Page 48 of The Blood of a Baron

Her feet heavy, her chest still boiling in irritation, Laney followed Wes down to the main dining area of the inn. They joined Rune in a private corner of the inn where the table and chairs were set close to the fire but partitioned off with wooden half walls carved with lions and stags. At least the fire would partially dry her off.

She didn’t know the man, but she made a point to sit in the chair next to Rune and as far away from Wes as possible.

Wes set the key on the table and his dark eyes shifted to her, his glare settling on her for a moment.

Her point delivered as intended.

Rune slid a silver tankard across the table to Wes and set a glass of claret in front of her. Wes’s stare broke and he sat as his look shifted to Rune.

“Food is ordered?”

“Aye.” Rune took a long drink from his own tankard.

“Fresh horses will be ready in the morning. We leave early.”

Rune nodded.

Silence loomed over the table, both the men taking sips of ale, their eyes wary on the surroundings in the dining room past the privacy walls. The rest of the tables mostly full, muted conversations drifted in the air about them.

Laney fiddled with the stem of her glass, then took a sip of the claret merely for something to do. The silence at their table didn’t cease. If anything, it grew more ominous, more stark against the sounds of the rest of the tavern. People laughing, plates clattering, forks clinking, muttered gossip.

But only heavy silence directly around her.

What was happening to her was unnatural. All of it.

Her brother’s murder in London. Finding Morton’s box. Mr. Filmore’s death. The attack against her on the bridge. Leaving town. Traveling to heaven knows where. Both Wes and Rune clearly believing they were in danger.

And neither one said a blasted word about any of it.

She’d been clamped onto a runaway horse that she had no way to control since the second Wes had arrived at Gruggin Manor with Morton’s body and she was good and well sick of it.

She clanked her glass onto the rough rectangular wood table, so hard the scarlet liquid sloshed over the edge. She looked to Rune, then to Wes. “That is all you are going to say to each other?”

Wes looked to her. Rune did not.

“What?” Wes’s voice was low, soft. Admonishing.

Her hand flew up at the side of her. “After everything that has happened today, you aren’t going to speak a word of it?”

“We don’t need to,” Wes said. “We understand each other.”

Rune’s gaze shifted to Wes for a split second, then continued to scan the room. Wes looked to the bar across the way.

Her hand slapped onto the table, making the tankards and glass jump. “Well, I don’t understand a single blasted thing that is going on.”

“You are making more of this than is necessary, Laney.”

“No—I am making the perfect amount of fuss. I never agreed to any of this—you just grabbed my arm and started dragging me around London and then out to the middle of the countryside.”

Wes’s dark eyes pinned her. “I don’t need you to agree to anything.”

“What?” Her eyes went wide, fury sweeping along her back and spiking the hairs on her neck. Her voice dipped low, deadly. “What in the hell did you just say to me?”

Rune shoved his chair back and stood. His knuckles rapped onto the table. “I’ll be checking on our food.” He moved from the table, weaving his way through the other diners in the wide room.

Wes’s mouth twisted to the side as he looked at her, meeting her glare. “I was getting you out of London whether you liked it or not. Your blessed silence on the matter today—for a change—made it easier.”

“My blessed silence is over. Tell me where we’re going and why.”

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