‘Just that we won’t know where he’s gone. Although, presumably you confined your search to the town. If he changed at one of the staging-posts further out—’
‘I thought that too!’ Cassian said, with the oddly pleased look he often had at such moments, like a schoolboy who had the answer to a question. ‘But I visited all of those within walking distance. I thought we might try the rest tomorrow.’
Daizell felt a pulse of guilt. ‘We could have done it today if I hadn’t been playing the fool with a vicar.’
‘Miss Beaumont needed your help, and a person is more important than an object.’ He said that as though he thought Daizell might argue. ‘The ring matters a great deal to me, but if we’d gone looking for it, even found it, and then heard Sir James had tracked her down when we could have prevented it . . . No. No, you did the right thing.’
‘It might not slow Sir James down at all. We don’t even know he’ll come this way.’
‘This was the best we could do; we can’t do more. We oughtn’t do less, but we can’t do more.’
He saidwe, and he thought Daizell was doing his best, and Daizell felt his ever-hungry heart thump. ‘I still want to find your ring, though. We’ll ask at the further-flung inns tomorrow, and failing that, we’ll make a plan.’
‘We’ll do that,’ Cassian said, tapped his glass to Daizell’s, and smiled.
They were sharing a bed again. It was torture.
At least they’d both been exhausted the previous night. This evening Daizell was wide awake as he surreptitiously watched Cassian moving around the room, wide awake as he noted the lines of that smooth, near-hairless back and chest. (The man shaved once in two days, he’d noticed, and that seemed optimistic.) Wide awake when Cassian got in the bed next to him, his lighter weight meaning it would be so easy for him to roll towards Daizell, which he did not.
He didn’t, but Daizell was so very nearly sure he wanted to.
The way he looked, the way he blushed, the glances he stole. None of which constituted an invitation to touch, orat least not a conscious one, and the problem with deciding that people were unconsciously inviting was that you could be wrong and in fact you weren’t invited at all. And then there would be outrage, or dismay, or alarm, and none of those were emotions Daizell would care to evoke.
Cassian was breathing softly, shallow and even. It sounded as though he’d gone straight to sleep: Daizell had no idea how, unless of course Cassian wasn’t at all troubled by the nearness of bare legs, the possibility of reaching out, hands meeting, exploring skin. He wondered if he could toss himself off without disturbing his companion’s rest.
‘Are you awake?’ he murmured, very quietly.
There was a short silence. ‘Yes.’ It sounded a touch reluctant. ‘Why?’
Marvellous. Now he’d started a conversation. ‘So am I.’
Cassian made a noise of mild exasperation. ‘Have you considered sleeping?’
‘Good idea.’
Cassian shifted, turning towards him. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Wrong? No. Why?’
‘I don’t know. You seem . . .’ He paused there. ‘I hope I didn’t offend you earlier.’
‘What? How?’
‘Asking questions. I’ve no right to interrogate you and I dare say you might not wish to rehearse events which doubtless were very distressing.’
Daizell deciphered that. ‘The elopement? It wasn’t distressing. Somewhat wounding to my pride, and very tiresome, that’s all.’
‘You looked, when you spoke of it . . .’ Cassian paused again. ‘Not yourself.’
Cassian thought he was lying awake because he was upset?That was charming in its way, even if wrong. But perhaps not entirely wrong in every aspect because Daizell found himself saying, ‘Well, it’s not much to be proud of.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Any of it. Eloping with a woman I didn’t know.Failingto elope. Being fooled by a schoolgirl, in fact. Sir James. All the rest of it.’ He paused. ‘My father.’
He was sure Cassian knew, and the silence confirmed that. After a moment, his bedmate spoke cautiously. ‘I did hear about your father.’
‘You could hardly not.’
