Page 19 of Better Off Wed

Clearly, she was not in so much pain that she had forgotten his promise of an explanation when he was assured of not being overheard. Jeremy glanced toward the door, almost hopeful of another interruption.

No knock came. No sound at all, but the crackling of the fire.

Altogether too domestic and cozy.

Instead of speaking, he stepped around the little sofa to the tea table. Mrs. Tenney had kindly crammed every inch of it with food to tempt the weary travelers, but he had no appetite. Fortunately, the housekeeper had also included a decanter, not quite half full of some amber liquid.

He plucked the stopper from the bottle and lifted it to his nose. Brandy. French brandy. No surprise that the sort of man whose mistreatment of his domestics had led to Lady Sterling’s involvement was also the sort of man who did not scruple about contraband liquor. Jeremy poured a generous swallow into the glass that had been provided, feeling less guilty than he ought. The tea had grown tepid and would, in any case, have been inadequate to the purpose.

“Is that brandy?” Miss Hopkins asked, peering around him. “I should like some.”

He turned fully around to face her. Pain still pinched her features. “You ought to have a few drops of that laudanum instead.” Her knuckles whitened around the little bottle hidden in her hand. “Please pay no mind to what Thornton said in the carriage. I wouldn’t—I won’t—”

She fixed him with an assessing look, her gray eyes as sharply intelligent as if Homer had composed the poem with her in mind. “I believe you. But I’d still prefer the brandy.”

He twisted the cut-crystal tumbler between his fingers, studying the play of light through the liquid, before extending the drink to her. “There’s only one glass.”

He had not expected her to demur. Not really. Nor had he expected her to toss the brandy down her throat with nary a cough nor a wheeze, to sigh a self-satisfied sigh with eyes closed, and then, after a moment, to tip her head forward and bring him once more into focus.

“All right. I think I can bear it now,” she said, handing the glass to him. The brandy had made her voice husky. “Tell me how you know who I am.”

Chapter 6

Laura watched him return to the table, examine the lone teacup with its residue of sugar and tea leaves, and then refill the tumbler from the decanter. His back was still to her when he raised it to his lips and tipped back his head; that hasty swallow was followed immediately by sputtering noises and shaking shoulders as he tried to prevent himself from choking.

Thornton’s brandy was smooth and mellow, some of the best she’d ever had. Clearly, Lord Sterling did not imbibe often. A rarity among gentlemen, in her experience.

After he had regained his composure, he set the tumbler on the table and perched on the seat of an overstuffed chair with striped upholstery. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them, all the while avoiding her eye. She sensed that the intimacy of the moment—the shared glass, she clad in a dressing gown, he in his stockinged feet—made him uncomfortable.

Against her better judgment, she found it almost endearing. She did not often encounter men who were so easily, so innocently embarrassed.

“Lord Sterling?”

For a moment, her voice seemed not to have penetrated his thoughts; then he started and finally met her gaze. “Oh. Yes. I was only considering how best to…I don’t really use the title, you see. I’m unaccustomed to being addressed as…”

She wanted to ask what sort of nobleman didn’t use his title. But when she considered what Lord Thornton had forced him to reveal in the carriage, the fact that the title had been not only unexpected but perhaps even unwelcome, she let that question go unasked.

Her others were more pressing.

“Have we met before, my lord?”

The question, intended to coax him into admitting something, anything, instead seemed to alarm him. He leaped up and began to stride back and forth in front of the fire. “We have not been introduced, no,” he replied after a moment. “But I—I am acquainted with your brother, Fitzwilliam, Miss Hopkins.”

Blood thundered in her ears. “Ohhh.” If not for her injured ankle, she would join him in wearing out the hearthrug. Never had she so envied a man’s freedom of movement. So that was the explanation for the stranger’s interference. “I might have known that Fitz would find some way to keep his eye on me.”

Lord Sterling smiled weakly. “I too have a sister. I certainly understand your brother’s concern for you, especially given how you—that is, your—” Evidently finding no word that satisfied him, he abandoned the search. “But I do not think he—that is to say, it was not he who—”

Hardly hearing him, she narrowed her eyes, once more probing his face for some familiar feature. She was relieved to know he was not the sort of man to have any prior dealings with Lady Sterling. But new questions rose immediately to her mind. When had he seen her? Where? In whose company?

“That’s how you knew about my mother.”

He nodded. “May I say how sorry—?”

“But that doesn’t explain how you know Fitz,” she continued, brushing off his expression of condolence. At present, she couldn’t afford to be distracted by memories of another life entirely.

“I’m Captain Jeremy Addison.”

“Captain Addison,” she echoed, not attempting to hide her surprise. “As in, the army?” His build, his bearing…he was nothing like any of the brash young officers she’d had occasion to meet. Nevertheless, it was as plausible an explanation as any other her tired brain could conjure. “I suppose next you’ll tell me that you and Fitz are members of the same division, or regiment, or whatever it is?”