A Week to Be Wicked (9 page)

“What? You mean to travel almost five hundred miles alone? No. I can’t let you do that. I . . . I forbid you.”

It was Colin’s first attempt at forbidding anyone to do anything, and it worked about as well as he’d expected it to. Which was to say, not at all.

She sniffed. “Stay here and marry Diana if you must, but I won’t be a party to it. I can’t simply stand by and watch.”

“God, is that all that’s worrying you?” He put his hands on her shoulders to make sure she was paying attention. “I won’t marry Diana. I never had any plan to marry Diana. I’ve been trying to tell you as much for days.”

She stared at him. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

The distant rumble of hoofbeats and carriage wheels shook the ground. As they stared at each other, it gathered strength.

“That’ll be the coach,” she said.

Colin glanced down the road. Yes, here it came. The moment of decision.

“Come now,” he said. “Let me help you take your things back to the rooming house.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Min—”

“No. I can’t go back. I just can’t. I left a note, saying we’ve eloped. By now, they’re probably awake and reading it. I can’t be the girl who cried ‘elopement.’ The pathetic thing who gathered all her hopes and packed three trunks, and went out to stand at the road at dawn only to slink back home defeated and hopeless. My mother would . . .” She drew a deep breath, stood tall, and lifted her chin. “I just can’t be that girl anymore. I won’t.”

As he watched her, Colin was visited by the strangest feeling, unfurling warm and buttery inside him. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he’d witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis.

Before his eyes, she’d transformed into a new creature. Still a bit awkward and uncertain, but undaunted. And well on her way to being beautiful.

Colin scratched his neck. He wished there were someone nearby he could turn to and say,
Would you look at that?

“You truly want this,” he said. “It means that much to you.”

“Yes.” Her eyes were clear and unblinking.

“If we embark on this journey, there’s no going back.”

“I know.”

“And you comprehend all the implications. Everything you’ll put at risk. Hell, everything you’ll outright sacrifice, the moment you leave with me?”

She nodded. “I’m exchanging my acceptance in fashionable society for standing within the Royal Geological Society. I understand this perfectly, and I think it a rather good trade. You told me to think of myself, Colin. Well, I’m doing just that.”

Turning from him, she popped up on her toes and waved her arms, signaling the coachman. “Stop! Stop, please!”

He stood by and watched her desperate gesticulations, absurdly enchanted by them.
Good for you, pet. Good for you.

As the carriage rolled to a halt, she reached for her smallest trunk. She looked to him, smiling. “Last chance. Are you coming or aren’t you?”

Chapter Seven

T
he road to London was dusty, rutted, bumpy, and miserable.

And Minerva rejoiced in every passing mile.

That was to say, she rejoiced quietly, and without moving so much as a muscle. She hadn’t any space to move at all.

Inside the coach, they were packed four to a seat. Two more passengers shared space with the driver. Minerva was almost afraid to count how many people rode atop the carriage. From her view through the carriage window, their legs hung down like stalactites. Beyond them, she caught the occasional glimpse of Colin, riding on horseback alongside the coach. She envied him the fresh air and freedom of movement.

But all in all, she was thrilled. The agonized decisions and frantic preparations were behind her, and now she could simply bask in the exhilaration of having done it. After spending all of her girlhood fervently wishing she could run away from home—she’d actually done it. And this wasn’t a childish dash into the forest with a hastily packed picnic basket and petulant note reading simply, “Adieu.” This journey had serious, professional significance. It was practically a business trip.

This morning, she’d taken her life into her own hands.

But she was glad she wasn’t making the journey alone.

When they stopped to rest or change horses, Colin excelled at playing the attentive, would-be bridegroom. He stayed by her side and looked out for her in small ways, such as procuring their refreshments or keeping a watchful eye on her trunks. He made a point of touching her often. Subtly laying a hand to her elbow, handing her into the coach.

She knew the touches weren’t for her pleasure or his, but for the benefit of those around them. Those small physical cues made a point. Every time he touched her, he said without words,
This woman is under my protection.

And every time he sent that message, she felt a little thrill.

Minerva was especially grateful for the protection when they arrived in London late that afternoon and reached the coaching inn. She was so road weary, she could scarcely stand. Colin dealt with the innkeeper, registering the two of them under a fictitious name without so much as a blink. He made certain all her trunks came upstairs, ordered a simple dinner, and even sent an errand boy to procure his traveling necessities—a few clean shirts, a razor, and so forth—rather than do his own shopping and leave Minerva alone.

In fact, he made her feel so safe and comfortable, they were halfway through their meal of roast beef and boiled carrots when Minerva felt suddenly struck—smacked in the face—by reality. She was in a small bedchamber, with a single bed. Alone with a man who was not her relation, nor her husband.

She put down her fork. She chased her last bite of food with a healthy swallow of wine. She took a slow look around at the room.

This was it. This was ruination in the making. Roast beef and boiled carrots and ugly, peeling wallpaper.

“You’re very quiet,” she said. “You haven’t even teased me all day.”

He looked up from his plate. “That’s because I’m waiting for you, Morgana.”

She set her teeth. Really, she couldn’t even be bothered to correct him anymore. “Waiting for me to do what?”

“Come to your senses.” He gestured about the room. “Call this all off. Demand I take you straight back home.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not going to happen.”

“You’re not having any second thoughts?”

She shook her head. “None.”

He poured them both more wine. “It doesn’t make you at all anxious, to share this room with me tonight and know what it will mean for you tomorrow?”

“No,” she lied.

Even though he’d been nothing but solicitous and protective since they’d left Spindle Cove, she couldn’t help but feel anxious in his presence. He was so handsome, so blatant, so . . . so very
male
. His personality seemed to take up the entire room.

And heavens, she’d agreed to share a bed with him. If his idea of “sharing a bed” entailed more than simply lying next to each other, she didn’t know what she would do. Fear and curiosity battled within her, as she remembered his skillful, arousing kisses in the cave.

“If I can’t dissuade you . . .” he said.

She closed her eyes. “You can’t.”

He exhaled expansively. “Then in the morning, I’ll see about finding space in a coach headed north. We should try to sleep as early as possible.”

She gulped.

While he finished eating, Minerva decided to seek a familiar refuge. Excusing herself from the small dining table, she went to her trunks and opened the smallest—the one that held all her books. She pulled out her journal. If she’d be presenting at the symposium in a week or so, she needed to organize all her most recent findings and add them to the paper.

Taking a pencil and clenching it between her teeth, she shut the trunk and brought the journal back to the table. She moved her empty dishes of food aside and adjusted her spectacles, settling in to work.

She flipped open the journal to the last filled page. What she saw there horrified her.

Her heart squeezed. “Oh no. Oh
no
.”

Across the table, Colin looked up from his food.

She fanned through the pages in dismay. “Oh no. Oh God. I couldn’t possibly be so stupid.”

“Don’t limit yourself. You can be anything you wish.” To her annoyed glance, he replied, “What? You complained that I hadn’t been teasing you.”

She stacked her arms on the table and rested her head on them. Slowly raising and lowering her brow,
thunking
her forehead against her wrist. “So. So. Stupid.”

“Come now. Surely it’s not that bad.” He put aside his cutlery and wiped his mouth on a napkin. Then he slid his chair around the table, so that he sat beside her. “What can possibly have you so upset?” He reached for the journal.

She lifted her head. “No, don’t!”

Too late. He already held it in his hands. He flipped through the pages, skimming the text.

“Please don’t read it. It’s all lies, all foolishness. It’s a false journal, you see. I stayed up all night writing it. I meant to leave it behind, to give my mother and sisters the impression that we’d been falling in l—” She bit off the foolish words. “That we’d been carrying on for some time now. So they’d believe in our elopement. But obviously, I made a mistake. I brought the false journal with me and left the real one at the Queen’s Ruby.”

He lingered on one particular page, chuckling to himself.

Minerva’s face burned. She wanted to disappear.

“Please. I beg you, don’t read it.” Desperate, she made a wild grab for the journal.

He held it back, rising from his chair. “Oh, this is brilliant. Utterly brilliant. You sing my praises so convincingly.” He cleared his throat and read aloud in an affected tone. “ ‘My mother always says, Lord Payne is all that her future son-in-law should be. Wealthy, titled, handsome, charming. I confess . . .’ ”

“Give it here.”

She chased him, but he backed away, scrambling over the bed and continuing from the other side.

“ ‘I confess,’ ” he continued in that tone of declamation, “ ‘I was slower than most to admit it, but even I am not immune to Payne’s masculine appeal. It’s so difficult to recall the defects in his character, when confronted so closely by his . . .’ ” He lowered the journal and drawled, “ ‘By his physical perfection.’ ”

“You are a horrid, horrid man.”

“You say that
now
. Let’s see how your tune changes when you’re closely confronted by my physical perfection.” He strolled back around the bed, toward her.

Now Minerva was the object of pursuit.

She walked in reverse until her back collided with the wall. Like a child with nowhere to hide, she closed her eyes. “Stop reading. Please.”

He flipped through the book as he ambled toward her. “Good God. There are whole
pages
of description. The roguish wave of my hair. My chiseled profile. I have eyes like . . . like
diamonds
?”

“Not real diamonds. Bristol diamonds.”

“What are Bristol diamonds?”

“They’re a kind of rock formation. On the outside, they look like ordinary pebbles. Round, brownish gray. But when you crack them open, inside they’re filled with crystals in a hundred different shades.”

Why did she bother? The man wasn’t even listening.

“ ‘No one around us could guess our connection,’ ” he read on. “ ‘To the observer, it would seem he only speaks to me to tease. But there is a deeper sentiment beneath his teasing, I know it. A man might engage in flirtation with disinterest, or even disdain. But he never teases without affection.’ ” He speared her with a look. “Those are
my
words. That is blatant plagiarism.”

“I’m so sorry. Falsehood doesn’t come so easily to me as it does to you.” She threw up her hands. “What does it matter? The words were a lie when you spoke them, and they were a lie when I wrote them. Don’t you understand? It’s a false journal, all of it.”

“Not this part.” He pointed a single finger in the center of a page. “ ‘We have kissed. He has bade me call him by his Christian name, Colin.’ ”

He fixed her with an inscrutable look. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she found herself swaying toward him. For a dizzying moment, she thought he might kiss her again.

She
hoped
he would kiss her again.

But he didn’t. And she was sure she heard someone, somewhere laughing.

“Yes, it’s true,” she said. “You’ve bade me call you by your Christian name. And yet, you can’t even recall mine.” She wrenched the book from his hand. “I think you’ve more than made up for lost time now. In fact, I’m certain you’ve exceeded your teasing quota for the day.”

“I can’t borrow against tomorrow’s?”

“No.” She snapped the journal shut and tucked it firmly back in the trunk.

“Come along. Don’t be upset. You said yourself, it was purposely ridiculous.”

“I know. That’s not what has me so upset.”
Not entirely.
“It’s the fact that I left behind the other diary. The real one, with all my latest measurements and observations.”

“I thought you had reams of findings.”

“I do. But my presentation will be weaker for not having those.”

He paused. “How much weaker?”

“Oh, don’t worry.” She forced a smile and patted the plaster cast in the trunk. “Your five hundred guineas are assured. So long as we still have this.”

“W
ell,” he said. “Thank heaven for Francine.”

Colin sighed heavily and pushed a hand through his hair. What the hell was he doing? When she’d made her little ultimatum by the road, she’d left him no choice but to accompany her. Simple decency demanded it. But he’d spent the entire day expecting her to come to her senses. To call off the whole mad journey and demand he return her to Spindle Cove, straightaway. Thus far, however, her determination had not wavered. And some strange force wouldn’t let him leave her side.

Colin didn’t know what the hell that force was. He was here in a coaching inn with her, so he couldn’t very well call it honor or duty. Protectiveness, perhaps? Pity? Sheer curiosity? He knew one thing. It damn well wasn’t five hundred guineas.

From her trunk, she unpacked a stout roll of something white.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

“Bed linens. I’m not sleeping atop
that
.” She indicated the dingy straw-tick bed.

As he watched, she unfurled the roll atop the sagging mattress, stretching and leaning in her efforts to spread the crisp, white linen to all four corners of the bed. Colin noted the edges of the sheet were neatly hemmed, and embroidered with a delicate, stylized pattern that he couldn’t quite make out.

She reached for a second roll. The coverlet, he assumed. This one featured the same repeating border. In the center, the fabric was emblazoned with an odd, roundish design the size of a dog-cart wheel. While she smoothed the creases, he cocked his head and stared at it. The careful, embroidered stitches delineated a coil of some sort. It looked rather like a halved snail shell, but the interior was divided into dozens of intricate chambers.

“Is that a nautilus?” he asked.

“Close, but no. It’s an ammonite.”

“An ammonite? What’s an ammonite? Sounds like an Old Testament people overdue for smiting.”

“Ammonites are not a biblical people,” she replied in a tone of strained forbearance. “But they have been smited.”

“Smote.”

With a snap of linen, she shot him a look. “Smote?”

“Grammatically speaking, I think the word you want is ‘smote.’ ”

“
Scientifically
speaking, the word I want is ‘extinct.’ Ammonites are extinct. They’re only known to us in fossils.”

“And bedsheets, apparently.”

“You know . . .” She huffed aside a lock of hair dangling in her face. “You could be helping.”