Page 14 of Black and Silver

Lord Lawrence stared at the paper with a look Minnie was beginning to see meant he knew he was on the spot andhe feared he would fail whatever test he was being given. He hummed and frowned, and if Minnie wasn’t mistaken, his sudden, deep concentration was an attempt to make sense of what he saw on the page.

“Half these charges are not ours,” she said, half for Lord Lawrence’s benefit and half so that the innkeeper would know his ploy would not work. “We did not dine on the side of beef last night,” she continued, putting her finger on the line-item in question, “and neither of us asked for additional bedding.”

A flash of understanding lit Lord Lawrence’s eyes, and he said, “Yes, of course.” He glanced up at the innkeeper with his usual affable smile, but with stone in his eyes. “You seem to have calculated the charges incorrectly.”

The innkeeper coughed and shuffled, then snatched the bill up from the table. “Er, sorry, m’lord. I must’ve brought you the wrong bill. I’ll be right back.”

“We know what charges we incurred,” Minnie called threateningly after him for good measure.

Once the bill was properly settled, Silas pulled the carriage around, and Minnie and Lord Lawrence left the inn, resuming their places across from each other on the carriage seats. Minnie took Clarence from where he’d spent the night on the padded seat and rested him in her lap, stroking his parietal bone as if she were Kat stroking Napoleon.

Lord Lawrence laughed at the gesture and reached over to give Clarence a pat. “Next time, we should bring you into the inn with us,” he addressed Clarence. “I doubt any innkeeper would dare attempt to cheat us with you sitting on the table.”

Minnie smiled, appreciating Lord Lawrence’s attempt at humor, but she saw it for what it was. Lord Lawrence was embarrassed, and he was attempting to cover that with his sunny disposition and easy manner.

It left Minnie wondering how much of his entire mien was but an attempt to compensate for what many might see as a serious defect.

They were quiet for most of the morning as they traveled on. For a blessed change, the sun had come out late the day before, and it shone down with unusual warmth for November. That carried with it the added advantage of drying out the roads a bit so that they could make good time for once.

There were a few spots of mud still, and just because the roads had dried did not mean they were not rutted and rough, sending Minnie, Lord Lawrence, and Clarence bouncing around the carriage a time or two, but all in all, the journey was swifter than the last week had been.

When they stopped for luncheon at a small town with a magnificent view of the verdant Wessex countryside, Minnie was deeply glad to be able to get out and breathe in the fresh air.

“Do you suppose the inn would let us take our meal outside so that we might eat it as a picnic?” she asked, scanning the area for a place they might sit already.

“What is this?” Lawrence teased her. “Has the dark and gloomy Lady Minerva Llewellyn decided that she enjoys the sunshine after all?”

Minerva let out a playfully irritated breath and swatted Lord Lawrence’s arm without thinking about it.

A moment later, she stiffened as the significance of such a physical gesture hit both of them. Lord Lawrence stared at the place on his sleeve where Minnie’s hand had been moments before, then glanced up to meet her eyes.

Of course, it wasn’t Lord Lawrence’s eyes that arrested Minnie’s attention. It was his expressive mouth. His lips were slightly parted, and they had the softest, pinkest look to them. Lord Lawrence was meticulous in his grooming, which meant the idea of kissing that beautifully shaped mouth filled Minniewith carnal feelings that coalesced in parts of her that had been entirely too squashed of late, and not just from traveling.

“I will inquire at the inn as to whether we can take our luncheon outside,” Lord Lawrence said, his voice hoarse.

Minnie hummed, cleared her throat, and nodded. “You do that,” she said. “I will investigate the wall over there to ascertain if it is suitable for sitting on while we eat.”

Without waiting for Lord Lawrence’s answer, she turned and marched off for the wall in question. It was far enough from the inn that they could have a bit of privacy but not so far that they would be in danger from any brigand that might try to accost them for being far from help. Besides that, Silas moved the carriage around to a spot near the wall where a trough waited so that the horses could drink and be fed.

The wall was sufficiently dry, so Minnie had a seat. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed out at the beautiful, sunny view. For once, she was glad for the wide rim of her bonnet. Most of the time, bonnets were a nuisance, but in this case, she was grateful for something to conceal her troubled thoughts from anyone who might pass them by.

It wasn’t that she was immune to love or the wish to be loved. Love was a beautiful thing, as she had observed in her friends who had recently married or would soon marry. It was just that she never imagined it happening to her. She had been raised to believe that a woman’s place was to raise children and keep a home, and she had been treated in a way commensurate to that belief from her earliest memory. It was not until she found the companionship of her dear friends at university that she had learned what love was, and that one did not need to be loved by the other leaves and branches of one’s family tree to experience it.

But falling in love with a man was a different prospect entirely. Men took what they wanted and gave very little in return. Theydemeaned and diminished women, as she had seen countless times in everyone from her mother to her sisters, and even among some of her old university friends who thought they had escaped the curse, only to have it fall on them when they fell in love and married someone whom they thought would be different.

Lord Lawrence most certainly seemed different, but if she gave her heart away, would that last?

She shook her head and heaved a heavy sigh. Her plan was already in place. She would escape to Sweden, making everyone believe she was dead in the process, and she would start a new life.

Although, perhaps it would be kind to at least inform Lord Lawrence of her plan. He might write to her in Stockholm under her new name.

“We’re in luck,” Lord Lawrence’s voice sounded behind her a few minutes later, just as she was sagging with morose feeling over the idea of only corresponding with Lord Lawrence instead of seeing him whenever her friends gathered with the family they’d married into. “They’ve put together a basket for us.”

Minerva turned to watch Lord Lawrence’s approach. She smiled when she saw his handsome form carrying a cloth-covered basked, like he was bringing her the most precious prize he’d just stolen from a sleeping dragon.

A moment later, her gaze slipped past Lord Lawrence, traveling on to the inn. She gasped, held a hand to her bonnet, and rolled over the low wall to crouch behind it so that she would be completely out of sight.

Owen had just stepped out of the inn.

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