Page 8 of Black and Silver

They stopped at a coaching inn that night, and the entire evening passed without incident. Lord Lawrence made certain Minnie had her own, small room, that they were fed, and that Silas, his driver, was given warm, dry lodgings as well. His kindness was apparent to Minnie in the friendly deference Silas showed him.

The next day passed in much the same way. Minnie brought a book out of her valise to read and pass the time, and in a test of how amenable to her eccentricities Lord Lawrence would be, she brought Clarence out and sat him on the seat beside her as they drove on.

“What a magnificent specimen,” Lord Lawrence observed once the carriage lurched forward along still-muddy roads, smiling at Clarence. “Where did you obtain such a thing?”

Minnie had only just picked up her book, so it could not be said that Lord Lawrence had interrupted her reading. Yet.

“I purloined my friend here from one of the medical laboratories at the physician’s college within Oxford University,” she said, daring Lord Lawrence with her eyes to object to her long-ago mischief.

“May I?” Lord Lawrence asked, reaching out for Clarence.

Curious to see what he would do next, Minnie nodded. “You may.”

Lord Lawrence picked up the skull and turned it over in his hands. The way he caressed it reminded Minnie that he was a sculptor. He had a way of following the ridges of Clarence’s facial bones as if he could see what they would have looked like covered with flesh, and stroking Clarence’s skull bones as if he would run his fingers through his hair.

The fleeting thought occurred to Minnie that she would not have minded if he wanted to run his fingers through her hair or caress her cheekbones in such a way.

She put that thought immediately aside as Lord Lawrence sighed his approval of Clarence and returned him to the seat beside Minnie, saying, “You are lucky to have such a beautiful ornament.”

Minnie blinked at him. He was not teasing her, nor was he merely lowering her defenses so that he could attack her for her oddities. It was…it was annoying, in a way. She shifted restlessly in her seat, reaching for Clarence to rearrange the way he sat. How dare Lord Lawrence unsettle her so by being so … so …nice?

Her itching, uncomfortable annoyance with the man continued throughout the day when he let her read her book in peace without once interrupting to ask what she was reading or to tell her what he thought on the subject. Lord Lawrence seemed content to watch the world out the window, since he had not brought a book himself. After their stop at another inn for luncheon, he fell asleep as the carriage rattled on, making slow progress over the muddy roads. He snored a bit as he napped, but even that was frustratingly charming.

By the third day of their quiet, companionable journey together, Minnie had reached her limit of patience for traveling.

“I cannot sit for a moment longer,” she told Lord Lawrence when they reached yet another coaching inn along the road. “I simply must go for a walk to work some blood back into my legs.”

“I agree,” Lord Lawrence sighed. “As marvelous as the modern conveyance of a double spring carriage is, one simply must exercise the physical body now and then before it calcifies completely.”

Minnie paused in the courtyard in front of the inn and stared at Lord Lawrence with narrowed eyes. He wasn’t going to advise her on the dangers of walking in an unfamiliar country? He wouldn’t forbid her from going for a walk because it was raining lightly and her health might be at risk? He wasn’t going to order her to sit prettily by the fire in the inn while he arranged everything around her exactly to his specifications?

The nerve of the man!

“Let me just inquire at the inn to be certain they have rooms for us,” he said, holding up a finger to Minnie as he stepped toward the inn’s front door. “And perhaps they have a pair of umbrellas we could borrow for our walk.”

“Yes, please,” Minnie found herself saying, even though her natural instinct was to be annoyed over any infringement on her independence.

Lord Lawrence was quick about his errand. Minnie waited for him under the awning outside of the inn’s door as Silas drove the carriage around so he could tend to it and the horses. A few of the inn’s patrons and fellow travelers stared at her, but as Minnie had learned long ago, the black she wore immediately made those around her assume she was mourning someone, which meant she had peace and sympathetic looks instead of being accosted or, even worse, flirted with.

“Here we are,” Lord Lawrence said a few, short moments later, exiting the inn with two, sturdy, black umbrellas. “They do notmind if we borrow these. I paid well for the privilege, and for the rooms.”

“Thank you, Lord Lawrence,” Minnie said, desperately tempted to smile as Lord Lawrence opened an umbrella for her, then handed it over.

It irritated her to no end that she wanted to smile at the man. What had come over her that she was so quickly inclined to like a male of the species? Men had caused nothing but trouble for her in her thirty-seven years, constantly badgering her and attempting to woo her into giving up everything she was and cared about. How dare Lord Lawrence defy those trends?

The two of them started along a small path leading away from the inn, which Lord Lawrence said the innkeeper had recommended to him because of its expansive view of the hills around them. Indeed, the vista was breathtakingly beautiful in all its rainy, gloomy splendor. Not only that, Minnie spotted a small church with a graveyard a short distance down one of the hills.

“I intend to explore the graveyard,” she told Lord Lawrence, eyeing him sideways.

She waited for him to protest that a lady should not enjoy such things, but instead, he said, “Oh! What an interesting activity.”

Minnie clenched her jaw, waiting for the barb that would follow that apparent approval, but none came.

It was a relief to walk in the rain after so long tucked away in a carriage, and by the time they approached the small churchyard, Minnie’s expectations of being thwarted by Lord Lawrence had vanished, leaving her with a strangely light sort of contentment.

“I’ve always enjoyed graveyards,” she said as Lord Lawrence skipped ahead to open the small gate dividing the graves from the rest of the churchyard. “They contain such a rich history of humanity.”

“I suppose they do,” Lord Lawrence said, his expression as bright as a spring day, despite the increase in the rain’s intensity.

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