She could gaze at London instead. The streets were wider now that they neared the edge of town, lined with trees and farms instead of people. Her grief expanded with the open road. London was the opposite of Fleetwend, where every encounter in the village square was heavy with familiarity that went back generations. Somehow, she’d left the place her people had lived for a century and found herself at home.
And just as suddenly as she’d found it, she was leaving it.
She knew she would not have this place again. The furtive, selfish steps she’d been taking to make her life here permanent would not work if her sisters were orphaned. They could not afford her mouther’s house without her widow’s annuity, and even if they could, Eliza was too young to look after it alone. The girls were Alice’s to care for, and she could not care for them while training to be a governess.
It had been wild to consider it. She’d always known her real future was in Fleetwend. But she had not known, before she left, that there was another world—one that dazzled her, filled her mind with so many thoughts she sometimes felt like she was flying through the air.
She wished she had not learned.
To know and give it up was so much worse than never having known of it at all.
She began to hum the tune about the pin-box. Henry Evesham drove in silence.
Except for the rumbling of his stomach.
She pretended not to hear the sound, but she noticed him go pink at the evidence of his mortal body needing sustenance. He said nothing, but after an hour of this he cleared his throat.
“I could use refreshment,” he said. “Would you like to stop for luncheon?” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, as though he was nervous to look at her full on.
“The very idea of food makes me feel sick,” she said, without thinking.
He looked at her with alarm, like he had mistakenly offered her poison instead of nourishment. Oh dear. She had not meant to snap at him. Politeness was apparently beyond her in this state. Sense was beyond her.
“But you must eat,” she said quickly. “Let’s stop.”
He helped her down from the carriage and insisted on leading her to find a comfortable seat by the hearth indoors. It was hot beside the fire after hours in the cold, and the sudden comfort lulled her.
She closed her eyes and snuggled down into the plushness of the ermine cloak. The weight of it upon her shoulders was almost like a man’s embrace. She hugged herself, and let the feeling carry her out of this chilly inn and into a half-dreaming state, where she was not fleeing London, but tucked in bed in Mary-le-Bone, with a fire roaring in the hearth and a lover’s arms draped around her neck.
Her lover touched her gently on her back, murmuring something sweet to her, her name, some tender words of caring. She sighed and murmured back to go away and let her sleep, and he touched her more insistently, rousing her awake. She smiled and moved to kiss him, for if she did, perhaps he’d let her doze.
But when she opened her eyes—
Chapter 5
Henry hated to disturb Alice from her pleasant little nest beside the fire. At rest, the watchful intensity that radiated from her was absent. She looked delicate and beautiful, especially when she let out a long, contented sigh.
But they could not afford to waste the daylight.
“Alice,” he said. She didn’t stir.
“Alice?” Naught but a grunt.
At a loss, he reached out and gently, ever so gently, placed his hand on her shoulder. “Alice.”
She murmured something sleepy and he put more pressure on her back.
She sighed some girlish protest, lifting her head up toward his so sweetly that he leaned in closer, on instinct. His gaze fell to her lips.
And then her eyes fluttered opened and went wide, and she yelped and clutched her cloak over her mouth.
Henry bolted backward, nearly knocking over a table behind him.
“I’m sorry!” he said, aghast at himself for looming over her that way. “You fell asleep. I was trying to wake you.”
“It’s all right,” she muttered, looking at her shoes. “I was dreaming of … I thought you were someone else.”
He tried not to speculate about who she’d imagined was shaking her awake, with that earthy smile on her lips and those …
(Dove’s eyes.)
He handed her a parcel wrapped in paper, trying not to seem like he’d nearly fallen in a trance in a busy public room of a well-trafficked inn. “Bread and cakes and bit of cold ham, in case you’re hungry later.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking surprised. The fact that she evidently thought he’d meant to starve her did much to restore his sanity.
“Come,” he said. “The horses are waiting.”
Outside, the rain had worsened. He frowned up at the sky. “Will you be all right in this?”
She scoffed. “Yes, of course. It’s just a bit of rain, not piss.” She raised a brow, like she expected him to admonish her for her coarse speech, but a fat raindrop landed in her eye. She cursed, and another drop landed on her cheekbone, just beneath her sooty lashes.
“S’pose that’s the Lord, smiting me for cursing in the presence of a vicar.”
“I’m not a vicar,” he said absently. His thumb twitched with the desire to reach out and wipe the drop away. Which, of course, he didn’t.
Alice charged away, pulling her cloak over her head. She hoisted herself into the curricle without his assistance. They drove away in silence, though, after a time, she seemed to be in a better mood.
“I rather like it,” she declared, leaning her head out from beneath the awning and catching a raindrop on her tongue.
“The rain?” he asked, trying not to stare.
She licked her lips and settled back. “Mmm. It smells so clean, especially out here, in the countryside. Tastes like winter.”
He was relieved she was making conversation as though nothing odd had happened, even if the conversation itself was strange. “You prefer the countryside to London?” he asked, unsure how to reply to her assertion that winter had a flavor.
She stopped smiling. “No.”
She rummaged in the bag of food he’d given her and took out a hunk of cake. She sniffed. “Mmm. Cinnamon,” she said happily. She tore off a small corner and took a bite. “’Tis very good.”
He’d thought it would be—it had looked moist and rich, studded with nuts and candied ginger. She broke off another corner and offered it to him.
“No thank you,” he said. “I don’t eat sweets.”
“I love sweets. I’d live on sweets alone if given the opportunity.”
“I haven’t a taste for them,” he said. (A lie.)
Alice munched reflectively. “It tastes like the cake my sister Liza makes at Christmastide, when she can get the sugar.”
He was curious about her family. “Mistress Brearley mentioned you have sisters. I am sure they will be relieved to see you. Family is a blessing at a difficult time like this.”
She only nodded, chewing.
“I have a sister myself,” he went on. “I haven’t seen her in years. It will be a grand thing to spend a fortnight with her in the country.”
She swallowed. “Why such a long time?”