Mr. Bishop nodded. “That is clever, boy.”
“I agree,” the duke said. “We shall wait until he leaves before setting course. The devil is not aware you are traveling with us, so we have that advantage as well.”
Rosilee nodded thoughtfully, the last trace of doubt about her choice of traveling companions fading away. These men, for all their quirks, truly had her and her brother’s best interests at heart. If nothing else, she could rely on the fact that they shared a common enemy. She would have to wait, of course, until the very last die had been cast, until all the cards were revealed, to know all. But for now, she found comfort in the knowledge that she was not alone. Even if that meant she had to sleep on a lumpy mattress next to a broken bed.
The early morningsun cast long shadows across the cobblestones of the inn yard, where Blake stood beside their carriage and fed an apple to his horse, Beast. The smell of damp earth and fresh hay hung in the air, and he breathed in a lungful of clean, open air—so much better than the cat-infested cloud he’d spent the night in.
He stifled a sneeze, his face a mask of irritation.
To say that nothing had gone according to plan would be a gross understatement. But then, to say he even had a plan...
Let’s not think about that.
The only light in this otherwise ridiculously ridiculous situation washer.
Lady Rosilee.
Her optimism was still a marvel to him.
She had every reason to cry, to vent, to rage at the injustices of the world, and yet instead of doing that, she determinedly sought solutions and embraced the risk of them. In comparison, he was...
Nothing.
A speck of dust.
An ant.
“Good lord, man.” Bishop whistled as he approached from the inn’s stable. “What happened to your face?”
Blake glared at him, his eyes bloodshot and watery. He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the room’s mirror earlier. His normally sharp features were marred by puffy cheeks, and his nose was red, making him look as though he had been sobbing for hours. He crumpled the handkerchief clutched in his hand. His face was testament to the deuced battle he had fought—and lost—with cat hair.
“Laugh if you must,” Blake growled. “You do what you want anyway.”
“You must admit, the sight of you is a bit funny. You keep saying you are a monster. Now you look like one, too.”
Blake glared at the man. “That is not funny.”
Bishop laughed, leaning casually against the carriage. “I beg to differ. It’s not every day I see the great Duke of Crane felled by a scruffy-looking house cat.”
“I told you never to call me that.”
The man shrugged. “We are going to London. You must get used to being called by your title sometime.”
Blake grunted. He would never get used to it. He loathed the title more than anything else in the world. Even more than his father. The title, after all, couldn’t die—forever monstrous. Now he looked the part of a monster, too.
The gossip rags would have a field day.
The monstrous Duke of Crane was lately undone by a creature no larger than a loaf of bread.
“Oh, cheer up, Your Grace.” Bishop clapped him on the shoulder. “You do not lookthatbad. Just a bit swollen and red here and there.”
Blake turned his back on the man.
It was moments like these that made him want to toss the man back in a ditch. Bishop had a knack for blackening a mood that was even the lightest bit grey, a knack that never failed to both amaze and vex him.
“Oh, come now, don’t be like this. We have so much to be thankful for! For one, you survived the night of torture, and also, the rain stopped. Plus, we have a bit of an upper hand against that blackguard, Baston.”
Blake furrowed his brows, his mind drifting back to the events of the previous night. Despite the absurdity of their situation, there had been a strange sense of camaraderie, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It had been almost... enjoyable, even with the cat hair. But Baston was a problem.
