Henry had risen with her, and his dark eyes were on her face. She blinked hard and looked down, addressing her puddle. “I should not have importuned you so. I’m sorry, Henry.”
She tried to escape with some dignity, but his voice trailed her, and she turned back toward him. “Margo—what do you mean to do?”
Shoulders back, chin up. Don’t let on if you feel an utter fool.
“I’m not certain. But I will think of something.” She tried to meet his gaze and smile. “Don’t worry, Henry. Surely after all this time, you know I’m never at a loss for ideas.”
“Yes,” he said, “I bloody know.”
And then he let her go.
Chapter 3
“Damn it.” Henry paced in front of his fireplace. Cursing aloud had not made him feel better, but he decided to try again, for the purposes of experimentation. “Fucking. Bugger. Shite.”
It didn’t work.
Margo’s cloak lay in a wet heap on the floor, accusing him with its presence.
“No,” he said to the cloak, “don’t try to make me feel guilty. I didn’t make her run out into the rain without even your pitiful protection.”
Jesus. He was talking to a cloak. Margo had finally, fatally driven him to distraction.
He could not go with her to Scotland. It was aterribleplan. There was no chance they would encounter Matilda and Ashford along the way. The Great North Road was designed for travelers; there were hundreds of coaching inns and public houses in which Matilda and Ashford could take refuge. Did the pair mean to make directly for Scotland, or stop somewhere along the way? Were they riding by day and night, or traveling at their leisure?
Who knew? Margo certainly didn’t!
And beyond the plan’s utter lack of sense, there was Henry’s seven-years-long Margo problem to contend with.
It wasn’t that he did not trust himself in close confines with her. He’d been alone with her plenty. He wasn’t going to turn into a slavering beast and tear her dress from her body—do not think about Margo with her clothes off—but he would probably expire from frustrated lust. Moreover, Spencer Halifax had been his best friend since their school days. He didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize their friendship, and while Spencer was as aware as anyone of the twins’ checkered reputations, Henry was fairly certain Spencer would not want him to be party to further compromising either of them.
He alsodidhave a job, as he’d mentioned to Margo.
It had been an excuse, though. He had very little of importance on his docket for at least a week, and what was there could easily be fobbed off onto junior solicitors in return for the promise of future favors.
He’d been scrambling to think of something to say, because what he’d been thinking had mostly involved a bouncing carriage and Margo’s tits in his face and a very strong instinct for self-preservation that was screamingabsolutely not, you astounding moron.
He preferred to retain some dignity in the face of his hopeless affection, and he was fairly certain dignity would go quickly on a multi-day carriage ride with nothing between him and a declaration of his undying love but his tenuous self-control.
But Margo. Hell and damnation.
He knew her, knew her blind loyalty as well as he knew the freckles that bracketed the curve of her mouth and her terrible left-handed penmanship. She wouldneverlet Matilda plunge headfirst into ruin alone. If she thought Matilda was in danger—physical or emotional—she would move heaven and earth to be at Matilda’s side.
Margo was certainly not a chastening impulse on her twin—if anything, they encouraged each other like tinder and flame—but she was devoted to Matilda. Matilda had a little cool ironic reserve about her, but Margo had none of the same. She was all feeling, her emotions close to the surface, her heart a generous overflowing cup of affection and warmth.
It was one of the things he loved most about her.
Fucking hell.
She wasn’t going to go home and wait patiently at Number Twelve Mayfair until Matilda came back, defeated or victorious. She was going to chase Matilda down, on foot if necessary. She had plunged back out into the frigid October rain without even a cloak. She’d said she wanted to leave for Scotland that very night. She—
Henry found himself in his bedchamber, stuffing shirts into a traveling bag.
Devil take the woman. She made him insane. He liked thingsfolded.He preferred to travel with an iron and a well-organized trunk containing reading material and a small sewing kit.
Henry dashed off a note to his legal associates with vaguely plausible excuses for his absence and instructions for the subsequent week of work, then slid it under his landlady’s door to be posted in the morning. He banked the fire and left a handful of coin for the charwoman who came in the mornings and the coal-cutter who would likely be baffled to discover that Henry had vanished without a word.
He did not generally do things without prior preparation.
