As they moved towards the door, Henrietta felt dazed. Trem had been shot. How had something so calamitous happened so quickly?
“Percy,” she said, trying to get some grasp on the situation. “We need to go to the nearest inn.”
“I haven’t the foggiest where that would be, my lady,” Percy said nervously.
Henrietta remembered with a lurch that Percy did not usually leave London. John always had Marcel take them on long journeys. Another part of her plan, she cringed, that had been less than perfectly executed.
“Craven Arms, three miles from here,” Trem interjected.
She looked up at him, surprised by his intimate knowledge of wayside inns.
“I’ve traveled from London to Edington Hall more times than I can count,” he said with a grimace. “Mrs. Bercine has a very nice establishment not far up the road.”
Henrietta stopped, the name causing suspicion to dart through her. Her fiancé was, after all, a notorious rake. “Mrs. Bercine?”
“My God,” Trem said, his eyes on the carriage door. “She could be my mother.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
“Fair,” he said, with a smirk. “But not Mrs. Bercine. I promise to tell you when we stay at the establishment of an innkeeper I’ve tupped.”
She scoffed.
“Now, please, if we can keep moving.” He winced. “My gunshot is rather smarting.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, still disliking the idea of him tupping an innkeeper, but that lesser emotion was, thankfully, swallowed by her worry over his wound.
He threw himself into the carriage, his good hand over the place where he had been shot. She watched him as he wedged himself into the seat.
She climbed in after him and took the seat across from him. For a moment, they merely looked at each other in silence. Henrietta felt, under his gaze, rather foolish. How would she ever explain her actions?
She resolved to begin their conversation on surer ground.
“How is your arm?”
“Damn my blasted arm,” Trem hissed. His face was a sickly gray, but she saw a fire in his expression. In his wounded state, he seemed almost feral in the cramped confines of the carriage. His gaze sent a single, powerful shiver skittering down her body. “Why in seven hells are you traveling alone to Dorset?”
“I have business in Dorset,” she retorted, tartly, recrossing her legs. Even to her mind, her flight seemed a bit overdramatic. She had never been particularly good at moderating her spirits and, now, post-gunshot, this incident looked awfully like another instance of her…impulsivity. She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she act the way she was supposed to?
“Business?” Trem responded, his voice a near growl. “You didn’t see fit to leave a letter about this business?”
“I-I-I,” she stuttered and he raised his eyebrows. “I see now that I should have.”
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Are you meeting someone?”
“No,” she said, aghast that he would think so little of her. She might be impulsive, but she wasn’t faithless. “I’m only going to Edington Hall. I’m not meeting anyone.”
“Why would you go to Edington Hall without telling anyone? I don’t understand, Henrietta.”
“It’s hard to explain. I’ve told you that there are things that you don’t know about me. But you haven’t cared to hear them.”
“It’s not that I don’t care,” he snapped, “I just didn’t want you to think that anything would stop me from marrying you.”
When he put it that way, Henrietta thought, it was rather sweet. The ardor of his words caused her pelvic muscles to clench. Dear God, the man had been shot and here she was lusting after him. She really was a deviant.
“I told you,” he continued, “I don’t care who you have been with or what you have done or about any other nonsense. I want to marry you.”
She nodded at the words. Her eyes were trained on his hazel ones, which had gone soft. Whenever he spoke in this way to her, low and ardent and burning, she couldn’t help but believe every word that fell from his lips.
