Page 11 of Better Love Next Time
“I’m running away.”
She clasped his arm. “Where to?”
He could get used to being touched. At least, touched by her. Every time she did, he felt like the pudgy, piebald guinea pig sounded. All bubbly and warm.
“London,” he said.
“Oh, I should like to run away. But London’s days and days away.”
“Only a day’s ride if you start early and the going’s good.”
Maybe he could tell her tales about London, teach her how to climb and sail and curse. If he wasn’t leaving this stupid place. Which he was. As soon as he won all her coin.
“Do you want some brandy?” Fishing in his sack, he offered her the bottle.
She uncorked it, sniffed, shivered, and gulped like the drunken sailors roaming the London docks with their gin. From her forehead to her neck, probably everything else below it that he couldn’t see, she flushed beet red. He saved Daisy when she fell backward, gasping and choking.
She clutched her middle. “That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“Have you eaten a snail?”
She bolted up to sitting. “You ate a snail?”
“Alive.”
“The poor snail!”
“Got a sixpence for it. And a shilling for horse dung. Which tastes like bitter hay paste, by the by.”
“Fresh or dry?”
“Fresh and steamy. Hence, the shilling.”
Her face squished. She dared another sip of brandy as he gathered the cards and shuffled.
“It’s not so bad on the second taste,” she said.
“Because you’re happy to be alive. Are you going to eat those biscuits?”
She laid them out with the berries and cream while he dealt the play. And he was happy to be alive, with a fairy at his side and his means of boarding a coach to London within his reach.
Julian’s eyes flew open. Had it been the last of a dream or was someone,something, outside the enchanted lair? He lifted his head, straining to hear, but with his heart pounding in his ears, it was hard to tell.
Was that breathing? More like blowing. Something huge right outside the tree.
At his chest, the fairy nestled in his right arm, her black curls at his chin, her fruity scent mixing with the smell of moss and dirt. They’d fallen asleep after she’d fleeced Julian of his coin and then, taking pity on him, given it back. He didn’t have so much St. Clair pride that he hadn’t accepted it.
“Wake up,” he whispered into the fairy’s hair.
She didn’t budge. And how was she going to save them? By casting a spell? More like change her shape to a guinea pig, scurry away, and leave him as a sacrifice to be eaten alive.
Huffffff. Huffffff.
How big was the beast?
Huffffff. Huffffff.
Stretching his right arm from the fairy, he patted his hand over his pillowcase, curling his hand around the candlestick and slowly, drawing it out. He switched it to his left hand, gripped it hard, and wriggled his right arm free from beneath the fairy.
