Page 11 of To Swoon and to Spar
Without so much as another glance at him, she opened the book upon her lap, bent her head, and began to read.
Penvale watched for a moment in silence before clearing his throat.
She turned a page.
He cleared his throat again, a bit louder this time.
“If you are trying to get my attention,” she said without looking up, “you could simply say my name.”
“Do you enjoy reading, then?” he asked, striving for a blandly pleasant tone.
“Since we have been in this carriage for approximately five minutes and I’ve already opened a book, I should think the answer to that would be obvious.”
“Perhaps you merely find my company tiresome and would be willing to take any means of escape offered,” he suggested, waiting for her to correct him.
“Both can be true,” she said, turning another page.
Penvale sputtered, and her mouth curved up at the corners.
“What are you reading?” he asked, curious in spite of himself.
“?‘Reading’ seems rather an optimistic verb to use at the moment,” she said waspishly, resting a finger at a particular spot on the page to mark her place as she spoke. “But if you must know, it isThe Romance of the Forestby Mrs. Radcliffe.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You do not strike me as a lady given to romantic fantasies,” he said, and her eyes met his at these words, the expression in them scornful.
“And why is that?” she asked sharply. “Because I do not simper and sigh and act like an utter fool? Is that the only sort of woman who could possibly have any dreams of romance? Or who could enjoy a romantic novel?”
“Well,” he said, realizing he had no good response to this question.
“What doyoulike to read, my lord?” she asked, and he could not help thinking that he’d never heard someone address him in a way that was so scrupulously correct and also so disdainful.
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading books on agriculture,” he said carefully, feeling as though any word he uttered at the moment had the potential to be weaponized. “Sheep farming, drainage improvements—that sort of thing.”
Something flashed across her face at these words, gone before Penvale could properly process what he’d seen, but all she said, with an eloquent lift of the brow, was: “Strange, since you do not strike me as a gentleman given to farm labor.”
Penvale leaned forward, feeling oddly defensive, considering that she was, of course, correct. “The truth is, Jane, you don’t know anything about me.”
“That is precisely my point.”
Without another word, she returned her attention to her book.
This time Penvale did not interrupt.
Chapter Four
“That,” Jane said darkly, “isonly one bed.”
“It is,” Penvale agreed gloomily beside her.
“This may be the thing that breaks me at last,” she said, hands on her hips. “I needspace.I need room tomove.I needprivacy.”
He leveled a baleful look at her. “You’re nearly a foot shorter than me and you thinkyou’rethe one who is going to suffer under this arrangement?”
“I have never shared a bed before,” she said evenly. “Are you really going to try to tell me that you can say the same?”
To this, obviously, he had no reply.
Point to Jane,she thought triumphantly. Her triumph was short-lived, however, given the fact that nothing about their immediate situation had changed: They were somewhere in rural Cornwall, on a rainy evening in early February, at the only inn for miles around, on the final night of a journey stretching well past a week—and there was only one room available.
