Page 48 of Black and Silver

He was mad, but it was becoming abundantly clear to her that she loved him for it. She loved Lawrence’s strangeness and almost childlike moods. All the things that Lady Jessica haddespised about Lawrence were precisely the things she adored about him. He most certainly was not stupid, he merely saw the world differently from others. But so did she.

“Minerva?” Lawrence whispered as he strode back into the church moments later.

Minnie sucked in a breath and pushed herself to stand, frustrated that her body was still weaker than it should have been and that the movement took effort.

Mary rose as well as Lawrence spotted them and marched toward them, looking intimidated, but with her eyes shining.

“Did you hear?” Lawrence asked as he picked up his pace so that he could help Minnie the rest of the way to her feet. He kept his arms around her once she was upright, either because he did not believe she could stand on her own or because he simply wanted to hold her.

Minnie hoped it was the latter, but there was something unusually stony and veiled in his eyes.

“I heard much of it,” she said, suddenly uncertain. “Mostly when the two of you had your voices raised. I could not hear some parts.”

Lawrence looked as though he would say something. Indeed, he hesitated for so long that Minnie wondered if some part of his mind was stuck on a point and could not let go. Something about that hesitation had her quivering with the feeling she had done something he disapproved of.

At last, Lawrence shook his head and said, “We must be away from here as swiftly as possible.”

“I agree,” Minnie said, grasping onto one area where they could be in accord. “Owen clearly will not back down. His pride and the pride of his family are at stake. And it is likely that my parents would stand behind him in his efforts to force me to the altar.”

“He’s got a special license, he has,” Mary commented unhelpfully from the side, inching closer, like she could be a part of the magnificent drama before her.

Both Minnie and Lawrence glanced to her with slight frowns, and Mary stepped back.

Minerva sniffed thickly, then released herself from Lawrence’s hold so that she could turn to Mary. She coughed, blew her nose, then said, “I am most appreciative of your help in remaining concealed from Lord Owen just now and I thank you, but your assistance is no longer required.”

“Thank you,” Lawrence echoed, paused, then added, “You may go now.”

Instead of doing as she’d been told, Mary pulled her shoulders back stubbornly. “I still have to clean the church,” she said.

Minnie sighed and rubbed her congested head. “Very well, then,” she said with a wet sigh. “Go about your business. But we ask for your discretion in this matter, for obvious reasons.”

“I won’t say nothing,” Mary told them with a nod. She then scooted to the side, then turned and hurried toward the opposite end of the church, where a broom and bucket waited.

Minnie turned back to Lawrence, giving him a wary look. “We should pack our things and be off,” she said.

Lawrence still had the sharp, almost calculating look in his eyes. It took him longer than it should have, once again, to answer, “Agreed.”

Packing their things in preparation for a flight took longer than Minnie would have liked it to. They returned to the house, where their abandoned breakfast was waiting for them, then decided it would not be a waste of time to consume that small meal.

Afterwards, Minnie found herself exhausted from the morning’s efforts. She began the process of rearranging thecontents of her valise, but when she began to flag, Lawrence insisted she return to the bedroom to lie down for a spell.

That spell turned into hours. Minnie was forced to admit to herself that she needed rest. Her fever might have broken, leaving her well on the way to recovery, but she was not well again by any means. If she had been at home at the Oxford Society Club, she would have spent the entire day in bed reading, and possibly several days after that.

There was not time for lying abed, however. She forced herself to rise, then was startled to discover it was well past midday. Lawrence had prepared a small luncheon from the supplies left by the old woman, and he’d also laundered several of her handkerchiefs and dried them in the cold, November sun.

“I only regret that I will soil them all again within minutes, the way my head is,” she apologized amidst blowing her nose post-nap.

“There will be other opportunities to launder then and other handkerchiefs to be had,” Lawrence told her, rather stiffly.

As soon as Minnie was temporarily satisfied with the state of her nose, she frowned at Lawrence and asked, “Is something amiss? Did Owen say something I could not hear that has upset you?”

The length of the silence that followed her questions told her she was right and Lawrence was, at the very least, disquieted.

“It can wait,” he said, stepping past her to one of the cottage’s windows.

Minnie was not satisfied with the answer, but as Lawrence’s reason for looking out the window was that Silas had just returned with the carriage, there was nothing more she could do.

Silas reported that Owen had left the carriage willingly in the village and returned to the tiny inn where he was staying, but he was still deeply suspicious. Silas, too, glanced at Minervaas if she had committed some sin, but after a quick look from Lawrence, he said no more.

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