But she shook her head anyway, the slight motion bouncing pain back and forth between her temples. “No. I think it best I go in alone.”
“Do you think that wise?”
She nodded.
“I respect your determination to face the situation yourself, but I fear now more than ever you shall need support.” When she did not answer, he moved away from the clock to stand next to her, hovering close enough she smelled the sweat on his brow, the coppery scent of his blood, and the cinnamon she was becoming so used to.
More nausea churned her stomach.
She almost shrank away or covered her face again—insane impulses, because he was the only man in the world she could trust. Her one ally in a sea of strangers.
Like the stranger who had attacked her today.
Chills raced along her skin, dampening the back of her neck, as images of him flitted across her mind in numbing succession. The loose, ivory-colored shirt rolled up to the elbows, worn under a dull brown waistcoat. The light red beard. The freckles. He appeared rugged, strong, lithe, but there was something about his face—the fine shapes of his eyes and jaw and lips—that was almost striking.
Had she truly seen moisture in his gaze?
No.
Everything happened too fast, like a blur, and anyone who loved her enough for tears would have sparked some form of memory in her own heart. She would have known him, like the lady in the pink pinafore or the man with the tender whispers.
The stranger had stirred nothing in her.
Except panic.
At the end of the corridor, the same butler who had shown them in appeared again. He plastered on an overly bright smile. “Mr. Willmott shall see you now.”
It’s time.
Her feet wouldn’t move.
Even when Lord Cunningham took her elbow in his palm, breathing into her ear “I am right beside you,” her body would not respond.
“Ahem.” The butler cleared his throat.
Her knees wobbled.
The corridor narrowed tighter, tighter, tighter.
“Do tell Mr. Willmott there has been a change of plans. I shall write to discuss a more convenient meeting and will, of course, pay for his time.” Lord Cunningham directed her for the door. “This way, my dear.”
“My lord, I …” Explanation died in her throat. She didn’t understand it herself. Except that walking down that corridor, unlocking the key to everything, understanding the stranger with the red beard and tear-moistened eyes …
“Do not fret. Today has been most trying for you. What you need now is rest and quiet and”—he swung her back into the painted blue carriage, his touch on her waist lasting several seconds longer than needed—“and home. You need home.”
Meade would kill him, but Tom didn’t have time for that now.
Crouching back behind the row of bushes, he wiped more sweat from his forehead. Not that it was hot. He’d been positioned between the round-pruned boxwoods and the shading mulberry tree for the past three hours.
Ever since that blasted blue carriage led him through the gates.
The gentleman had grabbed Meg’s waist, pulled her down, and escorted her inside a yellow-stoned abbey. She had gone willingly. Eagerly, almost.
Tom wiped both sweaty palms against his trousers. His legs jittered. His mind kept trying to stampede—running to cliff ledges, out of control, tumbling into air with nothing to hold on to.
Except that she was alive.
Gritting his jaw, he honed in on that and nothing else. No matter that she didn’t know him. She was injured. Shocked. She would remember, just as soon as he spoke with her alone.
