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“And if my mother demands to come with us to Thornhill?”
“Then bring her along. If you tell her that her younger son is in Cornwall, she’ll drop everything and accompany us in a heartbeat. We can leave them at Thornhill House.”
“We need reinforcements, Mina. We can’t do this alone. That police inspector I spoke with at Vauxhall, Inspector Langley, is a stouthearted fellow, and his force is well trained and at the ready.”
“Would they allow him to leave London?”
“I’m sure if I put it to his superiors that he could be a hero for England by intercepting a smuggler, they’d allow him to commandeer a stagecoach. They could arrive before we do and try to find Rafe.”
“I like those odds far better.”
Drew counted the days on his fingers. “Rafe has nearly a three-day start on us.”
“Can we make it to Falmouth before thePoseidonarrives?” Mina asked. “The diary said one week but that was more than three days ago.”
“Falmouth is the Royal Mail packet station and the roads are good. I have fresh horses stabled along the route.”
“I’ll bring my red silk gown,” Mina murmured sleepily. “In case I need to look seductive and distracting.”
“You don’t have to wear the gown. Everything you do, every breath you take, seduces me. Every time you hold that pistol, every time you unleash an unladylike curse, it seduces me. I’ve no doubt that you could become a spy, and a damned good one. You can achieve whatever you set your mind to, but please take your time coming to that decision. You don’t have to shape yourself in someone else’s image. You want to become your mother, but perhaps that’s not who you are.”
“I don’t have time to contemplate my choices, Drew. We only have three days.” She raised her head and stared straight into his eyes. “Are you with me, or not?”
“I’m with you,” he said.
“Then tomorrow we leave for Cornwall.”
“And now it’s time for sleep,” he said gruffly. “We have preparations and a long journey ahead of us tomorrow.”
Fumbling with clothing, restoring respectability.
He found one of her slippers under the bed and handed it to her.
Back to Cornwall, to his home. Taking Mina with him.
Hope threaded through his heart. Maybe... when she saw Cornwall, the wild beauty of it, she’d never want to leave.
He shook the wrinkles out of the coverlet on his brother’s bed with more force than necessary to hide the direction of his thoughts.
Maybe she was everything he’d ever wanted. Maybe he could be the one who showed her that she was absolutely perfect the way she was—she didn’t need to change or throw herself into danger at every turn.
“It’s time for you to go to bed, Mina,” he said. “I’ll talk to Beatrice and my mother tomorrow morning.”
“And I’ll go and say good-bye to my great-aunt.”
Chapter25
When Mina entered Grizzy’s bedchamber the next morning, her great-aunt was sitting upright in bed wearing a gray wrapper. Mina almost didn’t recognize her out of her usual black silk gown and with her long gray hair falling over her shoulders instead of piled on top of her head.
She was so much smaller and less intimidating. A tray with an array of wires, brushes, bottles of fixative and dead butterflies was balanced on her lap.
“Good morning, Great-Aunt,” said Mina. “I hear you’re feeling improved?”
“Much improved, thank you, Wilhelmina.” She brushed fixative onto a butterfly wing and the brilliant orange color danced to life. “I never did hear exactly how the duke proposed. Come and tell me all about it.”
“We’re keeping our engagement a secret for now.”
“Oh of course, Sir Malcolm told me as much. But you can’t keep it a secret for too long, Wilhelmina. People will start to talk.”
