Chapter 32
Two days had passed since Iris’s interview with the earl. Now she found herself traveling with his valet in a public coach. As if they had known each other for years.
She dreamt of a warm bath, a clean bed, and privacy. During her years of service as a lady’s maid, she had grown spoiled. She’d eaten good meals, worn Emily’s cast-offs, and had no cause to travel farther than to Lord Fletcher’s estate. Most assuredly she was not forced to share a carriage with ill-mannered passengers who broke wind, gossiped about their family to strangers, and trod on her toes.
Winthrop did not appear pleased with their class of company, either. But he managed to be polite when a dowager asked him to hold her hat with ostrich plumes that poked his nose. And he kept his patience with the little girl who kept pulling a thread in his jacket until the cuff came unhemmed.
“I can stitch that up easily,” Iris said softly, not wanting to make a fuss.
“So can I, my pet.”
My pet? She thought he was being snide, a young man talking about sewing and using an endearment in the same breath. But once inside their room at the inn, he took out a needle and thread, repaired his cuff, and asked immediately what she would like for supper.
“I think, sir, that before we settle on our food we should come to agreement about our sleeping arrangements.”
“I told you not to worry. Your virtue will not be compromised by my doing.”
Iris closed her traveling bag. “What does that mean? That you think I might lose my wits and compromise myself?”
He gave one of his sly smiles. “I’d never suggest such a thing. Not that it hasn’t happened before, you understand. But you can trust me to stand strong.”
“How self-sacrificing of you. Can I also trust you to sleep outside the door?”
“Oh no. That would look peculiar. I shall sleep behind the dressing screen. There shall be no temptation for either of us that way.”
Iris nodded, undecided whether he had dealt her an insult or a compliment. Was he hinting that he found her a bit attractive? Attractive enough to mention temptation. As for her, she found him an impossible man to fathom. All this intrigue and then stitching up his cuff as if he’d graduated from a lady’s academy.
“How did you learn to sew like that?” she asked, still standing in the middle of the room.
“What do you mean?” He pulled off his spectacles. She stared into his eyes in surprise. He became a different man without those glasses. He seemed younger, unguarded. Not unpleasant to behold at all.
“I was only curious how you learned to sew that well. Like a tailor. Was that your previous occupation?”
Perhaps he or his father had worked on Bond Street, fashioning jackets for gentlemen. Such experience would be an asset to a valet. That would explain why Winthrop and the earl always appeared elegantly dressed. It was in the detail. Coat buttons aligned like rows of little soldiers. A pristine neckcloth handled as delicately as a christening gown. Oh, what a skill, all right. To be able to alter one’s identity with a needle and thread as deftly as Lady Fletcher did with her cosmetics.
“No,” he said, laughing as if she’d embarrassed him with her observation. “I was never a tailor, miss.”
“I should be proud to admit if I were—”
“An army surgeon,” he said.
Iris lowered her bag to the floor. “Oh.”
“Let me get that,” he said, hurrying toward her. “Why don’t you sit by the window? Keep an eye on who’s about.”
A surgeon? What a dreadful spy she made. Those strong hands had sawed off bones on battlefields. Fancy her picturing him in a shop. “I can’t do this,” she said, moving to the chair. “I’ll be hopeless.”
“Why is that?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I was convinced that you had worked on Bond Street. It appears I have a better imagination than I do instincts.”
He hefted her trunk to the table. “What on earth have you packed in there?”
“Everything. A lady’s maid has to be prepared.”
He sat down at the other end of the small table, withdrawing his handkerchief to sweep off a thin layer of dust. “‘Everything,’ meaning?”
She swallowed and stared at his glasses. “Most of my personal belongings. Books, mainly. The accessories I have used for masquerades.”
“Genuine costume balls or your mistress’s escapades?”
She bristled. “I beg your pardon.”
He leaned across the table and studied her so intently she felt as if he were dismantling her piece by piece. “I should be begging your forgiveness, miss . . . Iris. We must practice using each other’s first names. And you are right to be offended. What the countess did for previous entertainment is only his lordship’s business.”
She gave him a glance that said she agreed. He was smiling at her now, but in a confidential manner. Iris gathered her wits. Surgeon and spy he might be to her virgin maid, but she had not survived a childhood of cruel abuse from relatives without developing her own strategies to survive. She would make that much clear. The last time she had been physically assaulted was the day she’d come to realize she had to depend on herself.
“Surely, sir, we don’t need to play man and wife when we are alone together?” She dropped her voice, jerking her head meaningfully toward the door. “Or do you think someone’s listening?”
“They aren’t going to learn much if they are,” he said in a stage whisper. “We are an ordinary husband and wife traveling to fill our new positions. You’re fortunate there was no sketch made of you to be nailed on tavern doors.”
“Lady Shalcross is fortunate that she was in disguise,” Iris said worriedly. “It’s her safety that concerns me.”
“His lordship will watch out for her, Iris. The viscount is the intended victim. Keep your head.”
“I don’t intend to lose my head.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Are we really going to sleep in the same room together?”
He unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Three nights until we reach the castle.”
Iris looked at him in chagrin as he removed his coat. “And what of our arrangements once we are there?”
“The arrangements have already been made. We have a room in the servants’ quarters that gives us immediate access to the private stairs to the upper floors.”
“One room?”
He hung his coat over his chair and reached for her hand. “It will only be an act, Iris. We are to do a job.”
Knowing that didn’t help the tingling nerves that jumped from her wrist up her arm as his hand touched hers. She recalled his nimble fingers plying a needle. His steady eyes unsteadying her, perceiving things about her that she knew could not be proper. The valet to an earl and spy. He can have his pick of any maid he wanted, and some ladies, too, she thought.
“Are you proficient in the use of any weapon?” he asked her out of the blue.
She blushed. Here she sat imagining he had seduced her with his stare when his mind had moved on to practical, if disturbing, matters.
“The pistol?” he asked, nodding in approval before she had even answered him.
“No. Daggers.”
He slid his hand from hers. She felt another forbidding tingle; this time it was because she had startled him, and neither he nor his master seemed the type of man easy to unsettle.
“You’re talking about a knife as in chopping carrots or onions,” he said. “For a minute there you gave me a fright. Imagine a dagger in your delicate hands.”
“A lady’s maid does not chop vegetables,” she replied, smiling at his confusion. “I meant what I said. I am proficient in the art of throwing knives and using a dagger, although I’ve never had cause to injure anyone. Neither has my mistress, but she’s a better throw than me.”
He nodded in obvious condescension. “Village sport, I assume. It’s unusual that ladies are allowed to participate.”
“Oh, I’m not talking about throwing a dart,” she said, letting a patronizing note sneak into her voice. “I have a few skills of my own, sir. Mr. Rowland taught us to throw using an apple on his head as a target.”