Page 17 of Lyon on the Loose

In a heartbeat, he had wrapped his arms around her and pressed her close against his chest, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder. “You poor, darling girl. What a terrible time you’ve had of it!”

“I believe I’ve been rewarded for my folly.”

“Nonsense. It isn’t all your fault—Treadwell was at fault too, and it sounds as if your mama stirred things up most dreadfully for you.”

He was beginning to think he would enjoy parting Lady Beatrice Ashby from her sapphire necklace. She deserved some kind of punishment for what she had done to her daughter.

“She was never the same after Papa died.”

Roland released Lissy and took her hand. This sounded like the beginning of a revelation, a window to her past that would help him understand why she had become who she was. If he were lucky, this could be the beginning of trust forming between them.

“I was sorry to hear of it. It was a long time ago, however, was it not? I was still learning my ABCs, if I remember rightly, when I heard about Lord Ashby’s tragedy. Even the best-trained horses can be dangerously spooked.”

“It was a long time before anyone was allowed to go riding after that.”

“Time for a change of subject, I think. We are probably being watched by all the Metson offspring now, as the most interesting thing to have happened to them in an age. I don’t want them to think I’m upsetting you or they’ll put mustard in my porridge.”

Lissy smiled at him, though he could tell it was forced. “Quite right. I shall attempt to look cheerful, despite having had a brutal childhood. I only wish Mama had married again—she had no lack of suitors. Unfortunately, she decided to devote herself to raising her children as icons of perfection. If anyone failed to live up to her exacting standards, there was the threat of the birch, of being locked away in one of the medieval towers, or confined to one’s room and fed only on bread and water. Little wonder Fenella married as soon as she was old enough.”

Was that what had given Lissy the idea of eloping with Treadwell? There ought to be other options besides marriage for women to escape their mothers if they needed to!

“My eldest brother, Latymer, was driven to pursue a career in the church, and Hugo took it upon himself to migrate to Somerset, where he now works as a water diviner in the coal mines.”

“An unusual choice of profession for a son of the nobility. I can see now why you are so disdainful of apparent lazybones such as myself. Your brothers sound excessively useful.”

“Reluctantly, I have to say you may be more useful than you appear, Roland. Anyway, with all three of my siblings no longer under her roof, Mama, of course, concentrated her energies on me. I was to learn all the wifely skills as well as the accomplishments required of a gentleman’s spouse. Unfortunately for her, one of those accomplishments is the ability to sketch and paint, and I ended up eloping with my art tutor.”

“Well, my dear Mrs. Cowley, I shall do my utmost to bring pleasure and laughter back into your life after such a grim-sounding youth. And now, for the benefit of those watching, and because I don’t want either of those Metson girls setting their cap at me—come here.”

He pulled her hard against his chest and kissed her thoroughly, her lips hot and moist beneath his, a stark contrast to the chill morning air.

Then he held her away from him and gazed into her eyes. He hadn’t meant to go that far.

Or had he?

Chapter Nine

Lissy never knew how she managed to get through that day’s journey in such close proximity to Roland. She could still taste his kiss on her lips, still feel the press of his hands on her body, sending her heart into a spin every time she thought of it. Oscar had never kissed her like that, and she had never kissed him that way either.

She must surely be a total wanton, for she had kissed Roland back. What had she imagined she was doing? Not only was she a disgraceful daughter who had ruined her name by eloping with her art tutor, but she was now guilty of throwing herself at the next handsome gentleman to cross her path. It would be better to swear off the entire male gender for the rest of her life, or she’d end up in a scrape from which no one could extricate her.

The worst of it was that Roland had not flirted, sought her sympathy, or made false promises—he’d simply been there, protective and thoughtful. And courageous. Fortunately, the weather remained crisp and sharp, giving her an excuse to huddle down in her cloak and hide her flushed cheeks behind her newly mended bonnet.

For a couple of stretches of the journey, she had been Mrs. Cowley—or “my wife,” in Roland’s unrepentantly teasing tones. Most of the time, however, they pretended to be strangers, which wasn’t difficult, since they traveled in several different vehicles alongside a range of other passengers. The back roads were busy on that bright autumn day, and they passed many people foraging for berries in the hedgerows lining the lanes, or barrowing carts of manure for their gardens, even herding a few geese to the local pond. The air carried the scent of fallen leaves and woodsmoke that always seemed to herald the turning of the season. Roland was right—the landscape was colorful and poignant, and she yearned to paint it.

The most uncomfortable part of the journey was spent in a carter’s wagon, whose only passengers besides themselves were a pair of cackling hens. That brief stretch between Coggeshall and Earl’s Colne proved to be their only real moment of privacy since leaving the Metsons’ farm. Crammed together on sacks of barley, their knees brushing whenever the cart lurched, Roland amused her with tales of his youthful escapades. Once, he claimed, he’d climbed out of an attic window to avoid his angry father and discovered that lead pipes tended to bend under one’s weight and had virtually ended up on a gardener’s head. On another occasion he’d rescued a cat from the roof of a nearby church and been clawed to bits even as the villagers applauded. On reaching adulthood, there’d been a memorably awkward moment at a masquerade when he’d mistaken a duke’s daughter for a maidservant.

She had been carrying plates of food across to her party, and Roland had teasingly stolen a pastry—as well as a kiss. On that occasion, he’d been escorted from the house rather than forced to climb onto any roofs, so only his pride had been grazed, not his person.

Roland tried to coax stories from Lissy about her family, and she found she had no objection to telling him.

He appeared genuinely interested. “So, one brother is a curate, and the other divines for water and can trace the routes of coal mines deep below the ground? The family of Lady Beatrice Ashby is an intriguing set of people. I shall christen your brothers ‘the Bishop’ and ‘the Mole,’ but I shan’t joke about your elder sister Fenella. She sounds like a sensible sort.”

Lissy looked at him then, seeing not the rake she had first imagined, but a gentleman possessed of humor and understanding. Occasionally, she thought she glimpsed a flash of something else in his eyes—something harder, more urgent—but he always looked away before she could attempt to read his thoughts.

He was mocking her family, but at least he wasn’t laughing at her, in her bedraggled clothes and with a bandage wrapped around her head. Yet despite their newfound friendship, despite the trust they’d begun to build, he remained unwilling to divulge his reason for traveling into Suffolk. After all they had endured together, surely, he had no cause to distrust her.

The carter deposited them close to the border with Cambridgeshire, and the final leg of their journey was spent in the relative comfort of a coach. Lissy started recognizing the villages as they passed through—Earl Stonham, Pettaugh, and Earl Soham. Soon, they would reach Mundlingham, and she and Roland would part ways.