Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

“Thomas.”

“Thomas.” She clenched her teeth. “Surely you remember how you got here.”

Again, that moronic silence, followed by, “I rode.”

Wonderful. That was just what they needed.

“In a carriage!” he said brightly, then laughed at his own joke.

She stared at him in disbelief. Who was this man?

“Where is the carriage?” she ground out.

“Oh, just over there,” he said, waving vaguely behind him.

She turned. “Over there” appeared to be a random street corner. Or it could have been the street that ran around the corner. Or, given his current state, he might have been referring to the whole of Lincolnshire, straight back to the Wash and on to the North Sea.

“Could you be more precise?” she asked, followed by a rather slow and deliberately enunciated: “Can you lead me there?”

He leaned in, looking very jolly as he said, “I could…”

“You will.”

“You sound like my grandmother.”

She grabbed his chin, forcing him to hold still until they were eye-to-eye. “Never say that again.”

He blinked a few times, then said, “I like you bossy.”

She let go of him as if burned.

“Pity,” he said, stroking his chin where she’d touched him. He pushed off the stone wall and stood straight, wobbling for only a second before finding his balance. “Shall we be off?”

Amelia nodded, intending to follow until he turned to her with a weak smile and said, “I don’t suppose you’d take my arm?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered. She slipped her arm in his, and together they walked off the high street and onto a side alley. He was setting the direction, but she was providing the balance, and their progress was slow. More than once he nearly stumbled, and she could see that he was watching his steps closely, every now and then taking a deliberate pause before trying to navigate the cobbles. Finally, after crossing two streets and turning another corner, they reached a middling-sized, mostly empty, square.

“I thought it was here,” Wyndham said, craning his neck.

“There,” Amelia said, jabbing her finger out in a most unladylike point. “In the far corner. Is that yours?”

He squinted. “So it is.”

She took a long, fortifying breath and led him across the square to the waiting carriage. “Do you think,” she murmured, turning toward his ear, “that you can act as if you are not sotted?”

He smiled down at her, his expression rather superior for someone who needed help remaining upright. “Jack Coachman!” he called out, his voice crisp and authoritative.

Amelia was impressed despite herself. “Jack Coachman?” she murmured. Weren’t they all John Coachman?

“I’ve renamed all my coachmen Jack,” Wyndham said, somewhat offhandedly. “Thinking of doing the same with the scullery maids.”

She just managed to resist the impulse to check his forehead for fever.

The coachman, who had been dozing atop the driver’s seat, snapped to attention and jumped down.

“To Belgrave,” Wyndham said grandly, holding out his arm to help Amelia up into the carriage. He was doing a fine impression of someone who hadn’t drunk three bottles of gin, but she wasn’t certain she wished to lean on him for assistance.

“There’s no way around it, Amelia,” he said, his voice warm, and his smile just a little bit devilish. For a moment, he sounded almost like himself, always in control, always with the upper hand in a conversation.

She set her hand in his, and did he-did she, feel-

A squeeze. A tiny little thing, nothing seductive, nothing wicked. But it felt searingly intimate, speaking of shared memories and future encounters.

And then it was gone. Just like that. She was sitting in the carriage, and he was next to her, sprawled out like the somewhat inebriated gentleman she knew him to be. She looked at the opposite seat pointedly. They might be engaged, but he was certainly not supposed to take the position next to her. Not when they were alone in a closed carriage.

“Don’t ask me to ride backwards,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not after-”

“Say no more.” She moved quickly to the rear-facing position.

“You didn’t have to go.” His face formed an expression entirely out of character. Almost like a wounded puppy, but with a hint of rogue shining through.

“It was self-preservation.” She eyed him suspiciously. She’d seen that skin pallor before. Her youngest sister had an extremely sensitive stomach. Wyndham looked rather like Lydia did right before she cast up her accounts. “How much did you have to drink?”

He shrugged, having obviously decided there was no point in trying to cajole her further. “Not nearly as much as I deserved.”

“Is this something you…do often?” she asked, very carefully.

He did not answer right away. Then: “No.”

She nodded slowly. “I didn’t think so.”

“Exceptional circumstances,” he said, then closed his eyes. “Historic.”

She watched him for a few seconds, allowing herself the luxury of examining his face without worrying what he would think. He looked tired. Exhausted, really, but more than that. He looked…burdened.

“I’m not asleep,” he said, even though he did not open his eyes.

“That’s commendable.”

“Are you always this sarcastic?”

She did not answer right away. Then: “Yes.”

He opened one eye. “Really?”

“No.”

“But sometimes?”

She felt herself smiling. “Sometimes. A little more than sometimes, when I’m with my sisters.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes again. “I can’t bear a female without a sense of humor.”

She thought about that for a moment, trying to figure out why it did not sit well with her. Finally she asked, “Do you find humor and sarcasm to be interchangeable?”

He did not answer, which led her to regret the question. She should have known better than to introduce a complicated concept to a man who reeked of liquor. She turned and looked out the window. They had left Stamford behind and were now traveling north on the Lincoln road. It was, she realized, almost certainly the same road Grace had been traveling the night she and the dowager were waylaid by highwaymen. It had probably been farther out of town, however; if she were to rob a coach, she would certainly choose a more out-of-the-way locale. Plus, she thought, craning her neck for a better view through the window, she did not see any good hiding spots. Wouldn’t a highwayman need a place to lie in wait?

“No.”

She started, then looked at Wyndham in horror. Had she been thinking aloud?

“I don’t find humor and sarcasm interchangeable,” he said. His eyes, interestingly, were still closed.

“You’re only just answering my question now?”

He shrugged a little. “I had to think about it.”

“Oh.” She returned her attention to the window, preparing to resume her daydreams.

“It was a complicated query,” he continued.

She turned back. His eyes were open and focused on her face. He appeared a bit more lucid than he had just a few minutes earlier. Which did not lend him the air of an Oxford professor, but he did look capable of carrying on a basic conversation.

“It really depends,” he said, “on the subject of the sarcasm. And the tone.”

“Of course,” she said, although she was still not sure he had all his wits about him.