“I think I possess enough common sense to point out the weaknesses of your system.” She held his stare.
His lips twitched. “Touché.”
Footfalls and a grumbling voice came from the other side of the door. It cracked open. A candle in an old brass holder was held aloft. The sudden light, as weak as it was, made Victoria squint. The man behind the light came into slow focus. He wore a dingy nightcap, a nightshirt of the same hue, and a claret-colored, threadbare banyan.
“Is that you, Hawk?” The man’s blue eyes were highlighted by white eyebrows with hairs that hied off in all directions.
“It is. I need you to rouse one of the boys to run a note back to town.”
“Who is the baggage with you?” The man gestured toward her with the candle. It wavered and was almost snuffed out.
“I’m not baggage,” Victoria said tartly.
“She’s no one of import,” Thomas said, speaking over her.
She glared at him but didn’t argue. Her clothes were dowdy, her hair was trailing out of its few remaining pins, and she was traveling with an unmarried man. Their host had every right to assume she was worse than baggage.
“Come in then. You know where everything is.” The man handed Thomas the candle and retreated down the dark, narrow hall while Thomas led her into a small receiving room. While the grate was unlit and the room chilly, it felt comfortable compared to being outside.
She plopped into an armchair. A poof of dust tickled her nose and made her sneeze. Exhaustion crept over her and tugged her eyes nearly closed. The shuffle of paper and the scratch of a nib registered. Thomas was huddled over the small writing desk.
“I suppose you’re writing in some elaborate code?” She was half teasing.
“Of course.” He was deadly serious.
“Mother and Father were dining with Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.”
“Yes, I know. I am aware of all your father’s plans.”
“Are my parents in danger?”
Thomas was biting his lower lip in concentration. The paper he wrote on was small, the markings tiny. The missive could be easily concealed and, knowing her father, who enjoyed games of strategy and logic, would be difficult to decipher.
He hesitated a moment before finishing the note and blowing on the ink in the absence of a sanding pot. “Your father is always in danger. You know that.”
She did, but she preferred to ignore the reality as much as possible.
Thomas straightened and rolled the message into a narrow cylinder an inch long. He rang a bell sitting on the desk. Less than a minute later, a lean youth dressed for riding entered, nodded at Thomas, and held out his hand. The message was slipped into a slit in the lining of his jacket.
“You know what to do?”
“Aye, guv’nor. It’ll not take a quarter hour.”
“Good.”
The youth departed. Thomas turned to Victoria and shuffled closer to loom over her. She let her head fall back against the top curve of the chair and met his assessing gaze.
She shifted on the lumpy cushion and rearranged her padding. Thomas noticed everything yet had said nothing about her attire. “No interrogation about the way I’m dressed?”
“What happened to your hat?”
“It ended up on the ground. A pity. It was difficult to procure such a hideous headdress without Mother’s knowledge.” She was rewarded by the merest quirk of his lips.
“We must move on,” he said gently.
She had been afraid he would say that. “Can’t we rest a while here? It’s safe enough, isn’t it? After all, a secret knock is required for entrance.”
Garrick’s lips twitched one more, but a smile didn’t crack his serious expression. “I assume the men we’re dealing with wouldn’t bother knocking. I should have killed them,” he finished on a sigh.
The two men in the alley had been large and used to brawling, yet Thomas had dispatched them with an ease that was both admirable and fearsome. Victoria had no doubt he could have sent them to their maker. “Why didn’t you?”
His gaze traveled her face before meeting her eyes. “Death is not something a lady should witness, but never doubt, if they had hurt you, I would have ripped them apart with my bare hands.”
Thomas delivered the declaration with the coldness of a man who had killed to survive and would do the same for her. The thought would send a proper lady into a fit of vapors. It was clear Victoria wasn’t a proper lady, because his vow of violence struck her as almost… romantic.
“Where will we go?” she asked.
“Somewhere I can protect you and keep you safe.” His voice held a sharp, jagged edge.
Bands of warmth tightened her chest and made it difficult to speak. She wanted him to take her in his arms and lend her some of his strength. That wasn’t all. She wanted to kiss him again and take her time doing it. A tug of his nape would be all it took to bring his lips to hers.
The guttering candle illuminated only half his face, casting his features in harsh lines and angles that weren’t handsome in the soft, well-fed way of the gentlemen filling her dance cards. Instead, Thomas was arresting. She couldn’t look away, and she stared at him like she’d lost her wits.
Maybe she had. Or perhaps the day’s events had merely stripped away all pretense that she didn’t desire him in every inappropriate way possible.
Before she could act on her desire, he straightened and held out his hand. Without hesitation, she took it and stood. He tightened his grip and brushed an escaped curl off her forehead with a bare finger. The touch was like striking flint.
“Do you trust me?” The rumble of his voice held a tentativeness she wouldn’t have expected from him.
“I trusted you from the very first.”
He’d arrived on their doorstep with wide, suspicious eyes, a too-lean frame, and ragged hair. She’d made it a habit to pop into his room with a basket of the best treats from the kitchen to share. Days accumulated into weeks by the time she had finally earned a smile. It had been her greatest accomplishment up until that point in her young life.
He nodded crisply, but the heat in his gaze warmed her from the inside out. “The sooner we depart, the sooner you can rest.”
The warmth he inspired didn’t last. Snowflakes drifted from the sky, and the shock of the cold made her breath catch. She assumed the same position astride behind Thomas, thankful his bulk blocked the wind, but it was too miserable to relax.
Their synchronized swaying in the saddle was a metronome ticking off the seemingly endless seconds. The pace changed, and Victoria poked her head from behind Thomas’s back. They left the road and descended into a shallow gulley. The copse beyond was dark and menacing.
Victoria looked behind them. The snowfall had picked up in intensity and was already filling the divots made by the horse’s hooves. In an hour, maybe even less, there would be no evidence of their passing. The horse chuffed and tossed his head.
“Are we close?” she asked.
“The cottage is just through the trees.”
Victoria squinted but could only see a few feet in front of them. The trees thinned out, and the gurgle of a brook welcomed them. The faint outline of a thatched crofter’s hut in a small clearing came into view. Thomas stopped at the edge of the trees and scanned the area.