And now her heart ached right along with it.
Had she made a mistake this morning, offering to read The Wild Irish Rose to him?
Or had the mistake been made longer ago, the day she had given in to her aunt’s demand and her cousin’s plea to sit with them during that first visit from Lord Ash?
When she reached the coach, she glanced back once more at the ruin. At Gabriel, still standing near the ramshackle pile of stones, little more than a speck in the distance.
He was right. Sometimes it was unwise to inspect a thing too minutely.
Chapter 16
The innkeeper studied the register in front of him, frowned, and shook his head. “Haven’t got but the one room left, sir. Ye mun share. Sure, then, your…sister, did ye say…? would be willin’ to—”
“Cousin,” Gabriel corrected. “So you understand, of course, that we do not wish to—”
One brow shot upward. “Aye, sir. I do, that. But I cannot make a room where there isn’t one.” He appeared to give the matter some thought. “I s’pose you might make your bed in the stable loft with the coachmen and such, if you’ve a mind to.”
“Fine,” Gabriel readily agreed. Under no circumstances could last night’s interlude be repeated. A second night in her bed would be courting disaster, and not just because it would increase the risk, no matter how much care he took, that she might one day soon find herself carrying a dead man’s child.
“Not a word of this to her. My coach will be here any moment.”
Unable to bear being cooped up in the carriage any longer, he’d hired a horse after dinner and ridden ahead. It had not been a comfortable journey, but his desire to sit with her, to listen to her, convinced him he had made the only sensible decision. He was not supposed to be enjoying her tale.
Thankfully, this crowded, bustling inn would provide little opportunity for further entertainment, for intimate conversation of any sort.
Gabriel laid a hand on the counter, and the innkeeper looked up. “A private dining parlor is out of the question, I assume?” he asked.
“Th’ room has a small parlor adjoinin’. I s’pose I could arrange to serve supper to you and your lady—”
“Cousin—”
“—there. If you wish.”
“Yes, thank you. In an hour.” He turned toward the door to watch for his coachman, then added over his shoulder, “Oh, and nothing with peas.”
The unfamiliar request stymied the innkeeper. “How’s that, sir?”
“For supper. Please do not serve any dishes with peas. The lady—”
“Your cousin, you mean?”
Gabriel shot him a look that had persuaded many a gambling man to fold. “The lady does not enjoy them.”
“Aye, sir. So that’s one bed”—the innkeeper opened the register to make a note—“one private parlor, and no peas.”
“Precisely.”
A quarter of an hour later, Gabriel’s coach rolled to a stop and he reached up to help Camellia down. “Your room awaits you, Cousin,” he said, gesturing with his free hand for a servant to carry up her things.
She looked the picture of icy respectability, her long braid now wound beneath her bonnet and the ragged sheaf of papers nowhere in evidence, presumably tucked into the valise she was at that moment reluctantly surrendering to the innkeeper’s son. Even her missing gloves had been replaced. “How kind of you.” Cool green eyes looked him up and down. “Cousin.”
“I’ll join you for supper in half an hour, if I may?” An exercise in frustration. She had no real need of his company, and he was a damned fool for wanting hers.
She dipped her head and was gone, leaving him to carry his own things to the stable loft. The accommodations there were spare but clean, though he suspected he still smelled of horse when he returned to the inn to dine.
He found her in a room hardly deserving of the name of parlor; a table and four chairs nearly filled it. Small windows on two sides overlooked the stable and inn yard, while the other two walls boasted doors: one through which he had entered, and one through which he could just glimpse a narrow bed. When she rose and gestured him to a chair, he saw that she had changed into a fresh dress. Her braid once more swung freely across her back as she moved.
“Your room is satisfactory?”
“Yes, thank you. But—” Her gaze darted to the window.
So, she had watched him come from the stables. Before he could offer any explanation, a red-faced young woman backed through the door carrying a laden tray. He very nearly had to step into the bedchamber to make room for her to enter.
An indifferent dinner of roast chicken, underdone potatoes, and wilted greens was accompanied by a bottle of surprisingly good white wine, and by the time he had poured his third glass, and Camellia’s second, he had managed to persuade himself the silence that had loomed over them throughout the meal was more companionable than stony. When he poked suspiciously at the wobbly custard that had been sent up for dessert, she covered her mouth with her napkin—hiding a smile, he felt certain.
“Do you know,” he said, taking up his glass, “I think I’d rather have another chapter of The Wild Irish Rose instead.”
She hiccupped, her expression still half-hidden by the square of linen. “Now?”
“Why not?” The last of the day’s light was fading from the sky, but the room glowed with the light from a brace of candles.
“I should think the better question would
