe blackguard.”
“He seems to have the wrong idea. I was quite clear that this wouldn’t be a real marriage. But then, he tried to kiss me, and—”
Red had tinged his vision. The need to pummel Gibbs had resurged. Andrew had focused on the man staggering to his feet and cupping his nose. Euphemia had somehow wedged herself between them again just as Gibbs took a wild swing at Andrew. Before Andrew could react, Gibbs had spun in a full circle, grasped Euphemia’s arm, and dragged her with his momentum. She’d gone flying. Tumbling. She’d rolled down a short embankment into the shallow burn that ran alongside the innyard.
Naturally, Andrew had exploded, striking Gibbs twice more, rendering him unconscious before rescuing a sodden, bedraggled Euphemia. After verifying she was uninjured, he’d carried her to the carriage, taking advantage of her shock to interrogate her about her cousins. Then, he’d packed her and their belongings into the post-chaise, traveled to Henny MacGillivray’s cottage, and dispensed with the threat once and for all.
For, a threat it was.
She’d been about to leave him.
Everything Andrew had feared as he’d ridden pell-mell from London to the north of Scotland through storms, mud, and damnably hostile cold had come to pass. After years of steadfast loyalty, she’d planned to marry someone else. And not even for any legitimate reason, but to obtain a bloody box. It was not to be borne.
Heneededher.
Euphemia Sinclair anchored every aspect of his existence, from scheduling fittings with his tailor to organizing his collections to preparing his deuced tea. But her value went far beyond mundane matters. He relied on her judgment to balance his. She was thoroughly educated in history and geography, thanks to her uncle, which aided him in their excursions abroad. On many occasions, her dogged focus—while blinding her to hazards—had preserved contracts, located unusual finds, and secured comfortable lodgings in inhospitable places.
Additionally, he relished her company. Her quick mind and wry wit never ceased to delight him. Her tolerant nature and calm disposition soothed him as nothing else could. While he had to be watchful and protect her from mishaps of her own making, he certainly couldn’t ask for a more ideal travel companion. Or domestic companion. Or companion of any other sort. In three years, they’d rarely spent more than a day apart.
