Page 44 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

“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?”

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