At that moment, the people around them fell quiet.
“So any kindness and loyalty from you is transactional,” she shot back, that insult filtering through the taproom.
Tamping down a groan, Caleb swiped a hand over his brow.
A tension descended over the room.
Sputtering, the young man went florid in the cheeks. “Are you calling me disloyal?”
Taking a step toward him, Claire dropped her hands to her surprisingly ample hips. “If the saddle fits…”
The man’s jaw slackened as murmurs went up around them. “H-how dare you?” he demanded.
“Very easily,” Claire said with an affected boredom only a person of British high society could manage.
Caleb anticipated the driver’s intentions and put himself as a barrier between the harebrained hellcat and her less-worthwhile opponent. “That’s all, folks.”
The young man abruptly stopped. Caleb pinned a look on him filled with both a warning and a threat, which Mr. Winters saw and wisely heeded.
Spinning on his heel, the fellow stomped off, and then the revelry resumed.
Claire angled a look around Caleb’s shoulder. “You let him get away,” she said, dropping her hands to her hips again and narrowly missing bumping into another passing patron.
“Yes, well, it seemed the safest course for the fellow.”
Her brows returned to their normal place and then dropped a fraction lower. “You’re making light of me.”
“I’m having fun at your expense, yes,” he said flatly.
Claire let out a sound of disgust. He waited for her to storm off.
Instead, she drew her bag protectively close to her chest and stared over it… at Caleb. Oh, hell. He shook his head. “No.”
“I didn’t ask anything… yet.” She added that last part to herself, but he heard that confirmation, and his dread grew. “I’m in need of a room.”
And there it was. “So you want mine?”
“Given that you aren’t in the habit of selling your paintings, this is a way to put some coins in your pocket. Therefore, it is a win-win for both of us.” She beamed brighter than the Carolina sun.
But then, he should have known better where this hellcat was concerned.
He’d opened his mouth to say just what he thought of her proposal when another drunken patron stumbled into them.
This time, Caleb took Claire by the arm and steered her away from the fray. “Let’s go,” he muttered, as he grabbed up his things from the table.
“Where are we going?” she chattered. “It’s the innkeeper, isn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but finished with one herself. “You think you can convince him to give me a room.”
She’d always been a talker. It was what he’d liked least about her. From the time he’d been imprisoned in the belly of a ship, he’d become accustomed to silence and annoyed with people who didn’t honor that same sentiment.
“Or do you think we should rescue my things first?” she asked.
Her…?
They stopped several paces from a trunk that blocked a good portion of the taproom entrance.
“I couldn’t get the trunk and the valise in,” she explained. She wrinkled her nose. “Not that I could have managed the trunk by itself.”
With a sigh, Caleb hefted the trunk into his arms and started up the stairs.
From the corner of his eye, he caught her attempting to balance her valise and stopped.
Shooting a hand out, Caleb plucked the burden from her fingers, tossed it atop the trunk, and resumed his march.
“You really needn’t do all of that. Not that I’m not appreciative. I am. Are you allowing me to have your rooms? Is that what you’re doing?”
He reached the main landing and glowered at her. “Do you ever shut up?” he snapped.
“Are you ever not rude?” she retorted, that response answering the very question he’d put to her.
No, she was incapable of biting her damned tongue.
Lugging her things along, Caleb led her the remainder of the way to his room. Caleb set her belongings down and grabbed the key from inside his jacket. Unlocking the heavy oak panel, he shoved it open. The hinges squealed their age.
He stood there, waiting for the lady to enter. Claire, however, continued to linger, arching her neck in and eyeing the room, but making no attempt to walk her delectably rounded buttocks through the door.
“I am ever so grateful for your generosity,” she began. Removing her gloves, she dusted the fine leather articles together. “All these years, I have taken you as uncouth and uncivilized and rude.” She looked back, her eyes meeting his. “However, I have unfairly judged you,” she finished softly.
Caleb snorted. “Now, if that isn’t the manner of an ass-backward compliment only you are capable of.”
“I thought it was a very pretty apology.”
“You would. It wasn’t. Either way, I’m not giving up my rooms.”
The lady stomped her foot. “Because I didn’t compliment you enough?”
He leaned down, sticking his nose close to hers. “Because I never intended to give up my rooms,” he said flatly.
“Well, then.” She darted her tongue out, the pink flesh trailing a path over the seam of her mouth, drawing his eyes to the unlikeliest source of his interest—Claire Poplar’s lips.
A wave of desire jolted through him, and he recalled the last time he’d had his mouth on hers. The heat. The passion. From both of them. All of it as unexpected as this hungering for her now.
What in the hell insanity was this?
“Do you need a room, or don’t you?” he barked.
Claire jumped, but quickly steadied herself.
“Because if you didn’t, you could have avoided a fight with about three of the patrons you managed to tussle with downstairs,” he infused the droll edge that never failed to infuriate the minx.
Giving a toss of her limp dark curls, she swept forward, her shoulders as proud as the long, graceful column of her neck. “I didn’t tussle with anyone,” she retorted, loosening the clasp at her throat and shrugging out of the green cloak.
“You came damned close.”
“Yes,” she allowed, hanging up the garment. “That is true. But I was not in the wrong.”
With the heel of his boot, he pushed the door shut behind them and set down her things. The floorboards moaned as she rushed over to collect her valise and gather it close.
“I would wager you haven’t been right about anything a day in your life, Claire,” he said sardonically, turning to lock the door. “In fact, Your Majesty, I’d—” His words trailed off the moment he turned.
Claire set her bag near the crude oak armoire in the corner of the room. Right beside…
“What is this?” she murmured. Much the way she’d done when visiting the Royal Museum, she beat the fine leather articles together in a distracted one-two-three beat as she contemplated his work.
His mediocre work.
His neck went hot as he rushed across the room to where the easel and canvas rested. Yanking his work off the frame, he set the unfinished painting against the wall, facing in so she could no longer appraise it.
“I’m there.” He indicated the floor as he directed her toward where they’d be sleeping. “And you’re here.” He pointed to the bed.